Do you realize your view of God can impact the entirety of your existence. A foundational place to start understanding God is in the book of Genesis and then continuing throughout the Old Testament.
Genesis 1 reveals some amazing things about God. "In the beginning God..." tells us about this god who existed before our beginning and who simply spoke to bring all that we know into being. This is an amazing claim. How could something like this exist? Who is this being? Some people stop right there and say no way- there is no being like this, God is a myth. Others jump in and use Genesis 1 to develop a viewpoint that the world was created in 6 literal days. Both of these see what they want to see through their own cultural, social, and religious bias instead of simply allowing the story to unfold.
As the story unfolds we see a god who creates everything. Everything! In Genesis 2 we see a god who creates humans in his image and asks them to fill the earth with offspring as they rule over and subdue it. We see a god who values companionship and who helps those he made to recognize boundaries. Moving into Genesis 3 we see another being come on the scene who seeks to confuse and mislead god's people. We see people who instead of walking daily with their god are now afraid and hide. We see a god who provides consequences and protection.
A decision that has to be made by every person is whether this is god with a little g or a big G. I believe misunderstandings about God's actions in Genesis 3 impact whether a person decides this is a god or if this is their God.
Through the years I have been surprised time and again as I have realized that most people misunderstand what goes on in Genesis 3. Most people have it in their mind that God kicked Adam and Eve out of the garden because they broke his rules. For these people God is a god of rules and following him means we must follow his rules. This god does not value mercy or relationship, he values rules.
However the reality of what is going on in Genesis 3 can be seen through a few clues. First of all we notice that God made clothes of fur to replace the clothes made out of fig leaves which were now seen as necessary after disobeying God. If God were focused upon rules then we should see no compassion when someone has broken the rules- we should instead see harsh consequences be allowed to unfold... 'you eat the fruit and have your eyes open and realize you are naked and make poky fig leaf clothes then fine, walk around with scratchy underwear!' But we don't see harsh consequences, instead we see God say 'I'm sorry you made this mistake, wear these instead, they will be more comfortable'.
The second thing we notice is God's reason for sending Adam and Eve from the garden- to get them away from the tree of life. We see God express concern that if they eat from the tree of life in their current state they will live forever with the implication being that they will live forever apart from God. The tree of life is seen again at the end of the book of Revelation when those who have had that removed which separated them from God can once again eat from the tree- in other words with sin removed they can now live forever with God instead of separated from God. So serious is this tree of life that God was willing to kill Adam and Eve if they tried to return to the garden and the tree.
The reason for removal was not punishment for breaking God's rules but protection so that God could develop a plan to fix that which separated us from Him so that once again we could walk in the garden with him.
If God is a god of love and compassion and enormous effort to once again be able to walk with us in the garden then I'm in and excited. If God is just about rules then what's the point because at some point we are all going to mess up and break the rules. This is where the difference in who we understand God to be is important. A god working to bring me back to him can be my big G god anytime. A god making arbitrary rules and then waiting for me to break them so he can punish me will stay in the little g category for most people including me.
I'm looking forward to walking in the garden with a big G God who has spent all of time doing whatever it takes to make sure we are together and not separated forevermore.
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