I have a confession: sometimes I view my relationship to God like a poorly written and badly delivered joke. Where am I in this equation? I am the punchline, of course.

This is very àpropos, given my penchence for humor. If humor was a calling or a spiritual gift, you can bet I'd be constantly on the prayer hotline asking for that one.  Humor can defuse potentially _____ situations.  It's also a great defense mechanism, one of many in my arsenal. However, it's a lot less funny when you are the butt of the joke.Specifically, an evil Genie joke.

The evil Genie joke is a standard in many jokesters' repertoire: someone comes across a magic lamp, and behold! It contains a genie waiting to grant them three wishes. (Except for wishing for more wishes. Apparently all the Genies caught on to that gig a long time ago.) So, the ke their wishes, and the genie grants his or her wish, exactly as worded. A man asks for a wife 30 years his junior, so instead of making his wife younger, the genie ages the man 30 years.

Like the poor sap who's the butt of the Genie jokes, so I find myself sometimes with God, thinking He's given me exactly what I prayed for, but in a very undesirable manner. People often joke that you shouldn't ask God for patience, because He'll give you situations to build your patience. I think I might be taking this concept one step further, in thinking that He is punishing me for praying amiss by giving me the very thing for which I prayed.

It hit me that I was viewing things this way, when I thought back over a specific situation with a ministry team I served on for many years. When my husband and I first joined the ministry I had to turn from another dream of mine to go to graduate school, and so I told God, "Fine. But if we are going to join up, I want to go <em>all the way</em>." I'm pretty sure I had no idea  what "all the way" meant at the time, but I am sure I didn't think it meant what actually transpired over those next few years. I ended up the assistant to the head of the ministry, sort of in the "inner circle", and privy to all sorts of information. At first it was an honor, but that didn't last long. My boss was a very difficult person to work for, and on top of that, my job was mind-numbingly boring most of the time. I was essentially a walking appointment calendar and message service. I didn't enjoy my job in the least, but everyone told me it was my "calling" and that only I could do it.

In the end, after much prayer and soul-searching, I came to the conclusion that God couldn't really desire me to continue in a job I hated for the rest of my foreseeable life, and that the leadership were wrong. So, we decided it was time for me to leave my position. Shortly after that, my husband and I got the right foot of fellowship out the door of the ministry, and lost relationship with those we thought were our friends for all those years. It was painful.

When I look back on this, sometimes I smirk and think that God gave me exactly what I asked for: to go all the way. In this case, apparently <em>all the way</em> meant being dragged through the hoops of the ministry until we left or were kicked out. I don't always view it this way. Sometimes I think I simply missed God's will altogether, or missed His timing to leave sooner, and sometimes I am simply thankful for His great mercy in releasing from there. But, often I drift back into viewing God as an Evil Genie, granting a fool's poorly worded wish.

At some point we all caricature God, creating Him into our own little Golden Calf, and idol of our choosing. Some, especially those who had cruel or abusive fathers, think of God as an angry father or  a punitive taskmaster. Others view God as an aloof spiritual being, one who never intervenes on earth; conversely, some people picture God as a cruel puppet master, causing and controlling the fates of every suffering soul. Those who are a tad more optimistic pray to God, the cosmic ATM machine, waiting to indulge our every whim or fancy, like a shiny, new SUV or a new pair of Jimmy Choos.

I usually assume these caricatures of God reveal more about our own character and nature than that of God. If this is entirely true, I don't think I want to dissect what my view of God as an Evil Genie reveals about myself. But, maybe even this is too simplistic; perhaps our caricatures do reveal certain aspects of God, just not the whole picture. There are examples, particularly in the old testament, where God gave the people what they wanted, even when it was not His will for them (e.g. granted the Nation of Israel a King to rule over them).

So, what do you think: Do you see God in His image or one of your own creation? Are our caricatures of God merely a view into our own characters, or do they reveal partial aspects of the nature of God?

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