Category Archives: Healing Image of God

Father Heart of God

01 Sunday Oct 2017

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Back in 2003 I was thinking about God as Father. I was particularly struck by what Jesus said of his own relationship with Father God all through the gospel of John. It seems like it would be good to come back to what I wrote all those years ago. May Father God bless and encourage you as you read and think about God as your own heavenly Father.
We need to experience God’s father heart towards us. What we know of a father’s heart is pretty pitiful. For some it’s as a tyrant who demands unquestioning obedience and who uses physical force or verbal abuse to achieve that obedience. For some it’s as a slave driver who requires “work” to pay one’s way. For some it’s like a school teacher requiring perfect scores. For others though there may be a physical presence, the father is emotionally absent. For many there is no father because of death, divorce, or other circumstance causing separation of the family.
Our experience of our own fathers’ hearts becomes our view of God’s father heart so that our sense his heart may be one or more of the following:

He’s a tyrant waiting for me to put one foot out of place
He’s violent and vengeful
He’s distant and disinterested
He’s unapproachable
He doesn’t listen
He only pays attention if I get all my ducks in a row
He doesn’t care about me or what I feel
He won’t help me, I have to figure it out myself
He doesn’t like me (because I’m ugly, stupid, slow, lazy, fat, careless, a girl, a boy, not like him, whatever)

Here are some scriptures to help you meditate on Father God. God is emotionally present, kind, loving, gentle, and understanding of our limitations. Our minds may know this but our hearts don’t.

  • Psalm 103:13, 14 says, “The Lord is like a father to his children, tender and compassionate to those who fear him. For he understands how weak we are; he knows we are only dust.”
  • Isaiah 9:6 “Mighty God, everlasting father …”
  • Matthew 6:9 “Our Father in heaven may your name be honored …”
  • *John 10:30 “The Father and I are one …” Look at Jesus to get a view of the father heart of God.
  • Romans 8:15 “Father dear Father …”
  • Hebrews 1:5 “Today I have become your Father …”
  • Ephesians 4:6 “Only one God and Father …”

Life’s Ups and Downs

18 Monday Sep 2017

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Julian of Norwich’s book “Revelations of Divine Love” has had a big impact on my life as I’ve read of her experiences with God during my devotional times. I was particularly struck by what she said as a result of the seventh revelation she received from God.

Julian talks about her experience of being spiritually/emotionally up and down; one minute feeling God’s comfort and rest and great sustaining spiritual joy, the next feeling as though “turned away, left all alone, deeply distressed and tired of my life … there was no comfort or calm for me … only faith hope and love, and I did not feel these, I only believed they were true.” She experienced this back and forth around twenty times. She came to understand that “God wants us to know that he keeps us safe in bad and good times alike.”

So often when we feel blue, discouraged, depressed, alone and cut off from God we assume we have sinned. However, sin is not always the cause as Julian realised. She says she’d not had time between the good and bad times to actually sin. On the other hand, she realised she didn’t deserve the feelings of joy either. God had freely given what he willed, sometimes joy and sometimes sorrow.

I know for myself that when I feel great joy and encouragement in my life and in God that there’s sometimes a teeny sense that I must deserve it in some way, that somehow I’ve been “good” and it’s a reward. By the same token, when my life feels joyless and I’m discouraged, or God feels a long way away and there isn’t much comfort or encouragement around I so often and quickly assume God has abandoned me and that I must have been “bad”, that I must have sinned or have some sinful attitude. What I’m coming to understand more and more from all this is that my feelings aren’t the measure of my relationship with God, and that joy or sorrow are opportunities to keep on trusting him.

(Mother Julian of Norwich. Revelations of Divine Love. (ed by Halcyon Backhouse with Rhona Pipe.) London: Hodder & Stoughton. 1987. pp34-5)

Life improvement

22 Friday Jun 2012

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“‘Come now, and let us reason together,’ says the Lord, ‘though your sins are like scarlet, they shall be as white as snow; though they are red like crimson, they shall be as wool.'” Isaiah 1:18 NKJV

When we do the wrong thing and ask forgiveness, we’re not losers, we’re learners. Alexander Pope said: “A man should never be ashamed to own he has been in the wrong, which is but saying, in other words, that he is wiser today than he was yesterday.”

