The following arrived late last week in an e-publication posted by two of my professors:

Various pundits have noted that we create God in our own image. The human tendency is to tailor-make a god that we want to serve.

But the Bible does not accommodate such idolatry. As we've just seen, the sovereign God does not squeeze Himself into the mold of our expectations. He stands apart from our comfortable constructs -- terrifying and terrific at the same time.

We want a "cosmic buddy" or a "heavenly daddy." And, yes, Jesus does call us his "friends," and we can indeed call the Father "Abba." But such intimacy was never intended to make God our marionette.

We'd like to pull His strings and make Him dance -- insist that He heal this person, solve this problem, and fix that relationship. But God will not be controlled or tamed.

We try to reduce the Lord to little more than a supernatural butler, who responds to a nod and the wave of our hand. But what could be further from the truth?

The God who spoke through the burning bush, sent the Egyptian plagues, and ordered the Canaanite "ban" has not changed. He remains incensed by stubborn rebellion and opposed to human sin. Grace may abound, but always in the context of repentance. His love, which grips our hearts, is experienced most strongly by hearts that have first been broken. He redeems the shattered shard.

No, the God of the Bible is not the product of our imaginations. Who would create One so fearsome and so tender at the same time? Yet, as we wrestle with Him at our own Jabbok, He touches and transforms us. And the Unapproachable becomes the Paraclete -- "the One alongside" (see Genesis 32:22-32 and John 14-16).

The Lion, mysteriously and marvelously, sits down with the lambs.