My Perception of God: From Childhood to Parenthood

As a child, I remember trying to visualize God.  I had seen pictures of Jesus in the New Testament I carried to Sunday School each week, but I wanted to have an image of God.  I came up with an original mental picture.  I visualized a cast iron skillet, a HUGE cast iron skillet, and within that skillet was the world's population.  In my imagination, I saw God watching all of us in the skillet.  Occasionally, he would put a lid on the skillet and walk away to do other things, but he would always come back, remove the lid and begin observing us.  Until recently, I hadn't thought about this image.  Now, I wonder if I had the world's population in the skillet because I needed to believe that God was able to keep up contained.  Or perhaps, I needed to believe that he was able to put a lid on us, so he could take care of his "heavenly" business.  I think that because at the age of eight or nine, I had so little control over my life and the decisions that were made concerning my life, I needed to know that God had everything under control.  That even if he had to walk away for a few minutes, he'd come right back, lift the lid and start tending to us.  I'd seen my mother start a meal in the cast iron skillet, watch the food for awhile and then walk away to take care of something else; she always came back to the skillet before anything burned.  She was seemingly able to take care of all things at all times.  It seems logical to me that this is where my early idea of God's role took root.  I understood him to be omnipresent, even though it would be years before I became familiar with that term.

As a teenager, I saw God as a puppeteer.  He created us and he controlled us.  He knew what we were going to do before we did it.  He manipulated us. How, you ask?  I don't know.  I was a teenager.  We think everyone is trying to manipulate us at that age, don't we?                                                                                    I wanted to be free from the puppeteer's strings.  I wanted to make my own decisions, and I didn't want God to know what I was going to do before I did.  The omniscience of God was not comforting to be, it was disconcerting.  I didn't want my parents, my teachers, or anyone else telling me what to do and I certainly did not want them to say, "I told you so,"  when I made a bad choice. 

As a freshman in college, I began to understand that God was omnipotent.  I also learned that just because God has the ability to do whatever he wills, doesn't mean he will do what I would have him do.  My first experience with the death of a teenager came in my freshman year.  A classmate's Jeep was struck by a drunk driver and as several of us prayed for his healing, we received a call telling us Todd had died at the hospital.  I was angry with God.  If he truly had the ability to do all things, why wouldn't he heal Todd, an innocent victim?  And, if he wouldn't heal Todd, why was I to believe I should bother praying about lesser things?  If I couldn't count on God to listen to my requests and grant them, why bother?  He was going to do, what he was going to do, right?

I don't think I got an accurate picture of God, until I became a parent. 

I learned that I can't always say "yes" to the requests my children make.  Some of those requests could result in harm, even though my children might not see the danger at the time.  I learned that while human behavior is predictable, my children are not always going to listen to my advice. 

I learned that I can't always say "no" to my children.  Sometimes, they have to learn for themselves that the people they have chosen as friends or boy/girl friends are indeed bad choices.  And, as a parent, I learned that while my children might believe that I could be everywhere and see everything (of course, that ends at about age eight), I knew that I could not.

When did I put it all together?  I'm not sure. I know that God has not thrown us into a frying pan to keep us contained and I know that God is not manipulating us like a master puppeteer. What I do know is this: God doesn't walk away from us.  He is present in all situations and while he knows what we are going to do before we do it, he has given us free will - the ability to make wrong choices! 

I am now content in the knowledge that my God is omnipotent, onmiscient and omnipresent.  He's got everything under control, even when we don't believe that could possibly be the case. 

"Do you not know?  Have you not heard?  The Lord is the everlasting God, the Creator of the ends of the earth.  He will not grow tired or weary, and his understanding no one can fathom." Isaiah 40:28