What do we REALLY believe about God?

I’m sure we can all list off several attributes of God - He is forgiving, He is our provider, our defender, and our healer. He is all knowing, all powerful, and ever present with us. But how many of those things do we REALLY believe - do we experientially KNOW?

I’m finding in my own life that there is a gap between what I intellectually believe about God and what I actually live out in my day to day existence.

This is a concept I talk about in the BUILD method - how the things we truly believe are the things we live out. Laura Sandretti, in her book “Believe Deeper”, calls them abstract beliefs and core beliefs. Abstract beliefs are things that we think are true and sound great, but we don’t necessarily live them out. Core beliefs are those beliefs that we do live out in our day to day lives.

When we spend time journaling about the issues we’re struggling with, sometimes what we find isn’t necessarily a blatant lie, but simply a belief that is abstract. It hasn’t made it from our head into our heart.

That isn’t something to beat ourselves up about. It’s all part of the normal sanctification process.

How do we move beliefs from being abstract to core? God frequently uses life circumstances to do that for us. We find ourselves in a situation that challenges us - do we really believe that God will provide? Do we really believe that God is faithful? Do we really see Him as our loving heavenly Father?

I have homeschooled my three kids, and in the process, have learned about different educational philosophies. With some of the school subjects we covered, such as math, we used a mastery based approach. I had my kids fully master addition, for example, before moving on to subtraction, and so on. Other subjects used a more spiral approach. In science, we might learn the very basics of a cell one year, then move on to other topics. The next year, we circle back around and learn more in depth about a cell, and so on. Each year, we would cover many of the same topics, just more in depth each time we covered it again.

With my personal tendency toward anxiety and catastrophic thinking, I worry that God is going to use the mastery approach with me. In my head, that looks like having some terrible trial enter my life in order to teach me once and for all to rely on Him, or trust Him fully, or see Him as my provider. It’s going to happen all in one major catastrophe and it’s going to be extremely painful and difficult.

That could happen, but I think more often than not, God uses the spiral approach. He nudges us and stretches us a bit in one area and we do some growing, then He lets off and we move on to other things. Then it comes back around again with maybe some stronger stretching, or in a different way… It can be uncomfortable and challenging, but not necessarily catastrophic.

Getting back to the BUILD method, when we spend time in reflection, it can point us to where God is currently stretching us. Which abstract beliefs or lies is He working on moving from our intellect to our daily experience? And how can we cooperate with Him on that?

For me, God right now is working on reframing my view of Him and how I perceive that He deals with me. I can tend to assume that everything He does in my life is going to difficult and painful. (I haven’t figured out the source of that particular lie, yet!) But He is a good, gentle Father, who deals with me in mercy and kindness.

How about you? What are some of the themes that resurface in your life? What is God teaching you about Himself? What beliefs is He moving from your head to your heart? And how can you cooperate with Him in that?