As a child, my friend and I loved nothing more than riding our tricycles. One day he suggested that rather than sit on the saddle, it would be more fun to sit on one of the rear mud guards and free wheel down the hill outside our houses. My friend went first without mishap, but when I followed I overbalanced the trike and ended up lying in the road with my arm, stripped of skin, trapped between the spokes of the rear wheel. I was in agony and worse was to come.
As I looked up I saw a lorry coming down the hill, and convinced that the driver had not seen me, became terrified that I was about to be run over. But he had seen me, and he stopped his lorry, climbed down and with strong hands bent the spokes so that I could pull out my arm. The one I had assumed was about to crush me became my rescuer.
Over the years I have often come across those who resist the idea of there being a God on the assumption that, if he exists at all, he is remote, authoritarian and more likely than not to smite you from the earth for some sin or other. This could not be further from the reality that we see in the character of Jesus who claimed to be God and who came not to condemn but to rescue.