I was recently reading a devotional book that referred me to Isaiah 43:1-7: 

But now, this is what the Lord says—
    he who created you, Jacob,
    he who formed you, Israel:
“Do not fear, for I have redeemed you;
    I have summoned you by name; you are mine.
² When you pass through the waters,
    I will be with you;
and when you pass through the rivers,
    they will not sweep over you.
When you walk through the fire,
    you will not be burned;
    the flames will not set you ablaze.
³ For I am the Lord your God,
    the Holy One of Israel, your Savior;
I give Egypt for your ransom,
    Cush and Seba in your stead.
⁴ Since you are precious and honored in my sight,
    and because I love you,
I will give people in exchange for you,
    nations in exchange for your life.
⁵ Do not be afraid, for I am with you;
    I will bring your children from the east
    and gather you from the west.
⁶ I will say to the north, ‘Give them up!’
    and to the south, ‘Do not hold them back.’
Bring my sons from afar
    and my daughters from the ends of the earth—
⁷ everyone who is called by my name,
    whom I created for my glory,
    whom I formed and made.” (NIV)

The devotional asked two questions:

1. Who is God for you?
2. How does God see you?

That made me stop and think. In fact, I found myself pondering those questions deeply for a long time. I’m a pastor, a Bible teacher and a hospital chaplain. I run into a lot of people who tell me they believe in God. But, they don’t all mean the same thing. Among those I listen to and pray with, I find at lest eight different views of God:

1. The Celestial Santa Claus– a jolly, magical supernatural guy who is “out there” someplace and loves to give you stuff if you can just learn the right formulas. This is the god of the prosperity movement. He’s very popular in America.
2. The Kindly Old Grandpa, who, as C.S. Lewis said, simply wants everyone to have a good time, to enjoy life. This god likes everyone and just wants us to get along so he can have some peace and quiet.
3. The Distant Creator, the Watchmaker god, the god of Deism, who designed everything, created everything, is out there somewhere, but now has little or nothing to do with the world. Perhaps this god has moved on to other projects. This is the god of most of America’s founding fathers. This is the god of the Enlightenment.
4. The Tribal Nationalistic Warrior God, also very popular in America. This god is red, white, and blue. This god loves America, puts America first, and likes Americans best. This god is ready to use any weapons available to make America great. (Of course, other nations have the same god, just a different flag.)
5. The Nebulous Impersonal Force, which may be referred to as god, or higher power, or the universe. This is a life-force that pervades and bonds all living things. This force is neither good nor evil (perhaps both). It’s kind of like gravity.
6. The Projection of What I Would Do/Be if I Were God– also very common. We create god in our own image. If I were god, I’d crush my political enemies and my business competitors, so I call on my god to do the same.
7. The Stern Judge– the god of much of religion. You don’t mess with this god. He’s essentially mad at you and ready to throw you into a horrible eternal torture chamber, and would if his own son didn’t pop up and take a beating for you. This god is really ticked off and is going to slaughter lots of people when he comes again.
8. The Magic-Maker, Problem Solver God. Similar to the Celestial Santa Claus, but not just there to give you stuff. This god rides in the backseat of your life. This god will magically solve all your problems without you having to work at any of them. This god zaps alcoholics and instantly makes them sober, makes a stranger pay off your college debt, and eliminates any need for a therapist.

There are other gods around, but those are the ones I run into most often. Many times, a person’s god is a blend of some of the above gods. I frequently run into the Tribal Nationalistic Warrior, Magic-Making, Santa combo god, for instance. 

Regardless of my view of God, however, God exists independent of me. What I believe does not change reality. I can believe with all my heart that the world is flat, COVID-19 is fake, and Donald Trump is King Cyrus, but the reality is quite different.

The true and living God has been revealed to us. Perfectly revealed, in fact. God is perfectly revealed in Jesus. “If you’ve seen me,” Jesus said, “you’ve seen the Father.” God is exactly like Jesus. There is nothing unchristlike in God. If you read a passage in the Bible where it appears that God is not acting like Jesus, something else is going on there because God’s nature never changes. He always was, is now, and always will be exactly like Jesus.

Who is God to me? Jesus.

What’s Jesus like? Loving, forgiving, caring, compassionate, welcoming, serving, gentle friend of sinners. He is my nurturing, guiding, protecting, Abba and Mother. 

The devotional also asked me to consider, as I read slowly, meditatively, through scripture, how does God see me?

I know how I see me. I don’t like me much of the time. I know how others see me. That’s a mixed bag. 

But, none of that’s ultimately as important as knowing how God sees me. God sees me as:

• A work in progress
• Welcomed
• Cherished
• Adored
• Treasured
• Loved unconditionally
• Forgiven completely
• Accepted thoroughly
• Precious
• Bearing God’s likeness
• A beloved child in God’s family

When Jesus prayed for us, he said that God the Father loves you and me with the same love with which he loves Jesus. In John 17:23, Jesus prays:

I in them and you in me—so that they may be brought to complete unity. Then the world will know that you sent me and have loved them even as you have loved me. 

God the Father, Creator of all, loves you just as much as God the Father loves King Jesus the Messiah and Savior of the world.

Your core identity is: Beloved Child of God

And God is Perfect Love. 

In our contemporary society there pervades an underlying, slow burning eremacausis of anxiety. It’s like we are collectively standing on an iced-over lake that has hitherto always supported us, but now we hear the ice cracking. The optimistic among us rejoice, assuring us that the cracking will soon plummet us into a more just and gentle world. Others of us fear that soon we will be plunged into the icy waters of anarchy, totalitarianism, and chaos. Still others deny the loud cracking sounds, insisting that all is well. The sky is not falling. 

