You could ask 100 Christians who God is and you’d get as many answers. I have a theory on why that is. When you think about God, you base your perception on personal experience and divine revelation. The personal experience you have with relationships molds how you see your relationship with God, however some of these perceptions are corrected by God through divine revelation.
For example, someone who grew up with an abusive father would probably have a difficult time relating to God as their Father. Sometimes the divine revelation to overcome a skewed perception like that can come through Scripture, but deep seeded aversions to specific relational ties to God have to sometimes be overcome through new relationships.
In my small group this morning, part of our discussion was around God as All Powerful Mighty King who deserves reverence and God as Closest Friend. I think most of us would have a tough time relating to God as both of those at the same time because they don’t seem to fit together in our minds. Our imperfect view of these two types of relationships makes it difficult for them to coincide in our minds. But in God’s perfection of these relationships, they go hand in hand. Where we see ourselves ans unworthy of being called a friend of the Most High God, He has redeemed us by His grace, elevating us to royal heirs to the throne. From another perspective we see our imperfect friendships and don’t want to compare The Most High God to those broken relationships. Where we have friendships that are based on imperfect love, God’s perfect love for us brings us into a perfect friendship with Him.
The struggle with embracing the different relationships that God calls us to Himself through comes from our imperfect view of those relationships. The missing piece that gives us His perspective is His perfect love displayed through the grace that He extends to us.