“Then the man and his wife heard the voice of the LORD God walking in the garden in the breeze of the day…” (Gen 3:8). A Muslim friend and I were discussing the Biblical account of the Creation story. When she got to this verse, she looked up at me. “This is weird,” she said, shaking her head. “This is different from our story.” I asked her what she meant, and she explained to me that it was impossible to imagine God walking in the garden where the man and woman were. “It’s strange to say they heard his voice. God is not a person.”
I had never given much thought to this passage or what it communicated. In fact, I began to think about how I have known or “seen” God. What are the images have I held in my mind?
Growing up, I listened to a set of cassette tapes that had the music and stories of “Psalty the Singing Songbook.” I knew the songs and scripts by heart. Psalty was a big blue book of hymns and songs that pastored a group of kids through various adventures and challenges. The only picture I had of him was from the illustrated leaflet in the cassette covers, but to me, his voice of wisdom formed my view of God. I have a distinct, early memory (I’m sure I was no more than 5 years old) of a dream that God had come to visit me in my bedroom – in the form of a glowing, translucent book-man. (Stop reading, if you need to, and have a chuckle. I certainly did as I wrote those sentences.) I don’t remember if He said anything to me in that dream, but I do remember feeling a certain sense of peace, knowing He was with me. I don’t think I told anyone about that experience, but the image is clear in my mind.
My childhood image of God later took on another form: the Shephard from the illustrated children’s version of Hinds’ Feet on High Places. The beautiful images of the Jesus-figure as Shephard and, later in the book, King, remain with me to this day.
The Old Testament tells us from the very first page that God created man in His image. Throughout the pages of Scripture, we see His intention to love His creation and restore unbroken fellowship with His sons and daughters. But my Muslim friends have an entirely different worldview. Trying to picture God is forbidden. How do you think that you could hold some image of the Almighty in your finite mind? In Islam, man was created not for love, but to serve God and to be tested.
How difficult it is, then, for Muslims to consider the Incarnation. How could it be that God took on the form of a human? Just like it’s impossible for my friend to picture God walking with Adam in the garden, it’s impossible for her to accept that He took on flesh and made His dwelling among humans. Yet Scripture tells us that Jesus “is the image of the invisible God” (Col 1:15). When Jesus came to earth, the invisible God became visible.
When I think about my childhood images of God, I notice that they were very relatable for me (you might have a hard time relating to a glowing giant book, but for me the image was comforting!). Jesus, in His humanity, allows us to relate to God on a personal level. It’s not surprising that many Muslims who have dreams that lead to faith in Christ dream of encountering the Person of Jesus and having a sense that He is divine. Last year I was talking with a believer from a Muslim background who told me of his experience in coming to faith. He had a vision of Jesus on the cross. He told me, “As I looked at Him, I knew in my heart: that man is God.”
Today I am praying that my Muslim friends will have dreams and visions of Jesus, and that through that experience they will recognize that God is near and longs for broken fellowship to be restored. In this time of Ramadan, I believe that “God intend[s] that they would seek Him and perhaps reach out for Him and find Him, though He is not far from each one of us” (Acts 17:27). Let’s pray together that Muslims will find Jesus, the image of the invisible God.