God: The Beginning Of A Biography

Exodus 33:17 – The Lord said to Moses, "I will do the very thing that you have asked; for you have found favour in my sight, and I know you by name." Moses said, "Show me your glory, I pray."

I love the way Jack Miles' Pulitzer prize winning book God: A Biography addresses the nature of God and the many ways people perceive the divine. Penelope Mesic, writing a review in the Chicago Tribune, captures the essence of the book with these introductory words:

What is God really like? Michelangelo gave God the long white beard of an old man and the hard muscles of a young one – suggesting a perfect balance of judgement and strength. Three centuries later, William Blake drew God as wrathful, holding a thunderbolt.

In our own time, George Burns acted him, cigar in hand, as intervening personally in human lives, largely for his own deadpan amusement, making God almost a prankster and sort of out of it half the time.

So, what does your biography of God begin with? Take a few moments to think of three images that are expressive of the nature of God for you. And tomorrow, we'll talk some more about it.

Prayer: God, we know you and by you are known, yet our knowledge of you is so incomplete and so limited by our experiences and expressions. Grant us a fuller vision of You as we walk through this day. Amen.

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