Imagine your best friend calls you and says:

“Hey, I think I left a manila envelope at your house last night. Did you see it?”

You frown feeling like you would have noticed an envelope but you tell them that you will look and call them back. After you search all over and don’t find it, you call them back.

“Hey, I looked everywhere and I didn’t find it. Do you think it might be in your car or your coat pocket or something?”

Your friend falls quiet on the other end for several seconds before saying, “There was over a thousand dollars in that envelope and if it was for me I would understand but this is a deposit for my job. I know you’ve been struggling with money, but if you have it, I just need you to let me know.”

Pause….what just happened? Your best friend of fifteen years is calling you a thief? The same person who wrote in your birthday card, ‘Thank you for being one the most honest and trustworthy friends I know’?

So you’re saying my mama raised a thief? So now you talking about my mama? We got problems.

And maybe you handle this in a gentler and more spiritually mature way, but it still sucks to have your character questioned or challenged especially from someone you consider a good friend or partner.

I was thinking about how often we do this with God. We will sing songs and memorize verses about His trustworthiness yet we tell Him that we don’t trust Him when He tells us to let go or move. We tell Him that He’s good when things don’t go our way even a liar. This was such a conviction and challenge for me to even process my relationship with God with whom I like to think that I have a great relationship. But recognizing how often I mischaracterize Him, encourages me to seek a deeper relationship with Him in prayer and reading the Word and just leaning into seeing His character revealed in my daily life.

Do you struggle with mischaracterizing God? How?