What mental image do you use for God?

[Dak]

I guess I must be different. I don't have a mental image I use for God. To me He is God and God alone.

I worship Him, praise Him, thank Him, love Him, obey Him (well most of the time, being the sinner I am...) and work for Him.

When I talk to Him I don't have a picture or an image of Him in my mind.

When I meditate, I meditate on scripture, and it's many and diverse messages. It helps me if I begin to formulate a lesson in my mind around the scripture, because then I am jumping all over the bible.

But no image of God as such.

Blessings

WOW - I AM SO GLAD you expressed this... When I first saw the thread, I felt so strange - I do NOT have an image of God... I have a feeling of Him - but no physical image... I'm glad at someone else has the same .... I've always wondered why I don't have some image of Him in my mind....

DITTO!!! i have no "image of him either.

I'm glad others have no mental image of God because as others have said, I tried hard to think of one but I do not have one either.

Perhaps "mental image" are the wrong words....

How about considering who and what he is in our lives? And each person can have several answers, depending on the needs that God has fulfilled in him or her.

David himself has many names for God: Shepherd. Rock. Stronghold. Salvation. Etc.

For many he is a Father. A Friend. A Brother.

For the sinner he is the Savior. For the lonely he is a Friend. For the weak he is Strength. For the afflicted he is Comfort. And so forth.

And for me, one who had been rejected many times in love, one of my special names for God is... Lover.

[nebula]

I think in visuals. Prayer is more meaningful, more connecting, when I vision myself talking with the Lord. When I do that though, it seems like the Lord has more control on what I image than I do, for the scene tends to be different and how I am interacting with Him seems different, and sometimes I see myself with Jesus and sometimes I see myself with the Holy Spirit.

I don't think we should be afraid to "see" God in our mind's eye.

[Dak]

I think in visuals. Prayer is more meaningful, more connecting, when I vision myself talking with the Lord. When I do that though, it seems like the Lord has more control on what I image than I do, for the scene tends to be different and how I am interacting with Him seems different, and sometimes I see myself with Jesus and sometimes I see myself with the Holy Spirit.

I don't think we should be afraid to "see" God in our mind's eye.

It looks like this depends on the person then....

[LeonaS]

We're taught that we're created in His image. Somehow I don't envision God as having "human" form. Rather I have a vision of Him as vaguely formed like us, but more ethereal and full of light, beautiful to see, eminating love for us. Wow, this is tougher than I thought to put into words.

[ayin jade]

Im a very visual person, yet I have no image of God. No image of Jesus either. No image of heaven lol. I know the Lord is more than I can ever imagine, and the same for heaven, so perhaps my mind is just content not to have images there.

[Fraught]

if i meditate on God, it's the picture from the book of revelation. as far as i know, this is the only place we are given a picture of what God looks like: you remember:

And in the midst of the seven candlesticks one like unto the Son of man, clothed with a garment down to the foot, and girt about the paps with a golden girdle. His head and his hairs were white like wool, as white as snow; and his eyes were as a flame of fire; And his feet like unto fine brass, as if they burned in a furnace; and his voice as the sound of many waters. And he had in his right hand seven stars: and out of his mouth went a sharp twoedged sword: and his countenance was as the sun shineth in his strength.

anyway, it's the only image that i wouldn't be afraid to imagine.

[nebula]

Just a note: when I picture Jesus, I'm not exactly seeing a face. But we do know He has a human form now.

The only way I can picture God the Father is what I picture when reading Ezekiel's vision (at the beginning of the book).

When I picture the Holy Spirit, I see Him as an undefined form.

[Botz]

What mental image do you use when you meditate on the beauty of God?

Or as the thread title states..."What mental image do you use for G-d?"

There is probably a bit of difference between the two questions, but I will use the latter.

For myself...when I experienced the rushing of G-ds Spirit upon me...then from that moment on, I knew beyond a shadow of doubt, that 'He was' and that was the paradigm shift in my outlook on life, and the very way the person inside this mortal body of mine thought about every aspect of life...everything from then on was imbued with the knowledge of G-d....and every thought was infused with the understanding that I had an eternal destiny due to what had been accomplished for me through the life, death and resurrection of Jesus the Messiah of Israel and Saviour of the World.

I too am a graphically visual person, and to be quite frank, I have seen the L-rd often, and looked Him in the eyes...

"How so?" you probably ask.

I have seen aspects of Him in numerous brothers and sisters with whom I have fellowshipped.

As for how I might personally visualise the One in whom I have believed but never seen, I actually visualise Him through the many titles, statements and descriptions attributed to Him in the Scriptures, and although I do not have what you might call an actual picture of a specific individual, I have the strongest of images framed by the Words of G-d that suffuse my soul and present to me the reality of the Glory that belongs to Him alone.

He is to me:-

The King of Kings and L-rd of L-rds

My Saviour, my Anchor, My Eternal Hope

My Glory and the Lifter of my head

The One in whom I live, move and have my being

My Shepherd, My Door, My Rabbi

My Father, My Help, My Friend.

I see Him walking on this earth, teaching and talking, eating and laughing with the disciples

I see Him resolute, determined, just and compassionate completely in control,

I see Him agonising and dying then returning from the dead and proclaiming the victory over death and sin

I see Him seated in Glory, clothed in splendid raiment, The Lamb upon the Throne

I see Him with eyes of fire on a white horse wearing a robe dipped in blood and wearing many crowns

I see Him at the table of the Marriage Feast...and I see you there too.

[Openly Curious]

Im a very visual person, yet I have no image of God. No image of Jesus either. No image of heaven lol. I know the Lord is more than I can ever imagine, and the same for heaven, So perhaps my mind is just content not to have images there.

This is an image of God one who has learned to be content.

Philippians 4:11 Not that I speak in respect of want: for I have "learned," in whatsoever state I am, therewith to be "content".

Lives that are changed turned around by the power of God is the image of him as Christ is working within us. Christ in us the hope of glory which was the Father's will and this also is the image of God as we can see him working in the lives of others who have accepted as their saviour the only begotten Son of God being the sacrifice for our sins his blood cleansing our sins away not to be remembered anymore. The image of God when lives are restored, marriage trouble ceases to be, when a run away comes home age, lives put back together again when there was no hope.

Romans 5:8 But God commenedeth his love toward us, in that, while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us.

This to is the image of God.

Hebrews 1:3 Who being the brightness of his glory, and the "express image" of his person and upholding all things by the word of his power, when he had by himself purged our sins, sat down on the right hand of the Majesty on high:

[Rick-Parker]

I've never had one. When I pray to God, my eyes are closed and I see a void. Thinking of God as Christ, I just imagine a manly form, not white or fair skinned as that would not have been the case of a man who spent His time outside in the sun of the Middle East. But I pray to God in the Name of Jesus, so I see the void.