Taskmaster, Cheerleader, Soulmate...

By Alden Thompson

The list could go on and on, but just add "Friend" and "Fix-it" to Taskmaster, Cheerleader, and Soulmate. Those are the five names for God I want to talk about here, five stories about God, if you please.

At different times, I’ve had all five pictures in my head. Some I like better than others, and one not at all. But like it or not, the art gallery in my head is a stubborn place. Even desperate desire doesn’t make it easy to keep good pictures up and bad ones down. and upgrading from good to better is just as tough.

Your art may be like mine, but not exactly. The first time I asked students to describe what they "picture" when they pray, I was startled by the diversity: brilliant light, black hole, kindly man under a tree, scowling man with folded arms. And now I know that helping someone else change their pictures is just as hard as changing my own.

I also need regular reminders that none of my pictures is "true" in the absolute sense. They are terribly real and a true reflection of my mind and soul, but they don’t tell me what God is really like. Even the Bible, "perfect as it is in its simplicity," to use Ellen White’s words, "does not answer to the great ideas of God; for infinite ideas cannot be perfectly embodied in finite vehicles of thought" (Selected Messages, Book 1, p. 22). And if the pictures in God’s holy word only dimly reflect His glory I know what that means for the pictures in my unholy head!

Still, I have to start with what I have. And in that connection, I really like a quotation someone sent me. It sounds like George McDonald, C. S. Lewis’s favorite author: "Don’t believe anything about God that would make you think less of Him, for it could not be true. You cannot believe Him to be better than He really is."

But now, let’s visit the gallery. I’ll talk about mine, since it’s the only one I really know. But you can think about yours along the way.

1. Taskmaster. This is the devil’s favorite picture. I don’t like it and have taken it down several times. For the moment, I think it’s well buried in a closet. But it often pops into sight again without much warning. Frustrating.

Ellen White talked about similar pictures. Her titles were "Judge" and "Creditor"–plus a few vivid adjectives. (There must be a whole series of these portraits–and somebody is cranking them out by the millions.) Note her description: "Satan led men to conceive of God as a being whose chief attribute is stern justice–one who is a stern judge, a harsh, exacting creditor. He pictured the Creator as a being who is watching with jealous eye to discern the errors and mistakes of men" (Steps to Christ, pp. 10-11).

But that same quotation goes on to describe the Master Artist’s plan for ugly art: "It was to remove this dark shadow, by revealing to the world the infinite love of God, that Jesus came to live among men." Aha! Jesus came to help me clean up my gallery. We’ll come back to that.

2. Fix-it. I have mixed feelings about this picture. I like it because it reminds me of special moments when God has intervened in my life, when He really has fixed it. I like that a lot.

My trouble is with all those times when I want Him to fix it and He doesn’t. Sometimes He doesn’t even seem to answer the phone when I know He’s there. That makes this picture potentially deadly–expecting God to fix everything could shut down my gallery completely. Even more dangerous is the belief that He will fix things for me if I am good. Not necessarily. As C. S. Lewis puts it: "If we were stronger, we might be less tenderly treated."

3. Cheerleader. This is my picture when I’m on a high-energy roll. I love challenges and am eager to hear the Lord say, "Go for it! I’m with you! I’m for you!" Great stuff. But I’ve turned cautious, because I’ve glimpsed how low-energy people react. For them, the Cheerleader can simply be a more bitter Taskmaster.

4. Friend. This is a gentle picture for quiet times. And though George Elliot’s words originally spoke of human friendship, they work for God, too: "O the comfort, the inexpressible comfort of feeling safe with a person; having neither to weigh thoughts nor measure words but to pour them all out, just as it is, chaff and grain together, knowing that a faithful hand will take and sift them, keeping what is worth keeping and then, with the breath of kindness, blow the rest away." Good picture.

5. Soulmate. This is my favorite and the most personal. It’s a picture of Jesus that became my own when I realized that God took human flesh to dispel the "dark shadow" from my gallery and yours.

This world is a mess. Good and innocent people suffer terrible things they do not deserve. But I know my Soulmate understands. And He’s promised a new world where it won’t happen anymore. I like this picture a lot.

–Alden Thompson, Gleaner, November 2, 1998.