So this guy sees you, right, and he has never met you before in his life. But already he has given you that look - you know, the once over kind of thing. He has decided within a split second meeting that he doesn't like you. Your hair isn't like his hair, or someone he hates has a tattoo like yours. You get the picture. He has his mind made up about you without giving it true thought, or without giving you a chance. He hates you.

Don't you love it? You have never even talked with this person, this hater, and yet, they have all the answers about you. You must be a certain kind of hated person, belonging to a standard stock, hated group of people, and you are that guy. Before you know it, someone is picking a fight with you randomly, and it is for something you never said, or something you never did, and it is all because this one person decided that they knew you without even knowing you. They just made up their mind about you before an introduction was ever given.

You hate it when this happens to you, but...

Some of you are pissed off at God, and you have never even met the guy. It isn't your fault, really. You see how those who are supposed to be His reflection are acting (aka The Christians), and if that is who God might be...then you want nothing to do with Him. Or you visit His place (aka The Church), and if that is how He runs things...then you want nothing to do with Him.

You think you see who He is in these temporal things. You think you know Him from rumors told by those who have never met Him in their lives, either. You see the elderly woman who won't give up her pew of 50 years so that you, a visitor, could sit down. You see the alcoholic on Friday and Saturday who is suddenly holy on Sunday. You see the man who is supposed to be a pastor or minister, but who is really a child molester. You see misrepresentations of love, outdated rituals, hypocrisy, judgment, criticism...and you run away with the decision that never, never could you hang out with a God like that. The problem is...if that's all you know of God, then you've never met Him. You've been lied to.

We are made in God's image, His likeness. The truth is, He isn't much unlike you or me in many ways. If you'd really like to give Him a chance, try to just get a proper introduction. Hang out with Him, and don't just listen to what other people say about him. Because God is less like Christianity more and more every day.

Let me introduce Him a little better, perhaps. He is more like your favorite dessert. He is more like the feeling of crawling into your very own bed after a long time away, when you are at your most exhausted. He is more like the sunlight as it picks out the most beautiful tones in your girlfriend's hair. He is like hanging out with your best friends. He is in your two-step on Friday night, or the scream that echoes from the mic, or the raw power in a machine gun drum that searches out your heartbeat and drives it faster, to a new pulse, until you feel it all the way through who you are.

To be properly introduced to God is to finally meet yourself.