People often ask me why I don’t subscribe to a violent, punitive and retributive version of God. I’ll tell you why.
In 2010, just after my youngest was born, my wife enrolled me in a small group course on inner healing. She knew I needed it. The 48 Elijah House modules course took a couple of years to complete but I left a different person. I had also found my tribe – an eclectic group of Jesus followers from every corner of the denominational map, bent on being . Charismatic Catholics, Baptists, SDA, Pentecostals, Anglicans, and more. For this dedicated secluded young pentecostal dad, it was a revelation.
By 2013, I had obtained my prayer ministry certification and was asked to manage the 200-volunteer-run training school. In the years that followed I learnt a few more inner-healing modalities like the Immanuel Approach and Heartync and started getting calls from pastors to help them through some personal and corporate challenges that they believed had spiritual and emotional roots. I said yes, and years of travel across Australia and Asia followed.
One year, I counted over 250 speaking engagements. These included workshops, church services, seminars and guest bible college engagements. Over the years, I have spent well over 1,000 hours in the chair as a lay-counsellor of sorts, helping countless pastors, leaders and lay-people through personal and spiritual issues.
I have seen things and heard stories that border on unbelievable by way of trauma, evil and weird. I also witnessed the kindness and grace of God in those years in a way I can only describe as pure love and kindnessYears of doing this kind of heavy inner work takes a toll on your belief systems and paradigms. Watching people encounter the gentleness of Christ in their darkest and most vulnerable moments does something to the way you see God and your theology. NOT ONCE, out of all those hundreds and thousands of 1-on-1 and group sessions did I ever see God (as Father, Son and Spirit) punish, diminish, shame, or embarrass a single heart. Not once was God violent, mean, critical, judgemental, accusing, coercive or fickle..never to the client, and never to me.
Every fruit of the Spirit we read about in Galatians 5:22-23 was present in the presence of God and open hearts. Every interaction, word, gesture, suggestion, blessing and act of healing was founded in unconditional love and blessing. And before you ask about change and repentance: Yes, they both happened, but it was God’s kindness (not threat or rules) that led to deep and meaningful transformation… just like we read of in Romans 2:4.
So, when people ask me why I don’t subscribe to a violent, punitive and retributive version of God, I reply, “I heard about that pissed-off, justice-bent and wrathful God on Sundays growing up, but I never ever encountered that God. Not once for myself, and not once with the many healing encounters I was part of. And by the way, I struggle to see that punitive God in Jesus, as he’s presented in the Gospels.”
I think Brian Zahnd puts it so succinctly: “God is like Jesus. God has always been like Jesus. There has never been a time when God was not like Jesus. We haven’t always known this, but now we do.”
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Pictured: Natalie and I at Jubilee Church in Sydney 2016