What is Your Image of God?

some thoughts and some helpful reflection questions

Sep 12, 2024

Despite doing some ministry for most of my life and pursuing certificates and degrees, I hesitate to consider myself an expert in matters of the human heart or soul. However, though I am far from a ministry expert, this has been an intense year of hands-on ministry in a different way than in previous years, and I’ve learned a lot. My work as a spiritual director (in training) and as a chaplain often concerns what people believe about God. Who is God to that person? How did they develop their image?

Why I am thinking about the image of God

When I ask people I chaplain to tell me about God, they often assume there is this one correct answer and that we all believe in the same image. They assume I would expect them to have a right or wrong answer or a particular way of thinking about God. When I ask people in spiritual direction to tell me about God, they usually understand that our images of God change and deepen. What keeps me pondering our images of God is when anyone I listen to can only envision an unkind God, even though and sometimes because they’ve come from a Christian tradition. I can empathize because I did not always think God was kind or good, even though I was supposed to believe he was.

Why do people I chaplain have different answers than people I direct?

You may or may not be familiar with the stages of human development and what happens as humans grow, but James Fowler began to apply that knowledge to faith. His work led Janet Hagberg and Robert Guelich to write The Critical Journey: Stages in the Life of Faith, which is about stages of growth in the faith journey. The image below is from their book.

I want to write a post explaining each stage more deeply,1 but for now, it’s important to know that Stages 1-3 are what most people in churches today experience. You might be surprised to learn that Guelich and Hagberg theorize via their research in faith stages that most pastors don’t move past Stage 3 in their faith. Some churches teach that Stage 3 is the end of the line - as far as one can go.

That’s because Stage 4 is often a place of questions, doubt, and sometimes crisis. Frequently, in many evangelical spaces, we are not taught to embrace the work God wants to do in us through doubt and challenging times. Often associated with Stage 4 is a wall, which, similarly to Stage 4, is a place of wrestling with God. Only God brings you to it, and only he will get you through it.

In my role as Chaplain, people I meet are usually in an earlier stage of faith or don’t have faith (Stages 0-3). In my role as Spiritual Director, people I meet come because they want to go deeper with God, move the needle on their idea of God, break through the wall phase, or have someone compassionate who understands their need for something that the church doesn’t often offer (Stages 4-6). The stage they are in determines how they image and imagine God.

I read this book in grad school and was assigned again last year for spiritual direction training, and it is already assigned again this upcoming year. While not necessarily a thrilling read, it’s comforting for people in Stage 4. Those in this stage often feel alone in their faith journeys, and it is helpful to identify that some of what they are experiencing, even to the point of deconstruction, is really about growth and going deeper with God, as well as recognize that they are not alone in their wrestling.

How we form our images of God

Our images of God come from Bible stories, false narratives we’ve learned about God through church doctrines, our upbringing and familial stories, and many other things. As a young girl, I would hear people tell me that my relationship with my parents, particularly with my dad, would affect my relationship with God. I often dismissed these ideas, thinking I could handle my concept of God on my own and choose what I believed (in my younger years, I thought of myself as superhuman). I later learned that it wasn’t as simple as I thought.

Since those days, much advancement has occurred in neuroscience (brain science), and we now know how our attachment to our parents affects our lived experiences in our bodies. What is written in the brain is what our brain wants to continue to do or believe. Amazingly, the brain can change and be rewritten. One might say it is part of God’s master plan for us to have this capability. After all, the Bible was written years before these break-throughs, and it teaches us to put off vices and put on virtues (See Ephesians and Colossians), which is similar to neuroplasticity work.

Johns Hopkins’ research found that our attachment styles develop with parent-infant interaction in the first eighteen months of life.2 How our parents respond to us as infants defines our attachment style and how we will attach or respond to relationships throughout our lives. Attachment styles are secure or insecure, with insecure broken down into three categories: avoidant, anxious, and disorganized. Adults often pass along our attachment style to our children as we become parents, through no fault of our own or the children. Insecure attachment does not mean there is no sincere parent-child love. Insecure attachment can occur even in familial environments where parents love and want the best for their children.

Our attachment style informs our thoughts about God and our image of him, and no amount of correct Christian belief will change these learned patterns of behavior on our own. However, all hope is not lost. We can change our attachment pattern to “earned secure attachment,” but we cannot will it to happen or control how long it will take.

