Living With a Perfect God

There seem to be many competing images of God in the world today; a loving father, a benevolent master, a strict tyrant, a demanding ideologue, holy perfection and many, many more. Ultimately, our image of God is reflected in our own life. We see it in our expectations, in the way we treat others and in the way we think about ourselves. Changing the way we understand God can change almost everything about life.

When I was in high school our family did child care during the summer for a 4 or 5 year old little boy named Riley. Riley’s parents were both working on their second or third Master’s Degree and Riley was their only child. He was a bright, inquisitive kid who always wanted to know more about everything he encountered. So he was always asking, “Why?” and “How?” My brothers and I would do our best to explain sometimes difficult things to this young and eager to learn kid.

After every answer, after every detailed explanation Riley would respond, “I knew that.”  He didn’t say that every once in a while. It came out of his mouth as soon as he thought we were done answering his question. Every time. If we would ask, “Then why did you ask us to explain it?” he would simply shrug his slender shoulders and walk away towards something else that had captured his attention. We even tried making up answers, complete fabrications of utter fantasy, and still his response was, “I knew that.”

I don’t think Riley meant to be annoying but we were annoyed. He didn’t mean to sound arrogant but that was the impression we took away with us. What began as a fun summer occupation soon turned into irritating contest of self-control against this little mental/verbal tic uttered by a kid who was barely old enough for school.

It’s hard to live with a person who acts like they’re perfect, the one who never quite admits to being wrong. After a lengthy time of trying to show them their mistakes, of catching them in failed logic and insisting that they admit they are fallible, we give in and allow them to live in their fantasy world. It’s just easier to roll our eyes at their perceived superiority than to be frustrated by their incessant denial of any mistakes.

Living with a perfect God isn’t much easier. Yes, I suppose there are comforts and benefits to having a benevolent, all-knowing, ever-present and all-powerful deity to pull the control levers of the universe, especially when things feel so out of control in our lives. But it’s hard to live with a God who dodges every accusation of screwing things up. And that’s the God I was taught about in Sunday School. I was told about a God who gives awesome things but is frustrated at every turn by a failed angel and by people who are rebellious. Did something great happen? Then it was God. Did something awful happen? Then it is somehow the fault of someone else.

Did God create the perfect place people to live in complete harmony with all things? Yes. Then why isn’t the world like that now? Because the snake tempted people and they disobeyed. It’s not God’s fault the world is messed up.

Were the Israelites freed from slavery in Egypt? That was God. Did they wander in the wilderness for 40 years? That was their own fault.

God elevated the Israelites to a dynasty under the rule of King David but some 400 years later they were overtaken by the Babylonians. But the downfall came, not because God failed to protect them but because the people weren’t faithful and they worshiped other God’s or because they didn’t take care of the poor, the widows and the orphans.

How long does it take before we start to get a complex? How long do I have to hear this before I begin to believe that all the suffering that I endure is my own fault? (Karma, anyone?) God has a perfect plan for my life? Well, my life isn’t perfect. Far from it. So whose fault is that? Must be mine. Every time.

If I didn’t like being around a five year-old who thought he was perfect, why on earth would I want to live in the presence of a God who is so arrogantly presented as being perfect in every way?

Here’s the thing: Other people tell me that God is perfect and that I am not. It’s people who want me to feel like an abject failure, not God.

If it’s true that we are made in the image and likeness of God (Genesis 1:26) maybe we need to rethink what it means to be perfect. What if perfect isn’t about being a finished, complete entity but, instead, is more about the process of learning and growing?

In the story of Noah’s Ark it is God who learns and whose mind and future actions are changed (Genesis 8:21).  When God discovers that restarting the human race with faithful and obedient stock doesn’t result in faithful and obedient people God promises to never do something as drastic as the flood ever again. And yet when this was taught to me the moral of the story was to be an obedient person and God will bless you.

In the Gospel of Matthew Jesus encounters a non-Jewish woman who asks for her daughter to be healed (Matthew 15:21-28). Jesus firmly responds by referring to non-Jews as “dogs.” Yet when she replies with an understanding of God’s abundant and overflowing grace Jesus fulfills her request. Now the question is, was Jesus just testing her to prove her faith or did Jesus actually learn something from her? The never-make-a-mistake-God believers say he was testing her and blessed her only when she passed the test. But what if the perfectness of Jesus has to do with him being open to learning about God and about his own mission in life?

I’m tired of living in the expectations and disappointments that come with a perfect God who has a perfect plan for a perfect life for me. It’s time to rethink what it means to be made in the image of God. That means it’s time to relook at our image of God. It’s time to wonder about a God who learns from mistakes. It’s time to contemplate a God who is comfortable growing in a relationship instead of dictating what that relationship will be like.  It’s time to be open to the notion that perfection is something other than a completed state; that perfection may be more of an attitude towards what we encounter in life than an unrealistic expectation of what life is supposed to be.

That might be perfection I can live with.