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For more inspirational reading, go to www.thewordfortoday.com.au

Longing for God

04 Sunday Sep 2011

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Some years ago I wrote a reflection on ‘longing for God’. As I read it again now I find that it’s still just as relevant for me now as then. As you read this be encouraged… God is no stranger to our unsettlednesses, our longings, our questions. In fact, rather than churning around and looking for comfort or escape in alcohol, drugs, sex, money, or whatever, God longs for us to turn to him. He alone is able to settle our unsettledness. Do allow him to do so.

Psalm 42: 1-3: “As the deer pants for streams of water, so I long for you, O God. I thirst for God, the living God. When can I come and stand before him? Day and night, I have only tears for food, while my enemies continually taunt me, saying, “Where is this God of yours?” ”

There are times when I am fully aware of my longing for God. It is so strong that my heart aches inside. At other times I have no awareness and am busy thinking and doing other things yet have felt so restless and unsettled. No matter what I put my hand to or think about in my mind it does not settle the unsettledness. What I believe is happening is that my deep longing for God is causing the unsettledness; I am dissatisfied with everything else. My deep being is crying out with longing for God. My outside being (my conscious self) is distracted with many things; some of these distractions may be my efforts to escape from my longing for God.

Then, too, there are my enemies who seems to whisper forever, “Where is this God of yours?” The demons are ever ready to throw this question at me when God seems not to be near, or seems not be hearing or paying attention.

My longing for God gets attacked by myself (the sinful self who is so full of self and does not want a competitor) or by the demons who do not want me to draw close to God in any way.

God knows this. He knows how to deliver me from the taunting demons. And, He knows how to work in my heart so my dissatisfaction deepens until I do turn to Him and am willing for Him to bring about the needed heart changes.

He has made clear in Scripture that He loves us and desires to fellowship with us. He has planted within us this deep longing for fellowship with Him, as well.

Copyright © 2003 Fran Woods

originally published at Bhojli Reflections

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Angry at God?

31 Wednesday May 2006

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The following is adapted from John & Paula Sandford’s book, “Healing the Wounded Spirit”. I have found it quite useful in helping people ascertain how they feel about God. We can be angry at him without realising it. I hope this is helpful.

Checking and Dealing with Anger at God
Questions:
Let’s imagine that we existed in the heavens. All questions are to be answered silently if the person so wishes. We will discuss them later.
1. Suppose we are sitting in a group in a heavenly place enjoying the angels and the saints, the Lord enters and says, ‘I would like three or four volunteers to go to earth.’ Would you have been one of the volunteers?
2. If Jesus had presented himself before you, had said your name, and asked, ‘Will you go to earth for me?’ would you have responded, ‘Oh, boy, yes Sir, right away, Hallelujah!’ or ‘O.K. (drat!)’
3. If you had to come to earth but were given your choice, would you choose the time and place in which you were born, or some other century or country?
4. Would you choose to be born to your parents, or some other?
5. Would you choose your father? Or some other father?
6. Your mother?
7. Would you choose to be a boy or a girl?
8. Would you choose your face?
9. Your body?
10. Your mind?
11. Your character and personality?
12. If you are a woman, are you beautiful? Pretty? Attractive? Desirable? Loveable? Would someone choose you? Should they? If you are a man, are you handsome? Good looking? Attractive? Desirable? Loveable? would someone choose you? Should they?
13. Do you like you?
14. If Jesus walked up to you in the present moment and said, ‘I’ll give you your choice. You can either go all the way through life or straight up to Heaven with me right now,’ which way would you choose?

As we ask these questions, we tune in our spirit to the other’s spirit to sense by empathy what he really feels. Sometimes people are incapable of being fully honest. We may sense more accurately than they can express what they actually should have answered.