Denial notwithstanding, we collectively feel the disquiet in our spirits, the unease in our bones. We know, at least in part, from whence comes the fear – it is coming from a global pandemic spread by asymptomatic people, from civil unrest, from economic recession, from political malpractice, lack of moral leadership, and intergenerational oppression. Anger, backlash, violence, racism, and uncertainty – disquiet reins in our souls. The unrepented national sins of genocide and slavery are yet to be atoned for. The chickens are coming home to roost. 

The ice really is cracking. All that we have taken for granted – public health, the supremacy of the United States, ever-increasing economic prosperity, power in the hands of white men, statuary, civil peace, baseball – is shattering, breaking apart, falling.

It feels like we are being hit from all sides. The ice is cracking! What should we do? Run for our lives? Freeze with fear? Work to get more ice? Take a chance that the coming plunge won’t be so bad? Choose someone to blame? Double down on an escapist theology? 

We can’t wish it away. We can’t vote it away. We don’t seem to be able to even pray it away. Almost daily, another loud crack reminds us of how precariously we stand, how fragile we are as individuals and as a society.

God is allowing everything that can be shaken, to be shaken, so that only that which cannot be shaken will be left. Thank God, we who follow Jesus have received a kingdom that cannot be shaken. (See Hebrews 12:25-29)

Perhaps the best thing that could ever happen to us would be the complete collapse of the American empire with its militarism, capitalism, and racist history. Then, perhaps, we might realize that we are all broken and need Jesus. 

A broken and contrite heart Thou wilt not despise. 

We are all broken.

Some of us were broken well before COVID-19 and mass protests – some of us have been shattered by loss, bereavement, grief, depression, anxiety, addiction, poor health, economic struggle, marriage failure, estrangement, or victimization. Some of us were damaged by poverty, others by racism, still others by neglect or abuse. Some of the already broken are easy to find – they are in refugee camps, prisons, hospitals, wheelchairs, nursing homes, and mental health clinics; they are standing in unemployment lines and eating at soup kitchens, sleeping in homeless shelters, or attending AA meetings. Others are weeping alone in the darkness.

Others of us were doing pretty well until society fell apart. Now it seems like we’re all broken. We are anxious, afraid, perplexed, angry, tired, confused, and disoriented. 

We react to brokenness differently. Some of us become depressed, others withdraw, others throw themselves into a cause célèbre. Some of us are sad; some of us are angry; some of us have given up. Those who shout the loudest insisting they are strong are likely the most broken of all. 

It’s normal to be broken. It’s ok to be broken. Jesus came specifically for the broken. 

The Son of Man came to seek and save the lost. The healthy feel no need for the Great Physician. 

Isaiah 42: Here is my servant, whom I uphold,
    my chosen, in whom my soul delights;
I have put my spirit upon him;
    he will bring forth justice to the nations.
² He will not cry or lift up his voice,
    or make it heard in the street;
³ a bruised reed he will not break,
    and a dimly burning wick he will not quench;
    he will faithfully bring forth justice.
⁴ He will not grow faint or be crushed
    until he has established justice in the earth;
    and the coastlands wait for his teaching.

The thin wispy stalk of a cattail in a swamp, now snapped, bent, broken, perhaps by a storm, destined to wither and die, no longer able to hold its head up – the smoldering candle, its wick extinguished, perhaps by calloused fingers, no longer capable of gracing the table with light – useless. 

A life crushed by life. No strength. No light.

Jesus comes without any ostentation or fanfare, without holding any rallies or fundraisers, not needing any political party to endorse or protect him. With humble authority, he comes.  

Jesus comes. Gracious, kind, tender, loving, with no condemnation, never rejecting – Jesus comes and gently embraces the broken stalk. Healing power flows into it; cells align; xylem and phloem pulsate with cruciform healing virtue.

Jesus comes. Caring, compassionate, gentle, devoted and lovingly, tenderly cups his hand around the smoldering wick while gently breathing life into it. A spark, a flame, warmth, light, a glow of peace.

And he does it over and over – never growing weary, never getting fed up or discouraged – repeatedly healing, bringing life and love, grace and forgiveness, mercy and kindness to the broken. Jesus’ heart moves with compassion for shepherd-less sheep, ravaged by the wolves of religion, empire, oppression, and sin, scattered, bleeding, dying on the hillsides. He leaves the 99, gently carries the wounded in his bosom, cares for them like a nursing mother, protects them like a mother hen, never giving up, time after time, wound after wound, he heals the brokenhearted, restores the broken reed, enflames the cold heart. 

The story is told of an early 20^thcentury European immigrant who scrimped and saved every mite to buy passage on a steamship to the United States. With no money in his pockets, he subsisted the entire voyage on stale crackers and discarded scraps. He would often gaze longingly through the window at the passengers dining on sumptuous abundance, crystal glasses tinkling, silver forks in lush desserts. On the last day of the two-week voyage, he was doing just that when a ship’s officer spotted him, opened the door, and invited him into the dining room.

“I can’t afford the meals,” he protested.

“But sir,” replied the officer, “all meals were included in the price of your ticket.”

Like that man, I too often try to subsist on the stale crumbs of religion when the luxurious banquet of grace is spread before me.

“Come to me,” Jesus calls lovingly. “Come to me if you’re broken, bruised, afraid, lonely, angry, confused, or weary. Come to me – feast at the banquet of love, healing, wholeness, lovingkindness, forgiveness, and grace. Come! Do not run from my love, child. Let me hold you. Let me heal you. I never break bruised reeds. I never quench smoking wicks.”