How Did I Come To Know God?

TODAY: Ponder the response of C.S. Lewis in 1939 when students asked why, in the face of impending war, they should continue their studies. Of course, he replied. Keep perspective and keep committed to your values and fulfilling the glory of God. “The war creates no absolutely new situation: It simply aggravates the permanent human situation so that we can no longer ignore it. Human life has always been lived on the edge of a precipice. Human culture has always had to exist under the shadow of something infinitely more important than itself. If men had postponed the search for knowledge and beauty until they were secure, the search never would have begun. We are mistaken when we compare war to ‘normal life.’ Life has never been normal.”

This window reflects the gospel themes of obedience, sacrifice and atonement. The whites, purples and blues suggest the seasons of Advent and Lent. We are drawn toward the triumph of resurrection.
– Jay Hanke

Like many people, I was blessed with parents who loved me and provided a faith-filled foundation. But it wasn’t until the moment I become a parent myself that I understood what a miracle was. It was a baby girl, 8 pounds, 10 ounces, born on a snowy morning in January. I held Vanessa in my arms and felt for the first time in my life — awestruck. I believe that my knowing God began at that instant — when I first loved someone with all my heart and soul. Marital love runs deep, but this kind of love was so ageless, so primal, so far-reaching. It was transcendent.

There is no more difficult a topic for the Christian than God’s anger. The creating, healing, sacrificing, forgiving and loving God as manifest in Jesus is so easy for us to approach. The destroying, punishing, severe, wrathful God is not. We Christians spend a lot of time meditating on the love of God, and strive to be more like him in this aspect. We neglect to give the same attention to God’s anger, and, therefore, we do not learn to discipline our anger in the image of God.

Anger is, of course, a very perilous emotion; it is only one letter away from “danger,” as they say. To a degree, all human emotions are dangerous, because they so easily tempt us toward sin. Feelings of love can carry us into possessiveness, desire can lead to lust, creativity and productivity can cause arrogance and overambition, and our sense of pleasure can pass into hedonism. Yet life without love, desire, creative work and the capacity for pleasure would be empty and meager, mere existence. God created in such a way that we might enjoy a rich experience of life, to quite literally feel alive.

Thus our capacity to experience a range of emotions is a wonderful gift from our Creator, though one we willfully corrupt. And this is especially true of anger. It is through anger that we are spurred to notice and care about what is wrong around us; anger gives us the will and the courage to confront and combat evil. Yet it is also anger that most often leads us into our most wicked destructive acts. This past fall we have seen the tragic results of so much twisted anger and misdirected rage. We in turn have had to wrestle with what to do with the anger — and even rage — that these terrible deeds have aroused in us.

In the face of so much anguish and suffering caused by this emotion, how can we come to terms with anger embodied in ourselves and in others? How can we reconcile the presence of both great anger and great love for us in the God we worship? It would seem to me that if we could imagine a form of pure, uncorrupted anger, just as we imagine pure and uncorrupted love — the perfect anger and the perfect love of God — then we might understand how God wishes we his creatures to be angry, just as we understand how he wishes us to love. This type of anger is never aroused by threats to self-interest, or by wounded pride or thwarted arrogance. It is aroused instead by injustice and destructiveness, particularly when the victims are helpless. It is anger that does not take pleasure in itself or feed on itself — it is exercised in the spirit of sorrow, not exultation and self-righteousness. It strives to put a permanent end to itself by destroying the conditions that cause it to come into being in the first place; it does not seek to grow or to infect others, but to be extinguished forever. It is proportionate to the misdeed and ready to turn aside at every opportunity and at any sign of repentance, no matter how minute. Justice and mercy always accompany it, never ruthlessness or wanton cruelty.

We, as Christians, rightly focus on God’s love in giving us his son, Jesus, and on growing in our capacity to love. But to understand how we are made in God’s image, we also need to spend some time accepting and examining God’s anger, which also tells us how to live.

— Ursula Wilder