The need to refer to God “metaphorically”

The Old Testament became more meaningful to me when I realized that it recorded how a people built a relationship with an invisible God. … As CS Lewis wrote, “The truth is that if we are going to talk at all about things which are not perceived by the senses, we are forced to use language metaphorically” (Miracles 115) … Unlike pagan gods that took their form from visible natural forces and icons, God revealed Himself to Abraham and Moses and other prophets as an unseen, but actual, living individuality, with the capacity for power and purpose and great love. … And the Book of Psalms pictures our relationship with this invisible God in concrete images that we can understand and appreciate—with roaring water and sheltering wings, with the sturdiness of rocks, with the reliability of the moon and the sun, and the largeness of the night sky.
(from Living Large, chapter 12, ©️ 2013)