The Great I AM/Dear Friend

 

“I am the Alpha and the Omega,” says the Lord God, “who is, and who was, and who is to come, the Almighty.” Revelation 1:8

“I no longer call you servants but friends, for everything that I learned from my Father I have made known to you.” John 15:15

 

Which aspect of God is more familiar to you? Do you spend more time revering and feeling in awe of Alpha/Omega, Almighty God or with Jesus, who calls you friend? We realize intellectually that they are one in the same but having a deep and true understanding of that is much harder, if not impossible. It is after all referred to as the mystery of the Trinity. Somehow in order to be a close and sane follower of Jesus we have to rectify the two ideas, God omnipotent, holy, unique and mysterious and Jesus, relatable, close but also holy and unique.

We can’t be so afraid of God that we refuse to draw close to Jesus, to accept the presence of the Holy Spirit. Yet, we can’t be so comfy with our good pal Jesus that we forget that He is God, holy, unique, omnipotent and mysterious.

Listening to two different songs in church yesterday this concept was so obvious to me. In one there was a deep, reverential, awestruck tone. The other was lighter, friendlier, spoke of close familiarity. Same God, same faith, same me. So how does that work?

It reminded me of a young friend of mine and me. What my friend and I have in common is lovely but vastly flawed fathers. The father of my youth was not a nice man. Suffice to say he lacked respect for the personal space and well being of the people who should have meant the most to him. In his later years he realized his faults, to a point, and attempted to make some changes, not amends, just a few new behaviors. Through both stages of his life he was and is a likeable guy, charming and funny. Which just doesn’t seem possible given his heinous actions.

My friend’s dad is the opposite. A lovely and involved dad in his younger days, he reacted to the stresses of life by becoming weak and selfish. How is that possible? He was such a strong, loving, courageous man. Just as my father’s slight turn for the better does not negate the damage of his early years, my friend’s father’s early kindnesses do not excuse his latter selfishness.

What my friend and I have in common is that we want to love those men and give credit where credit is due but we have to reconcile that with the dark sides that were so bitterly harmful. We can’t compartmentalize. We have to love the whole of each of them, while acknowledging that they were in fact,  deeply flawed human beings.

That gave me a little insight to the awesome God/ friendly God. They are one in the same but in His wisdom God knows that we can’t quite get that. That is why the aspect of God’s character that we know as Jesus is approachable in a friendly and comfortable way. We chat with Him as we do our other friends but with an underlying respect for His sovereignty. When we are deep in reverence of the person of God the Father we are not too intimidated to pray or praise because of the humanity of Jesus. Aren’t we smart? No! We’re empowered by the Holy Spirit. If we will yield to the power of the Holy Spirit we can cope with the things we can’t understand or reconcile. We can worship in spirit and truth and we can love even those who’ve shown us in spotlight, neon letters, glaring fashion that they are not who we would want them to be.