The Perfect God

Around the start of the new year, I finished my manuscript study of Luke. As I reflect on the journey, I am amazed by God. God moves and speaks and lives. I highly recommend a manuscript study to all who seek to know the kingdom of God. I am now again apart of a Mark manuscript study with several other couples.

But personally God has encouraged me to read through the entire bible. Though I know the overall plot, I’ve not spent significant time outside the gospels. So now I’ll see what comes of reading the bible as a novel. No intensive study, no concordances, just reading and listening.

As of now, I am nearly half way through Genesis. It’s really a rather wild book. What stands out the most to me is how imperfect God seems. Now I know that sounds heretical but maybe my definition of perfect is what’s flawed.

In my mind, perfect is flawless, effortless, all-knowing, un-erring, and un-obtainable. But in just the first half of Genesis I’ve seen a God that creates one good thing after another only to realize that adam’s loneliness is “not good.” And a God who works so hard for six days that he sets the seventh aside as this “other” day so he can rest. Then after his creation’s initial rebellion, he first asks, “Where are you?” He repeats this question when speaking to Cain saying, “Where is your brother?” Fast-forward beyond the initial creation and suddenly God’s regretting he made man entirely. He chooses to cover the earth with water and start over. Then again later he seems nervous as man builds a tower that might reach to the heavens.

Don’t mistake me, I think God is perfect. But I’d rather define perfect in terms of God than God in terms of perfect. So what I mean to say is perfect is God. What we humans underestimate is how God-like we in fact are. And this is no mistake on God’s part. He made us to be his children.