IMAGES OF GOD AND PRAYER

IMAGES OF GOD AND PRAYER

 

What's your favorite image of God?   Creator?   Source of All Being?   Father?  Mother?

 

Our images of God naturally influence our relationship with God in prayer.   For example, if you think of God as angry or vengeful, it may be difficult to be open and honest in prayer or to feel intimacy with God.   In my experience,  people sometimes relate to God in the ways they have related to other authority figures in their lives.   If your parents or teachers were demanding, you may be inclined to see God as demanding.   But this can severely limit our understanding of God because, needless to say,  God is not our mother or father.  God is always bigger than our experiences,  and our imaginations, too.

 

One all-too-common image is God as the unforgiving judge, ready to pounce on you for the slightest transgression.   Yet in the Parable of the Prodigal Son, Jesus presents us with a completely different image (Luke 15: 11-32) .  The father welcomes home his wayward son not with condemnation and vengeance but with love and mercy.   And for those who have a difficult time imagining God,  I always suggest the same thing:   Look at Jesus in the Gospels.   Look at Jesus and you will see God.

 

Over time, our images of God may change, which is all to the good.   As the Jesuit Carlos Valles wrote:  "If you always imagine God in the same way,  no matter how true and beautiful it may be, you will not be able to receive the gift of the new ways God has ready for you." 

 

(This reflection is by Fr. James Martin, SJ,  and appears in the July issue of  GIVE US THIS DAY,  p. 7, a  missalette published by Liturgical Press -- www.giveusthisday.org)