#strawn

I want to suggest that there is a corollary here for some Christians when they go through a period of pain, trauma or heartache in their lives and subsequently can’t square their experience with their understanding of God. Some individuals give up God all together because they can’t reconcile their previous conceptualization of God (what psychologists commonly call God image or representation) with what they have gone through. Others cling to their original image of God and reframe their understanding of their pain. They may say things like, “God is using this to teach me something”, “I have brought this on myself”, or “If I just have more faith and patience surely God will deliver me.” These individuals can’t be angry with God – they can’t destroy or kill God and subsequently they stay locked in a world of their own projections. The stay stuck in the image of God that they have created (with the help of parents, etc.) unable to see their way clear to a new possibly more accurate image of God. They develop a false self in relationship with a false God.