Personality of God

I think I often forget that God is a person. I grew up seeing God as very complex equation. Most of this belief derived from the idea that God never changes. In that sense, if someone were to ask God for, let’s say, rain, 3000 years ago, and if I were to ask for it today, He would answer the same. This seemed logical to me and it made it easy to say view God as some kind of machine. This idealism got shattered, however, when I look at Abraham persuading God’s heart¹. If God were not at all changing, you would not be able to change His mind. Seeing as these two things are contradictory, and the Bible is never contradictory, I have to reexamine how I am interpreting God’s word. Could it be possible that God not changing has more to do with His overall heart? That He will never stop loving, He will always have compassion, He will always chase after His creation? In that sense, could it be possible that God actually has favorites? I think back to the creation story and God creating the Heavens and the Earth. When we look at the word for Heaven, the author of Genesis is actually referring to all that is outside our atmosphere. I just imagine God moving through our universe, through our galaxies, and clusters of galaxies, adding stars here and there wherever He sees pleasing. Seeing as God has personality, I really believe that He may have clusters of stars that he likes better than others, not saying that he doesn’t like His creation, just that He likes some better than others. Favoritism doesn’t seem to be a popular concept among Christians, yet I feel like those that lived in Moses’ time must have felt that God favored Moses, and God picked Noah and his family, so God must pick and choose. This, for me, places God into a different light. Instead of Him being some kind of crazy equation that sees all things equal, I see a God of personality, a true person. In this sense, I feel that I can act like Abraham when he changes God’s mind: that my prayer can actually make a difference on God’s actions. That is a powerful prayer. This means that even on the things that seem destined for a certain outcome can be altered by prayers. This also means that when I look at God, just like I will never be able to completely figure out anyone’s every thought and likes and dislikes, I will never be completely satisfied with my knowledge of Him. There will always be a deeper path to go, more to know, more to search. When I went out on the retreat I realized that God, being a personality, wanted me to just get to know Him. He didn’t want me to try to figure out some equation, just wanted me to learn Him. This is a God worth chasing.

¹Genesis 18:16, NIV