“How Do You Snap God?”

“Out of the mouth of babes and sucklings thou hast perfected praise?”

Image by Jeff Jacobs from Pixabay

Just back from school, my godson entered my room.

“Grandpa, good afternoon.”

I was then engrossed in a YouTube clip on my laptop. The video featured intrepid python hunters from Cameroun in West Africa. My wife, whom he affectionately calls “junior grandma,” was by my side.

My own mother lives with us. Brother and sister reverently address her as their “senior grandma”.

Last week, his sister (less than 3 years) proudly announced, “I have four grandmas.” Edging on my precocious little angel, I replied with an inquisitive grunt, “Hm. hm… Where are they?”

Beaming her cherubic face at me, her answer was quick and ready.

“Junior grandma, senior grandma. and I also have one grandma at Calabar, and, …”

Junior grandma was becoming anxious a short while ago before our cherub arrived from school. Her brother was yet on the way.

“It’s going to be 4 pm and Willy is not yet back from school. His sister had arrived since around 1 pm.”

Allaying her concerns, I quipped,

“Don’t worry, he will soon be back. At any rate, you can call Sister Glory. She may be on her way home at this very moment with your boy.”

A short moment afterward, our godson soon stepped into our room.

He knocked on the door and announced his arrival.

With my eyes still on the screen, I answered him, “Welcome.” To this, he replied with a ready, “Thank you.”

“How was school today?”

Crisply, he replied, “Fine.”

Teasingly, though not expecting an affirmative answer, I queried him, “Did you fight at school today?”
His answer came in with a ready drawly “Noooo.” The young man was already imitating his dad.

“Do you have any homework?”

He had no immediate answer to my last question. The video clip chirping away on my laptop screen has arrested his attention. To this, he reacted, “Hmm, I like this video clip.”

“Yes. I know you will like it.”

A few seconds afterward, his eyes caught sight of the instrument calibrator his dad had recently repaired for me. The tool was sitting beside the laptop on the table. Not taking his eyes off the instrument, he exclaimed, "that thing is for my dad." I quickly corrected him. "No, it's mine. Please don't touch or spoil it for me o." Like me, his dad is a technician and ever so often, we work together as partners in our company.

He started smiling. Just then, the “oil painting of Jesus Christ” flashed up on my phone picture gallery. Even though this picture regularly shows up on my phone picture gallery, I only got to know the painter’s name after a brief search on my Pinterest app. Of course, this is as imaginatively perfect an image of Jesus Christ as you can get. The child in me said, “That picture is OK.”

Image source Munir Alawi via Pinterest

Looking at the picture, he quipped, "Jee s uus, (Jesus). God. How do you snap God self?"

I’m still pondering, “How can a mortal man presume to take a picture of Jesus Christ?”

Ever so often, my young man has a way of probing me with questions that floor me.

"How do you snap God self?"

I couldn't answer his question. All I could do was to embrace him with my left hand.

To me, his query is a most profound question.

"Son, that is a brilliant question. Me, I don't know the answer to your question o."

"How do you snap God self?"

By that question, my young man used the English language the way we use it in our local parlance, here in Nigeria. The self at the end of his query doesn’t mean self, as in the body. But, taking all the words of that question together, my less then 5 years old boy was presciently asking, “How can a mortal man presume to take a snapshot of God Almighty?”

By the way, will God Almighty get annoyed that my little boy asked that weighty question?

The next moment, he walked out of the room with his grandma.

I'm still wondering and smiling to myself.

How do you snap God?

John 1:18(KJV)
No man hath seen God at any time; the only begotten Son, which is in the bosom of the Father, he hath declared him.

Some theological liberals say that God revealed Himself in Christ. Let us correct their preposition. He did not reveal Himself “in” Christ, He revealed Himself “as” Christ.

There is a change of preposition. Take that “in” out of there. He did not reveal Himself “in” Christ. He did that, but we have not said enough when we say that God revealed Himself “in” Christ. We must go on to say He revealed Himself “as” Christ.

It can be said with certainty that whoever knows Christ knows God.

Whoever knows our Lord Jesus knows the Father, and whose eyes look upon Jesus look upon the Father. It may be said that whoever knows God can know God through Christ, and must know God through Christ.

And it can be said that God does always act like Christ, and Christ always acts like God, because Christ is God walking among men. It may also be said with certainty that increasing knowledge of Christ means increasing knowledge of God.

~ A. W. Tozer - And He Dwelt Among Us

This painting of Jesus Christ by Munir Alawi scrolling across my phone caught my kid’s attention and led to his arresting question, “How do you snap God self?” Phone screenshot by Author.

Source

Copyright by ©A. W. Tozer, And He Dwelt Among Us, Bethany House Publishers, 2009

Thank you for reading.