Statement:
‘In whatever degree you would not have volunteered for life on earth or would have agreed only reluctantly to come, in whatever degree you would not have chosen your time and place or either or both of your parents, or you would not have chosen the sex you are, in whatever degree you would not have chosen your face, your body, your mind or character, in whatever degree you do not think you are beautiful or handsome, loveable or chooseable, in whatever degree you don’t love you, to that degree you are angry at God. You are saying inside that He could have done a better job creating you. In whatever degree you would choose to go straight to Heaven rather than live life here, you are telling God you don’t like it here.’

Prayer:
‘Lord, we repent for rebelling against being born here on earth where you put us. We repent for not liking and accepting what you created us to be. We repent for rejecting earth and ourselves and all of earth’s experiences. We couldn’t trust your lordship, that you knew what you were doing. We forgive you, Lord Jesus Christ, and Father God, for creating us and putting us here. We repent for rejecting ourselves. We accept our bodies. Reconcile us to ourselves. Reconcile us to our time and place, our position in this earth. Thank you, Jesus.’

Sandford, John & Paula. 1985. Healing the wounded spirit. Tulsa, OK: Victory House. pp 230-1, 236-7.

Purchase the book from Amazon.

Healing the Wounded Spirit

Our image of God

29 Sunday May 2005

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What is our image of God? What do we feel about him? Do we believe he is truly good? Are we able to connect with him in any personal way. Judith Hougen in Tranformed into Fire (p 122) says:

“… the foundational question each of us must ask [is]: Do I believe God is good? We all know the “right” response is to say, “Yes, of course, the Bible clearly tells me God is good.” But what about the God we relate to, not intellectually but actually? Do you ever fear hearing from God in prayer because you’re afraid of what he might say to you? Do you move through your life sensing that God is disappointed in you or unhappy with you? Or do you quietly steel yourself toward God because you sense at some point he’s going to lower the boom on you for all your wrongs? If you answer “yes” to any of these questions then you do not believe God is entirely good. You have a distorted view of God.

Judith MacNutt from Christian Healing Ministries talked of the need for our image of God to be healed (Emerging Leaders in Healing conference at Falls Church, Virginia, May 2. 2005). She spoke of how we’ve come to have a distorted image of God and what some of those distortions looked like. Some of these distortions are formed by our sitting in the pew and finding God to be rather distant and formal; by the interpretations of scripture which tend to put God in a box of our own or someone else’s understanding; by our experience with authority figures such as our parents, teachers, priests, pastors, etc; by the mystery of suffering or death where we somehow believe God has sent the sickness to punish us. Judith really hit hard at this when she asked, “Would a parent send a child leukemia or death simply because they were fractious or rebellious? How dare we think God would send sickness to one of his children!” I’m reminded of what Jesus said in Matthew 7:7-11 about the ridiculousness of parents giving their child a stone when he asks for bread. Of course they will give good things to their child. In the same way God, our heavenly Father, gives good things.

Some other distorted views of God Judith talked about included the “Accountant God”, the “Gotcha God”, the “Sitting Bull God” (morally neutral and apathetic), the “Philosopher God” (busy with creation and not interested in our problems), and the “Unpleasable God” (the “Pharoah God”).

As I’ve prayed with people invariably at some point in their healing journey the issue of their image of God comes up. Whatever their experiential view of their parents is that is also their view of God, the two are usually identical. So their healing journey involves a process of separation; to separate God from their view of their parents such that they can begin to see God for who he truly is and relate to him free from their relationship with their parents. Sometimes the separation is dramatic, sometimes one that slowly evolves as healing continues.

When the issue comes up I pray a prayer of separation according to however God leads me to pray. The prayer itself is fluid. Common elements include cutting between the two (parents and God) in the power of the Holy and inviting Jesus to come stand between. I also usually pray that Jesus will reveal to the person whatever he would like them know. Quite often the person receives insight and understanding they’ve never known before. Sometimes there’s a huge sigh of relief because Jesus reveals himself to them interiorly in such a way that they are able to finally relax. Jesus is SO different to anything the person has ever previously known about God.

God bless you today and bring healing to your image of God, however that needs to come about.