How Do You Picture God?

Have you ever really wanted something? I mean wanted it to the point that you were convinced that you couldn’t be happy without it. Maybe someone else had it and they looked happy and you were convinced that this thing was the key. You had to have it.

I can remember a few times in my life where I’ve felt that way. One of those times, I was about six years old and I saw on the TV a commercial for super secret spy decoder glasses. They were the coolest thing that I had ever seen and I was convinced that I could not go on, my life would not be complete, without these glasses! Now, on the commercial, these glasses could see through walls and light beams came out of the side of them and the kids wearing them were dressed like secret agents and they looked like they were having the time of their lives, I had to have a pair of those glasses!

The best thing was, they were free! All you had to do was send in 10 proofs of purchase from Fruity Pebbles Cereal and $2.99 for shipping. This was a bargain for something that was going to change my life! See, there was a promotion that was going on where you had to find where Fred had hidden the Fruity Pebbles so Barney wouldn’t get them. If you figured it out you would win all sorts of great stuff. The clues to find the hiding spot were on the back of the box and to read them, you had to have super secret spy decoder glasses.

For about a month, I ate Fruity Pebbles non-stop. I wouldn’t let my brother or sister help eat them because then they would want to use my glasses and if they wanted the glasses they could eat their own ten boxes of cereal. Well, finally I had eaten enough and I sent away for the glasses and it was like six weeks later that the package arrived.

My first thought was that the package seemed way too small; it was more of an envelope really. The glasses they showed on TV couldn’t fit into something that size. I tore open the envelope and took out these paper 3-D glasses that looked nothing like I expected, I put them on and I couldn’t see through walls, I didn’t look like a secret agent, I looked life a doofus. And the worst part of all was that the promotion was over and a week before I got my glasses, the commercials started telling you where Fred had hidden the Pebbles so I didn’t even get to play super sleuth and figure it out.

I remember holding those cheap glasses and thinking to myself, “Is this what I had been waiting for?” Is this why I’ve been checking the mailbox seven times a day for six weeks? Is that all there is? Is this it?” It wasn’t what I expected and it wasn’t going to change my life.

All of us have expectations of what we really want in life, of what we simply have to have and can’t live without. As we grow up, they change from the things that we wanted as kids, but there are still things that we are placing our hope in to make us happy. For some of us it’s jobs, for some of us its homes, or money or relatoinships. We go to great lengths to get what we want and to be where we want to be and often when we get there, we feel cheated because what we were seeking after doesn’t turn out to be what we thought it would be. It doesn’t bring us the happiness we were looking for, it doesn’t change our lives and it doesn’t fill the desire in our hearts for meaning and purpose in life.

All of us were created with a longing to know why? Why we were put here, what the point of life is, what our purpose and reason for living is. What will bring us joy? And we look for answers in a lot of different ways. For some in here this morning, you’ve found those answers in a relationship with Jesus Christ. For others, you may not have turned to Christ, but this longing has produced a curiosity about religion and God. You want to believe that there is a God, or at the very least that there is something more to this life than just what we see before our eyes on a regular basis. You hope that there’s a heaven that you can go to after you’ve lived your life on Earth. Everyone, at one time or another has pondered the larger than life issues of what else is out there. People’s curiosity has led them to many different conclusions and to many different ideas about who God is or about what He’s like. Most people have a mental picture of what they think God is like.