Curt Thompson says, “Transformation requires a collaborative interaction, with one person emphatically listening and responding to the other so that the speaker has the experience, perhaps for the first time, of feeling felt by another.”3 According to Thompson, the listener helps the storyteller by validating and by asking curious questions, which in turn helps neural pathways to be changed.4 Even beyond Thompson’s thoughts on compassionate listening being able to help us change, my life story is evidence that change is possible simply because God loves you and remains steadfast in his pursuit of you.

How this helped me

Back in 2017, I self-published a Bible study on Romans 8. I was desperate to change, so I was beginning to learn how Christians can genuinely change. After I wrote the study, I taught it in my church and later in a group online. One thing I taught in my Bible study was how Jesus experienced fear leading up to his death on the cross. Another thing I taught was that Romans 8 means to assure and reassure us of our salvation in Christ.

In my in-person and online groups, I noticed that about half of the people found it easy to believe in assurance, and the other half found it challenging. Similarly, some participants felt that fear is sinful, challenging my teaching about emotions and the Christian life. Some found believing God is loving to be easy. Others, like myself, found it challenging and more complex. They knew what they knew about God, but no self-flagellation or attempt to force the will could make them feel tangibly different about God.

In retrospect, I was seeing different attachment styles emerge. Though I am not sure about specifics, my attachment style was insecure, which made it hard for me to attach to and be secure with God. All along my story, God was pursuing me and working in me and through me toward an earned secure attachment, and I began to see movement toward this end during the writing and teaching of that study. As I researched, I first read Dallas Willard, whose works are often transformative and healing.

Sometime between 2017 and now, I moved from an insecure attachment to an “earned secure attachment” with God. Going to grad school for spiritual formation deepened the work God had begun in me and gave me more healing. That work continues as I study spiritual direction. When you achieve “earned secure attachment,” you can start to believe good or better things about God. Your image of God can be good, even if you doubt, suffer, or endure hard times. You can feel at home and relaxed in God’s presence or in knowing he is with you, which wasn’t always the case for me.

Where you are is where God is

Throughout your growth in Christ, your stage of faith, background, and story will determine the type of images you have of God. As I often reiterate, spiritual formation is slow work. Just because God is good doesn’t mean we will believe he is good.

Though I’m an incomplete picture of the nature of God, it is my job as both chaplain and spiritual director (and wife/mom) to love those I meet as I believe God would if he were in my body. Some of the primary ways I do this is through listening, seeing, validating, and being curious. I do not know that I come close to what Jesus would do if he were here, but I trust that Jesus is in me, working beyond my limitations. I mostly hold space for people to come to God where they currently are because God is where they are, even if they can’t yet see it. I can see, witness, and mirror back so that sometimes others can better see themselves. Of course, what I most want for those I meet is for them to believe God is the best person they could imagine. I truly believe that knowing the Trinitarian Father, Son, and Holy Spirit is the best good for everyone.

So, what’s your image of God?

Reflection questions and tools

Get a pen/pencil, some paper, your tablet or computer, or some drawing paper if you want to be creative and draw your responses. Work through as many or as few as you want, but start with #1, work down, skip questions as needed for time (#6-12 are pick-and-choose questions), and end with #13 through #15.

Where are you? [not where you wish you were]
What is your current image of God? [feel free to draw, describe, or imagine]
Is your image positive or negative? [Attempt to do this with your most nonjudgmental posture toward yourself. Refrain from scolding yourself on what your image is. Allow yourself to respond as truthfully as you are able. And then be curious.]
If you have a negative image, what would change if you could assume something better about God as he is to you? [Sometimes, imagination is tricky for some people, so I remind you to be gentle and kind to yourself. There is no grade.]
How does your image make you think, feel, or desire?
What do you want to be true about God?
How could God be better than what you envision?
Where are you noticing beauty in your life?
What object would you choose to represent your relationship with God right now?
Where do you find peace?
How would things be different if you could believe that you are the most beloved person, full of belonging and purpose?5
How do you want to be loved?
What do you want to say to God about your image of who he or she is? [I am giving you freedom to think of God as a woman or a mother if need be. God as mother has been a healing and helpful image for me.]
What is God’s invitation to you?
Write your response directly to God as a prayer, paying attention to thoughts, feelings, longings, and desires.

Do you need a compassionate presence to witness your life with God?

If you want to schedule a spiritual direction session or explore the idea (near or far), check out my calendar here.

If you took the time to do the reflection exercise and you are willing to share, come back and leave me a comment to let me know what you noticed and learned about yourself and God. Or if you would like to share privately with me alone, hit reply, and your response will only come to me. How was that for you? 🙂