God/ Love is not a thing one can have, Day 4

'You shall not make idols for yourselves; neither a carved image nor a sacred pillar shall you rear up for yourselves; nor shall you set up an engraved stone in your land, to bow down to it; for I am the LORD your God. Lev. 26:1

This morning while reading “A Little History of the World (E.H. Gombrich)” my interest was sparked by his mentioning that “there was something special about this one [small tribe/ Abraham’s descendants]… and this something special was their religion… these herdsmen only prayed to one god.” Apart from the nonconformist Egyptian Pharaoh Akhenaton this one god concept was kind of crazy back then. The thing that caught my attention further was when Gombrich mentioned how unlike every other temple built at the time, if you were to enter the Jewish temple you wouldn’t find any images anywhere of their god.

It seems to me that an image in a temple or an idol in someone’s possession presents an opportunity to “have” one’s god. The god becomes something you are able to handle, possess, own; it can belong to you. I think the one God, the imageless God, the creator and ruler of all things was making it quite clear when He established His no images rule that He can not be possessed. I don’t think God is something you can have.

Despite this I think people today are still trying to own or to have God. It seems that people, especially through religion which very clearly defines who God is and what you’re to do about that, are able to obtain a sense of “having” God. The religion essentially requires Him to perform according to the expectations it defines, thus one is able to “have” God (at least they can feel this is so).

I like that we were instructed to make no images of Him. I like that He isn’t obtainable, have-able, that God is not a thing to be possessed. I love that He’s bigger than anything I could ever own. Also, that I am His, not that He is mine, I love that too. The very thought of experiencing relationship with this ginormous God overwhelms me, this, only made possible by the grace extended to us by Jesus. And it’s an ongoing, increasing, developing, continuous process filled with life that I’ve been privileged to partake of. The perennial experience is delightful and although God never changes, relationship with Him is continually new. Religion, allowing it’s follower to “have” God seems stagnant. I can not see how it promotes any growth or increase or life in the one observing the religion. God is overflowing with life.

Love is not a thing one can have, but a process, an inner activity that one is the subject of. I can love, I can be in love, but in loving, I have… nothing. In fact, the less I have, the more I can love. Erich Fromm (I’m afraid I might reuse this quote many times this year)