Picture This: God

Several months ago, before I started teaching Sunday School, my Sunday School teacher taught a lesson that has stuck with me ever since then. She had those of us in class do an activity in which we painted a picture, in words, of who God was in our lives at that time. Everyone in the class had different perspectives and it was really cool to hear how each person pictured God. One person described God as their father, the protector, the dad who sits by the door watching out for trouble. One girl said she felt like she was the rebellious teenager and God was her father. She thought she could sneak around, but really God, her father, knew exactly what she was doing.

At the time, my view of God was very different from the rest of the people in the class. I was going through several different situations in my life and my picture of God was this: He was my psychologist. I pictured myself lying on a couch, telling God all my problems, and listening as He told me what to do about them.

But that changed.

This is a lesson I have learned in just the past few days. As our lives change, so does our perception of God. My youth pastor Bro. Josh preached a message once about the way we see God when we pray. Do we picture him on the cross? In heaven on the throne? Sitting next to us?
Around the time he preached this God had changed from my psych to my comforter. I was through the time in my life where I needed to make decisions and I was into living in the decisions I had made. At this time I just pictured God sitting on the throne and myself crawling up in his lap to be comforted.

But that changed too.

Can I just be brutally honest right now? Lately I feel like I have not been listening to God very well at all. I listen to my friends, I listen to my family, I listen to music, I get on facebook too much, I talk too much, and at night when I go to bed I fall straight asleep. Now where is God in all of this? Nowhere. And last night I really felt it, because for the first time in a long time I couldn't picture what God should look like in my life right now. I'm not facing any major decisions, I am happy with my life right now, so where does God fit? What does he look like?

Initially, after having this thought, I thought to myself, "you know, the only thing I'm missing in my life right now is my 'significant other' so yeah, God right now is the love of my life, yeah that's it." Which is a great thing for God to be, but just as I was writing this blog, it hit me that through every single situation in my life God remains constantly one thing: My Savior.

So this is my challenge to you, the reader, and to myself also. When you don't know where you fit in this life, when you don't know how God fits into your life, know that he is your savior. Picture this: Jesus, the God of the universe, hanging on the cross, dying to save your soul. Because at the end of the day, he saves us. HE SAVES US. Over and over and over and over and over and over, HE SAVES US!!!!

II Samuel 22:1-4 says God is our Rock, Fortress, Deliverer, Shield, Salvation, High Tower, Refuge, but most of all, HE SAVES US!!!!