Reflection 3: Healing Our Image of God - Part 1/2

Mar 10

Blessings, dear pilgrims,

We have already journeyed deep in these first few days. We began by recognizing and questioning the images of God we have inherited. Some of these images have been life-giving, while others have been distorted by fear or misunderstanding. We then took an honest inventory of our emotional responses to God, bringing awareness to our God wound. These are the places where fear, pain, or disillusionment have shaped our perception of the Divine. Our purpose in looking at these wounds was never to stay with them. It was to release them and make space for healing.

Now, we arrive at an essential turning point: Healing our image of God.

Many of us live in societies where God has, in some way, been presented as something to fear. For many, distance from God has felt safer than intimacy. This was not because we wanted it that way, but because past experiences, teachings, or wounds told us that God might not be trustworthy. And yet, deep within, a longing remains. There is still hope that divine love is not only real but also tender, personal, and as present as the love we have actually known.

If "God is love" (1 John 4:8), then any idea of God that contradicts love must be reexamined. This is the work before us now. We are here to reconnect, to rediscover, and to heal.

One of the most powerful ways to begin this healing is through the love we do trust, the love we have already known in its truest form.

Today’s reading is an excerpt from Good Goats: Healing Our Image of God by Dennis Linn, Sheila Fabricant Linn, and Matthew Linn. This text challenges the fear-based images of God many of us have inherited. It invites us into a fuller, truer understanding, one rooted in compassion, healing, and life-giving love.

Take your time with it. Let it settle in your heart. May this be a step toward encountering the God who has always been waiting, not with judgment, but with open arms of love.

Enjoy the read!

Scripture: Read 1 John 4:7-12

Reading: Healing Our Image of God

Extract from the book “Good Goats: Healing Our Image of God” written by Dennis Linn, Sheila Fabricant Linn, and Matthew Linn

Good Old Uncle George

I (Dennis) grew up with an image of God that resembled Good Old Uncle George, as described by Gerard Hughes. God was a family relative, much admired by Mum and Dad, who described him as very loving, a great friend of the family, very powerful and interested in all of us. Eventually we are taken to visit "Good Old Uncle George." He lives in a formidable mansion, is bearded, gruff and threatening. We cannot share our parents' professed admiration for this jewel in the family.

At the end of the visit, Uncle George addressed us. "Now listen, dear," he begins, looking very severe, "I want to see you here once a week, and if you fail to come, let me just show you what will happen to you." He then leads us down to the mansion's basement. It is dark, becomes hotter and hotter as we descend, and we begin to hear unearthly screams. In the basement there are steel doors. Uncle George opens one. "Now look in there, dear," he says. We see a nightmare vision, an array of blazing furnaces with little demons in attendance, who hurl into the blaze those men, women and children who failed to visit Uncle George or to act in a way he approved. "And if you don't visit me, dear, that is where you will most certainly go," says Uncle George.

He then takes us upstairs again to meet Mum and Dad. As we go home, tightly clutching Dad with one hand and Mum with the other, Mum leans over us and says, "And now don't you love Uncle George with all your heart and soul, mind and strength?" And we, loathing the monster, say, "Yes I do," because to say anything else would be to join the queue at the furnace.

At a tender age religious schizophrenia has set in and we keep telling Uncle George how much we love him and how good he is and that we want to do only what pleases him. We observe what we are told are his wishes and dare not admit, even to ourselves, that we loathe him.

How My Image of God Changed

One day Hilda came to me crying because her son had tried to commit suicide for the fourth time. She told me that he was involved in prostitution, drug dealing and murder. She ended her list of her son's "big sins" with, "What bothers me most is that my son says he wants nothing to do with God. What will happen to my son if he commits suicide without repenting and wanting nothing to do with God?"

Since at the time my image of God was like Good Old Uncle George, I thought, "God will probably send your son to hell." But I didn't want to tell Hilda that. I was glad that my many years of theological training had taught me what to do when I don't know how to answer a difficult theological question: ask the other person, "What do you think?" "Well," Hilda responded, "I think that when you die, you appear before the judgment seat of God. If you have lived a good life, God will send you to heaven. If you have lived a bad life, God will send you to hell." Sadly, she concluded, "Since my son has lived such a bad life, if he were to die without repenting, God would certainly send him to hell."

Although I tended to agree with her, I didn't want to say, "Right on, Hilda! Your son would probably be sent to hell." I was again grateful for my theological training which taught me a second strategy: when you don't know how to solve a theological problem, then let God solve it. So I said to Hilda, "Close your eyes. Imagine that you are sitting next to the judgment seat of God. Imagine also that your son has died with all these serious sins and without repenting. He has just arrived at the judgment seat of God. Squeeze my hand when you can imagine that." A few minutes later Hilda squeezed my hand. She described to me the entire judgment scene. Then I asked her, "Hilda, how does your son feel?" Hilda answered, "My son feels so lonely and empty." I asked Hilda what she would like to do. She said, "I want to throw my arms around my son." She lifted her arms and began to cry as she imagined herself holding her son tightly. Finally, when she had stopped crying, I asked her to look into God's eyes and watch what God wanted to do. God stepped down from the throne, and just as Hilda did, embraced Hilda's son. And the three of them, Hilda, her son and God, cried together and held one another.

