Finding Faith ... in helping others to find God

EDITOR'S NOTE: In October 2021 I began a new venture writing a newspaper column titled "Finding Faith" for the Forum Communications Co. network of newspapers and websites. I was asked to contribute to the company's ongoing conversation about faith, lending a Lutheran and fairly ecumenical approach to the discussion. The column was published in several of the company's papers and websites, including The Forum of Fargo-Moorhead. This column originally appeared as a "Finding Faith" column on March 18, 2022.

The Rev. Devlyn Brooks at his home church, Faith Lutheran Church in Wolverton, Minn.

By The Rev. Devlyn Brooks

I am not God.

And right now, you’re thinking, “Well, no duh, pastor!”

But seriously, as a faith leader, I regularly remind myself that I am not God.

You see, as humans, we tend to form the archetypes of our personal “God” after people who have been impressionable early in our lives. And thus, the “God” that I know to be true in my faith can’t possibly be the same “God” you know to be true in your faith.

And if you think about it, how could any of us possibly know the same “God?” Given our different experiences of the Bible and faith, our varied environments growing up, our socio-economic statuses, our geography, our family structures.

Now, I realize that if you are a definitive faithful person, secure in the knowledge that the God you know is the correct one, this will sound like hooey, some new wave mumbo jumbo to placate today’s uncommitted “spiritualists.” And I trust that something in your experiences helped you form this opinion. I won’t change it, and I don’t aim too.

But given that I know that God is infinite, I believe that there’s no way God can be limited to my infinitesimal understanding of the universe, of grace and of love. If that is true, all of creation would be the poorer for it!

Think about it! … Do you want to accept that God is as limited as the image created in the mind of a middle aged, middle class, white man, who is remarried for a second time, has four kids, and who has never lived outside of Minnesota in his life? … That would be a very limited God, indeed!

No, I am not God, and it’s important for me to continue to remind myself of that, because without that reminder I am tempted to morph God into what I want God to be.

In fact, Mathew 11:27, in part, reminds me that I can’t even possibly know God other than through knowing his son: “... and no one knows the Father except the Son and anyone to whom the Son chooses to reveal him.”

God is too vast, too unknowable, too unimaginable for my small human mind. And I readily admit it.

Therefore, as a faith leader, I try my best to remember that I am not God, or else what happens when, in my interactions with you, my God butts into your image of God, and now we’re already at conflict? At that point, what have I accomplished?

This does not mean I do not strive to help people know God! … That I do believe is my job!

But there is a fine line between helping someone come to know God, versus me telling them that I know exactly who God is and you don’t.

I have far too small of a human imagination for that!

Devlyn Brooks, who works for Modulist, a Forum Communications Co.-owned company, is an ordained pastor in the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America. He serves as pastor of Faith Lutheran Church in Wolverton, Minn. He can be reached at devlyn.brooks@forumcomm.com for comments and story ideas.