The God My Life Believes

24 “The man who had received one talent also approached and said, ‘Master, I know you. You’re a harsh man…’” Matthew 25:24

The servant’s actions weren’t the root problem. His view of the master was.

Lately I’ve been asking myself a different question when I open Scripture. Not “What do I believe about God?” I know how to answer that one. I’ve preached those answers for years.

The harder question is this: What picture of God is shaping the way I live?

Because some days my pace, my anxiety, even the way I pray, show something I would never say out loud. They show I’m living like God is harsh and hard to please. Like His approval rises and falls with my performance. Like if I don’t get everything right I’ve somehow disappointed Him.

We rarely live from the theology we can articulate. We live from the theology we’ve quietly assumed.

Some of those assumptions weren’t formed by Scripture as much as by things I heard so often that I never thought to question them. Following Jesus has meant learning to unlearn them.

I didn’t reason my way there. I drifted there through quiet assumptions. My days sometimes reveal a God my Bible never does.

Following Jesus isn’t only about changing habits. It’s about letting Him dismantle the false pictures of God I’ve carried for years, even the respectable ones.

The servant buried what he’d been given because he misunderstood his master. I wonder what parts of my own life stay buried because I’ve trusted a version of God Jesus never revealed.

Lord, keep exposing the places where my life believes something my theology denies. Teach me to know You as Jesus has shown You, and let that truth reshape how I live.