God Loves Us at Least As Much As the Person Who Loves Us the Most

I was stunned. What Hilda taught me in those few minutes is the bottom line of healthy Christian spirituality: God loves us at least as much as the person who loves us the most. God loves us at least as much as Hilda loves her son or at least as much as Sheila and Matt love me. When Sheila and Matt most love me, they are not going to say, "Dennis, we love you unconditionally, much more than you can ever imagine. But you really blew it. So, to hell with you, but remember how much we love you." And even though Sheila has a mighty big purse, she does not lug around an account book to mark down my sins and what punishment I merit. And if Sheila and Matt don't do these things, could it be that God doesn't either?

What About Vengeful Punishment in Scripture?

At first I found it hard to believe in Hilda's loving God. I had grown up reading Matthew 25, about what God would do to goats, and other seemingly vengeful punishment passages in scripture. For example, Matthew 5:29 says that if your right eye is a temptation, it would be better to pluck it out than to have God throw you into the fires of hell. Such passages made God seem to be a child abuser, much like Good Old Uncle George.

Assuming that what I had learned from Hilda might be true, I began asking myself, how do those who love us the most use vengeful punishment language? Then I began to notice that those who love the most-grandparents, parents, lovers-often use the same words of vengeful punishment as Good Old Uncle George and other child abusers, but their meaning is very different.

For example, our cousins Ann and George have raised four of the healthiest teenagers we know. We often ask Ann and George, "How did you do it?" One time we asked them, "Can you remember a time in the past year when you punished your kids?" They both looked blank. In desperation we asked, "When in the past five or ten years have you punished your kids?" They looked at each other and came up with the same thing. Ann said, "I remember a family trip. It got so loud in the back seat of the car that George said, 'If you kids don't be quiet, I'm going to tie you to the roof of the car!' And do you remember, George, how quiet it got?" About that time their son, Joe, came home. We asked him when his parents had last punished him and at first got the same blank look. Finally, we asked him, "Joe, can you remember any time at all in the past five or ten years your parents punished you?" Joe's face lit up. "You remember when we were in the car on a trip and we were making so much noise? Dad, you told us that if we weren't quiet, you'd tie us to the roof of the car!" Then Joe added, `And, boy, were we quiet. But we knew you weren't going to tie us to the roof of the car." And they all laughed.

To tie your children to the roof of a car is vengeful punishment. Yet we use vengeful punishment language all the time in our homes and families. Such statements are exaggerations (hyperbole) that can safely be used only in a context text where everyone understands that they are not to be taken literally. (The authors of scripture and Jesus himself often used hyperbole, as in Matthew 5:29. The people of their time understood that they were not to be taken literally) ally) Like Joe, we know that if at the time people use such language they are really loving us, then they will never carry out the punishment. Everyone involved knows that the language is used only in order to emphasize the importance of doing something so that we can enjoy being together. Thus George's angry words in the car probably meant, "It's important that you be quiet so that we can enjoy the trip together." And in Mt. 5:29, instead of commanding manding us to pluck out our right eye, God may well be saying something like, "It's important that you not misuse your sight through lust (that you not damage age your right eye-the window to your heart) so that we can enjoy the inner beauty of creation together."

But what if Ann and George were child abusers who did tie their kids to the roof of the car? If we overheard them threatening to do that to their children, we would call the police. We would have the police come and put Ann and George (or Good Old Uncle George, for that matter) in a mental institution before they could do more harm to their children. But the good news is that God is at least as loving as Ann and George. Like them, God is not a child abuser but a child lover.

Changing our image of God from child abuser to child lover was the core of Jesus' mission. Jesus was always trying to change people's vengeful image of God. Often Jesus tried to heal on the sabbath, or touch a leper, or forgive someone. But the priests, scribes, and Pharisees would forbid Jesus to do these things because they interpreted literally the vengeful punishment passages of their Bibles which spelled out the consequences of such "illegal" actions.

REFLECTION: Relearning God through Love

If we have been wounded by false images of God (angry, distant, indifferent) perhaps the way back is through the real love we have encountered. When we struggle to believe in God’s goodness, we can begin by asking:

WHO has shown me love without conditions? Who in my life has loved me the most? Who has made me feel safe, cherished, and accepted, not because I earned it but simply because I am me?
- For some, it’s a parent who, despite their flaws, showed unwavering care. For others, it’s a grandparent whose warm hands and soft voice made the world feel secure. Perhaps it’s a best friend who, through the highs and lows, has never abandoned you. Or maybe it’s your child, the one who, with their innocent trust, reaches for your hand, their laughter filling your heart with a love so pure it feels sacred. Or perhaps it’s a beloved pet, a dog who greets you with pure joy every time you return home, a cat who curls up beside you when you’re down, asking for nothing but presence.
WHAT moment in my life made me feel utterly seen and valued?
WHERE have I encountered kindness that felt divine?

These are not just sentimental questions. They are the way God reaches us, even when we cannot yet reach for God. They are a reorientation, a way of reclaiming God from the wounds of false religion and placing divine love back where it belongs: in the hands that have held us, the eyes that have seen us, the love that has carried us.

So, if you wonder whether God loves you, begin here: God loves you at least as much as the person (or being) who has loved you the most. And then, dare to take one step further: what if God loves you even more?

Let that love reach you, just as you are.