Preconceived Notions or Why I am glad that God is not always who I think he is.

I am beginning to realize something about myself, and no it is not the fact that it is weird that I have over and over again in my head thought about the theological ramifications of the movie Ground Hog Day. What I am realizing is the fact that I have preconceived notions about God. In other words I have a picture in my head of who God is and how he acts. How this picture came to be is hard to say. I am sure that it is a combination of many different factors. It is a picture that shifts and changes over the years but there are some basic traits that stay the same. Let me be very clear about something, I do not believe that my picture of God is who God actually is, and on the flip side of that I do not believe that all of my assumptions about God are entirely wrong. It's hard to be a finite being trying to think about an infinite being. Below follows the list that makes up my picture of God.

1) God is a snazzy dresser. Flip through the scriptures and notice how many times when God appears to people in a human like form they comment on his clothes.

2) God is not a big fan of scientists. Look I am not saying there are anything wrong with scientists or science for that matter, but I have to think after all these years of these dudes committing their life to disproving him he is probably not rushing to become their fans on facebook, but don't worry if your scientist all you have to do is repeat three times that you approve of the literal 6 days of creation and God will welcome you with open arms into the fold.

3) God probably drinks coffee and has a goatee. If we were really honest with ourselves a good deal of the people that we know that are "close" to God drink lots and lots of coffee and are rocking some form of awesome facial hair. Just look at all the pictures we have of all the heroes of the Bible, name me one of them that did not have facial hair? The goatee is just todays hero beard. And for the record women this is a pretty good argument for why you can not be ministers, you can't grow facial hair duh.

4) God loves everyone (except racists). Look I realize that God is a lover of all mankind but it seems like a no brainer to me that he can not love someone who is a racist. Its an oxymoron, how can you love someone who hates something you created? I mean if I bake a cake and I feed it to you, you better bet your weathered designer jeans that if you tell me you hate it I'm going to smite you with my wrath (a. k. a I will tell you I laced it with arsenic and watch you squirm, but don't worry I didn't....or did I?) Sure its kind of a contradiction for me to be racist against a racist, but God approves of that kind of racism...right?

5) God is ok with me praying to him like I update my twitter account. If we were honest with out selves we would realize that God has a lot of requests to listen to on any given day, and the quotient goes up on Sunday. In light of this it only makes sense that God is perfectly ok with me updating him in 140 characters or less. If it takes longer than that to talk about it you probably need to rethink how your phrasing it or just write on God's facebook wall so that he can read it later.

6) God hates and I say again hate hymnals! Its a well known fact that God hates hymnals to be used in worship service for anything else but propping up my wobbly leg on my drum set, oh and flipping through when you get bored with the sermon.

speaking of sermons

7) God will bless my sermon more if I preach it sitting on a stool. Preaching while standing up is so 2007. We all know that God approves more of the sit down and have a conversation method than he does of the stand up and lecture method. Now I am not saying that God will not use his word to do a mighty work if you stand up, but just know your convert ratio will double if you stay seated...it's science...kind of. Oh and on a related note don't wear a tie everyone knows that God hates ties.

8) God cares more about the people out side of America. I mean really, what do we have to bother God about? He has already give us Starbucks, Joyce Meyers, Joel Olsteen, and Hillsong (I know technically they are from Australia but come on we love them.) What could we possibly have to bother God about? Let's all do God a favor and leave him to his latest campaign of making sure the RED campaign at the GAP is successful.

9) God loves the NIV, likes the MSG, (even though its technically not a translation) and thinks people that read the KJV are stupid.

Come on, really, let it go, God never talked like that and we know it. We all know that God has always and always will talk like either a very level down to earth James Earl Jones or a surfer dude...come on bra really!

10) God hates Christian radio. Yeah sure you may say that these musicians have poured their lives into praising God with their lips, I say they have laid down their gifts at the alter of fame and fortune just so they can have the glitz and glamour that comes with being on the road 24/7. If they really love God they will do what the rest of us do, volunteer their time at the local church leading worship on Sunday morning for no pay. I mean of course I get paid to do what I do for God, but I'm different...I'm a preacher I do the real work.

If your like me, than when you take a really honest look at who you think God is you probably fall down right there and thank him that he is not! I find that I am in good company with this type of thinking though. As I read through the Bible I realize that many of God's children had ideas about who he was only to find out later that God is more than they could ever hope to imagine.

So how about you? What are your preconceived notions about God? I would love to hear them.