Positive Faith in Scripture: God’s Dominant Characteristics

“But you, my Lord,

are a God of compassion and mercy;

you are very patient and full of faithful love.”

Psalm 86:15, CEB

Thinking about faith in positive terms is not just about how we view ourselves- it also has quite a lot to do with how we view God.

Many struggle to believe in God as scripture presents him and as God speaks of himself in scripture. This is because preachers for the last 100 years or so have treated God’s “rare” qualities as if they are “dominant” qualities in order to motivate people into joining churches, or making decisions, or whatever the case may be. Regardless of the specifics, this has largely been done to make the preacher look good and has little to do with God or the person on the receiving end of the message.

Psalm 86 echoes the most-often repeated claim about God in the Bible- that he is compassionate and merciful, and patient and loving. These are his dominant traits. They are the ones most prominently on display “most” of the time (it generally takes hundreds of years to get God angry).

God spends more of his time lamenting the fact that his own people can’t seem to embody these same traits- compassion, mercy, patience, and love- than he does being angry at them over it.

Because of your past, it is likely quite hard to believe that God is the things Psalm 86 says. But, if you did believe them…what would that change for you?

Which World Do You Want to Inhabit?

In her book Mindset, Carol Dweck says this:

When you enter a mindset, you enter a new world. In one world - the world of fixed traits - success is about proving you’re smart or talented. Validating yourself. In the other - the world of changing qualities - it’s about stretching yourself to learn something new. Developing yourself. In one world, failure is about having a setback. Getting a bad grade. Losing a tournament. Getting fired. Getting rejected. It means you’re not smart or talented. In the other world, failure is about not growing. Not reaching for the things you value. It means you’re not fulfilling your potential. In one world, effort is a bad thing. It, like failure, means you’re not smart or talented. If you were, you wouldn’t need effort. In the other world effort is what makes you smart or talented. You have a choice. Mindsets are just beliefs. They’re powerful beliefs, but they’re just something in your mind, and you can change your mind.

Which world do you want to inhabit? Stop. Pause. REALLY think about this.

The last few years have been a real wake up call for me. I’ve had to think and consider: how could people I respect, love and admire have such different perspectives on the world in which we live? I have friends all over the place politically, theologically, and economically. It’s been so good and hard and required so much effort to stretch myself, to make a choice to value the MINDSET of others. And the more I practice this, the more sensitive I become to when it is not practiced. Here’s an example. Last week I got my hair cut (yippee vaccines and businesses that practice rigid protocols for Covid-19)! Because of the distancing and limitations on numbers of folks in the salon it was easy to hear what another client was sharing with her stylist. She was talking about all those pastors who were so lazy as to not figure out how to open up their churches on Sunday morning, including her own. It turns out, I’m her pastor. She waxed on about how the least the church could have done was open up for parking lot worship. After all, she lamented, the church near her house did that - why couldn’t hers? She had a mindset, and I totally appreciated hearing it. Here’s why.

When we came to a screeching halt a year ago, we started scrambling. Someone volunteered to help create a nice outside space where small groups could gather. I had always wanted one of those spaces pre-pandemic so I was ALL IN. Unfortunately, the office condominium association was not. Nor were they keen on parking lot church. Because, you see, unlike a church who owns their parking lot, we have to get permission for such things and permission is not easily granted. I think it would be fair to say that without a MINDSET shift, it would be easy to get annoyed at listening to someone who you love call you lazy.

But I’ve been practicing the SHIFT. And what I actually learned was this: Teresa, sometimes you expect people to be mind readers. It never occurred to me that someone might think I was lazy or that I would not go to any lengths to keep our community together. What a great shift for me to realize that this is not true. In the future, I hope I will remember to be more open about our limitations, instead of assuming I am protecting people from the annoying details of being a pastor in the middle of a pandemic.