A. W. Tozer once wrote “What comes into the mind when we think of God is the most important thing about us. We tend, by a secret law of the soul, to move toward our mental image of God.” You may or may not agree with this being the most important thing (C.S. Lewis voiced strong dissent) but either way, what we believe about God plays a major role in how we experience him, especially when it comes to our sin.

For my part, I have spent most of my life believing God walked around with a measuring stick and a batch of fresh lightning bolts. As soon as I failed to measure up I got zapped. I felt alone in this because I saw others seeming to live zap free lives. Yet the Bible told me I, and others, could not escape committing sin. Paul couldn’t even escape it (Rom 7:19). What gives? I couldn’t make sense of it but I figured there must be some way to live a sinless, zap free life. I determined in the “wisdom of my youth” (insert sarcasm here) that the goal of the Christian life was to stop sinning.

But the goal was unreachable. Try as I might I could never achieve sinless perfection. Not only that, living with this unattainable goal did not lead to what Christ came for, for us to have “life and have it abundantly” (John 10:10). Instead it led to a lot of work, a lot of failure and a slow progression to despair.

What was wrong? My mental image of God. It is true that he hates and punishes sin. Intolerance of sin and censure are part of who he is, but not the main part. If the main part of God was hating sin and delivering proverbial lightning bolts then when Adam and Eve ate the fruit in the garden that would have been the end of it.

But it wasn’t.

After the moment of consumption had passed there were no lightning bolts. Instead there was the voice of God calling out “Where are you?” (Gen 1:9) This was no case of God-sized amnesia. It was God pursuing, wooing his children out of their sin and into his arms. Yes, there were consequences, horrible ones, but my point is that amid their sin, God remained relational.

Over the years, God has showed me my image of him and my definition of sin were too one-dimensional.  God is more than a divine castigator and sin goes further than breaking God’s law. God is first and foremost my Heavenly Father who wants a moment by moment relationship with me. He is more than this, but he is not less. I also needed to include a relational aspect in my definition of sin. Sin is breaking God’s law yes, but what does sin do? It separates my from my God.

I no longer strive to live sinlessly because this corrected image of God and sin have given me a new goal. My goal now is to have quicker detection of my sin and quicker recovery from it*. It means recognizing my sinful patterns and behaviors sooner, repenting and leaning back into all of who God is. It also means that as my life marches on, the time I spend wandering away from his arms due to sin get shorter and shorter.

Why do I write this now? Because I have just experienced yet another opportunity to improve on my detection of and recovery from sin.  But these days my sinful choices no longer conjure up visions of forthcoming lightning bolts (though the consequences of sin at times are still very painful). Instead I hear him calling out “where are you?” again and again until I return to his arms.

*I did not come up with this and am forever indebted to Louie Konopka for his wisdom and words here.