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  • Keep Breathing
    • Keep Breathing: Introduction
    • Part 1
      • Stay Grounded
      • Keep Breathing
      • Gather Information
      • Feel What You Feel
      • Take in Support
      • Pray
      • Practice Surrender
      • Notice Your Reactivity
    • Part 2
      • Realize What Is Happening to You
        Is Happening To Everyone in Your Life
      • Take Inventory
      • Let Go of Shame
      • Extend Grace
      • Show Up
      • Learn Vulnerability
      • Make Amends
      • Stay Present in Times of Waiting
    • Part 3
      • Be Still and Keep Moving
      • Know You Are Not Alone
      • Ask for Healing
      • Seek Guidance
      • Meditate
      • Pursue Peace
      • Acknowledge Death
      • Grieve
    • Part 4
      • Express Gratitude
      • Stay Open to Joy
      • Make Room for Laughter
      • Celebrate Each Day
      • Let Yourself Be Carried
      • Be Who You Are
      • Know That You Are Loved
  • Desperate Hope
    • Shocked by the Diagnosis
    • Responding to Feelings of Fear, Anxiety, and Sadness
    • Ordering Desperate Hope
  • TLC Leader’s Manual
    • Group Leader Resources
      • Introduction to TLC
      • Meeting Format
      • Notes to Group Leaders
      • When a Group Member Dies
    • Strong Feelings
      • Understanding our Feelings
      • The Emotional Roller Coaster
      • Living With Fear
      • Dealing With Depression
      • Living with Anger
      • Grieving Our Losses
      • The Experience of Gratitude
      • Celebration and Joy
      • Experiencing Peace
      • Finding Hope
    • Challenges to Faith
      • Stretching Our Faith
      • Prayer
      • Examining Our View of God
      • Healing Prayer
      • The Lord Is With Us
      • God’s Healing Presence
    • Changing Perspectives
      • The Seasons Of Survival
      • Living Sanely in An Insane World
      • One Day At A Time
      • Positive Thinking
      • Accepting Our Need for Help
      • Building Friendships
      • Perspectives on Treatment
      • Coping With Pain
      • Repairing Our Self Esteem
  • Contact

Examining Our View of God

“What comes into our minds when we think about God is the most important thing about us. For this reason the gravest question before the Church is always God himself, and the most portentous fact about any man is not what he at a given time may say or do, but what he in his deep heart conceives God to be like.” (A.W.Tozer, The Knowledge of the Holy.)

“Most of us developed our concepts and feelings about our heavenly Father from our earthly mothers and fathers, and these feelings become intertwined and confused. But the guilty and contradictory feelings are not the voice of God. They are often the continuing voice of Mother or Dad or Brother of Sister, or something internalized that puts pressure on us. Most of our basic patterns for relating come from the patterns of the relationships of our family.” (David Seamands, Healing for Damaged Emotions).

According to Tozer, our images of God are critically important to our spiritual well being. And according to Seamands, these images of God are formed to a large extent by our experiences in our family.

Because none of us lived in perfect families, we all have some distortions about what God is like. In times of crises, like the crisis created by a diagnosis of cancer, these distortions can cause spiritual uncertainty, because they get in the way of our ability to talk honestly with God or to trust God’s love for us.

Our images of God are our mental pictures of God. These mental pictures are more powerful than abstract ideas and doctrinal statements, because they are rooted in powerful emotional experiences. Our images of God impact how we feel about God and how we behave in response to God.

Scripture uses images to paint many powerful pictures of God. We can see God as the King, the Good Shepherd, the Mother Eagle, the Rock, the Fortress, the Compassionate Father, the Relentless Lover, the Creator, the Liberator, the Comforter.

An important aspect of discovering peace and hope in the midst of our struggle with cancer is to begin to exchange our distorted images of God, which came in part from negative family experiences, for biblically accurate images of God.

I pray that you, being rooted and established
in love, may have power to grasp
how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ.
Ephesians 3:17


Questions for Discussion – Session 1

1. What negative images do you sometimes have of God?

2. What do you think is the source of these negative images?

3. What are some of your favorite Biblical images of God? What significance do these images have for you?


Questions for Discussion – Session 2

Read Psalm 103.

1. What images of God does the author present?

2. Which one of these images stands out to you?

3. How could seeing God in this way be helpful to you this week?

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TLC Leader’s Manual

A photocopy-ready version of the TLC Leader's Manual is now available for download. If you are thinking about starting a Cancer Support Group, this might be helpful!

PDF version

MSWord version

Quote of the moment

"Jesus accepted suffering and rejected shame. He “endured the cross and scorned the shame” (Hebrews 12:2). We tend to reject the suffering—we deny it, run from it, tune it out—but we tend to embrace the shame as if it were the truth. Shame, however, is a lie. None of us is ever “less than.” None of us is unlovable, beyond repair, or worthless. We are loved and cherished by a redeeming, healing, saving God."
Juanita Ryan

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