God with skin on

Dear Hildegaard

Photo by Bill Fairs on Unsplash

Dear Hildegaard,

I’ve always cringed at the assumption that there are many gods. But what if it’s true?

What if our very worship, our devotion, fierce defense of, even our addiction to these gods acknowledges their existence? If so, there are many. And if so, we must be honest about our bent toward idolatry. We must reckon with the fact that we create gods every time we worship at their feet.

I’m thinking of this because I’m currently re-reading the book of Daniel. And when he interprets King Nebuchadnezzar’s dream, the king is amazed and says:

“Certainly your God is God of gods and Lord of kings and revealer of mysteries.”

(Daniel 2:47, NET).

Even though he (temporarily) acknowledges God’s superiority, it still made me flinch. There is only one true God! My heart cries out. It is one of the first truths I ever learned, thanks to fiercely Christian parents, and I am quite devoted to upholding it.

But the fact that God alone is God does not mean that we don’t create and worship lower-case “g” gods on a regular basis. Whether it’s a statue someone carved out of stone or an iPhone with endless scrolling capabilities, we must admit: there are many gods to choose from. But there is only one God who actually deserves our worship.

We’ve taught you this, and at age three, you truly seem to believe in God, his singular worth, and his power. But, you also told me yesterday: “I like Jesus better than God.”

“Oh!” I said, “Jesus and God are the same.”

“But I like Jesus better,” you insisted. Then you smiled, the way you smile whenever we talk about Jesus, as if you want to be wrapped up in his arms forever.

This didn’t bother me. I understood. When we talk to you about God, we emphasize the fact that He is the boss; the One who created the world with the mere booming of His voice. But when we talk to you about Jesus, we talk about what He did on the cross. We talk about forgiveness. And most importantly, we talk about a real man: someone you could hug and hold onto.

The idea of a tangible God is very important to you right now. You love pictures of Jesus. You like the ones in our children’s books where he is depicted as a shepherd, holding a little lamb.

“Am I his little lamb?” you ask us, often.

“Yes,” we assure you, “you are His little lamb.” For Christmas, we bought you a picture of an artist’s rendering of what Jesus might have looked like, holding a lamb on his shoulders. You like to keep this picture by your bed. I remember the picture on my wall, growing up, of Jesus standing outside a door, ready to knock. I always knew that I was the one on the other side of that door.

And although I know there are many opinions out there about whether or not images of Jesus are a good idea, I’ll say this: toddlers cherish them. And I don’t think it’s because they are worshipping a picture. I know I wasn’t. I think they are working out how to grasp an invisible God.

“Jesus is God with skin on,” I tell you, just as my Dad told me.

We grasp who God is by looking at who Jesus was on earth. And who He still is, in heaven, seated at the right hand of God.

At this point in our conversation, you had moved onto other things, asking me to pretend to be a bulldozer who was having your cement truck over for dinner. Your theology is being shaped by these spur-the-moment talks that pop up here and there. They are short, but stunningly deep. Despite our Bible training, your dad and I pray feverishly for wisdom to keep up. And though I believe the Lord gives wisdom generously to those who ask, I continue to feel daily ill-equipped in this colossal honor and task of parenting you.

So I ask God to help me, over and over again. For I, too, am His little lamb.