Dear God,
Do you get tired of having to constantly figure out the rules we give You? We as a populous have come a long way from the time You gave us rules through the Bible, the Koran, and Your various other attempts. Now we set the agenda. We decide whose side you choose in a war. We decide which people we should go to bed with. We decide who the guilty are… and then we say that all this is due to Your viewpoint. I am sure it is somewhat difficult for you to keep up with.
Truth be told most of us quit listening to you a long time ago. Instead we have other people figure You out and explain You in ways that make us feel good about ourselves. To some You are a right wing hate-monger sending natural disasters to clean blemishes off the earth. To others You are pure love and happiness. I have a feeling that we can never truly understand You, and I am perfectly alright with that… I just wish we would quit trying to force our extremely limited understandings of You on everyone else.
As for me, I want to simply quit telling You about who You are, and start listening to You tell me about who I am. Perhaps in doing so I will find out more about who You are to me… and the great thing is You can be something completely different to someone else and that is fine. No rules, just God.
Listening, Alabama/USA Share:
April 18th, 2008 at 11:49 pm
“I have a feeling that we can never truly understand You, and I am perfectly alright with that… I just wish we would quit trying to force our extremely limited understandings of You on everyone else…the great thing is You can be something completely different to someone else and that is fine. No rules, just God.”
thank you so much for this.
April 19th, 2008 at 12:08 am
What an amazing statement - incredible
I’m so grateful for this site
April 19th, 2008 at 12:37 am
Dear God,
I am so longing for when I was a child, I can revert to being children again.
Changer throughout tragetoria of my life, where I grow in the true love of God, and start from the beginning to the path of goodness ….
I have faith that one day I will be with you …
April 19th, 2008 at 2:24 am
This is so true, I thank you for this.
April 19th, 2008 at 4:16 am
I really dig this post, a lot of truth to it.
April 19th, 2008 at 5:56 am
Thanks so much for this. In a world full of people always trying to cut Him down, its nice to hear someone stand up for the big guy. I think we would all be a little better if we just listened to Him more.
April 19th, 2008 at 7:58 am
great
April 19th, 2008 at 6:09 pm
I wrote this awhile ago when I came to similar conclusions as you;
‘God, unless we’re careful, can be missed, changed, shaped, morphed or removed. Unless we’re careful, God becomes who we need or want him to be.’
‘Man was made in the image of God. Man’s God was made in the image of Man.
(And, because I’m a pure love Christian) ‘How can we claim to know or understand God? Even the concept of his love, a single emotion, is so outside what we can comprehend, many reject it.’
April 20th, 2008 at 2:17 pm
True, honest and what I think many of us need to consider.
Thank you.
April 20th, 2008 at 4:37 pm
Ah!! It is so good to have somewhere to speak to someone on equal terms.
April 20th, 2008 at 7:03 pm
If only if everyone could see things that way. Be you Christian, Buddhist, Muslim, Wiccan, etc; we could all benefit from this persepctive. Thank you for sharing and giving me hope that there are others out there like you and I that think this way.
April 21st, 2008 at 12:42 am
I especially appreciated the line “I just wish we would quit trying to force our extremely limited understandings of You on everyone else.”
Seems poor little humans can only feel comfortable with their own beliefs if everyone around them believes the exact same thing. If others don’t agree completely, they are automatically WRONG! To say otherwise is to have the sinking feeling that maybe we are the ones who are wrong.
“Instead, we have other people figure You out and explain You in ways that make us feel good about ourselves.” There is a Buddhist saying that “If you meet the Buddha on the road, slay him!” In other words, God is within us, not outside us. Anyone who tries to come between you and the God within is an imposter. We have LOTS of imposters making LOTS of money telling us what to think and believe.
God has become Big Business!
April 21st, 2008 at 11:07 am
“…I especially appreciated the line ‘I just wish we would quit trying to force our extremely limited understandings of You on everyone else.’
… In other words, God is within us, not outside us. Anyone who tries to come between you and the God within is an imposter.”
How do you know this is true? Are you forcing your understanding of God on Him by saying He is not outside us? What if He is? How are we so wise that we can say what God is or isn’t, and what He can or can’t do?
What if He did decide to show himself through the only the Bible, for example? Then, of course, if someone says something that completely contradicts that, then they ARE automatically wrong. And it’s OK to believe something as true, and thereby believing other things to be untrue - I’m sure everyone does this to some extent in all parts of life. And we can disagree with each other, and it’s good to talk and discuss things, as long as we don’t hate or kill each other over it…
God bless
April 21st, 2008 at 12:00 pm
I am glad that many seem to have appreciated my post. It is something that has been stirring in me for a long time. I had thought I would simply send the prayer and let that be that, but I would like to chime in and make sure my intentions are understood.
It is as Michael put it fine to believe somethings as true and some things as not true. It is also fine (provided that both sides elect to participate) to discuss differing opinions on what is true and what is not. Where I find that modern religion deviates from what I have offered here (as what I am currently searching for and where I believe God would have me be) is that we are taught that not only is what we hold to be true true, but that we should go and convince everyone else they are wrong and should change. There is not a human being alive today that is close enough to God to hold an opinion of another’s to be false. It may be an opinion that does not work for you, but to hold that another’s belief is wrong requires that you have an understanding of the truth at a level which humans will never achieve.
Only God knows absolute truth and for someone to believe they can sit in judgment of another’s values is blasphemous.
April 22nd, 2008 at 12:15 am
You are right, Listening, we cannot just of ourselves judge anyone else. God is not really subject to our scrutiny. We can’t sit him under a microscope, or peer at him through a telescope. (We could try to ‘feel’ God, but how do we know it’s ‘God’ we’re feeling?) So to say that anyone’s own, personal opinion of God is any better than another’s is potentially rather foolish, as is trying to convince anyone that you are right and they are wrong purely based on your own opinion.
But again, what if God chose to reveal himself to us in some way that we could understand? Then it’s possible that we would be able to know things about him and what he wants for us, which we then could then follow and claim to be ‘true’ (and, as a consequence, contradictory claims to be ‘false’).
So one course of action we could use is to investigate, with as little bias as we can manage, the different claims* made by various people and religions about how God has (or has not) revealed himself, and how we can know these things. (Often different religions have many contradicting claims, and it would be reasonable to say that one (or both) of two differing claims is incorrect.) Then you could see which of these is most coherent in what it claims about God and how it explains the human experience in the world in which we live, and so find the best way to seek to know God.
*Here is one claim made by a certain historical figure:
“Jesus answered, ‘I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me. If you really knew me, you would know my Father as well.’ ” (John 14:6-7a)
I could go on, but this is probably not the place to do so. I wish you well in your search for truth; may you find what you seek.
May 17th, 2008 at 8:02 pm
i dont think we quit listning we just kept trying..
im not a believer.. god and the bible an dsuch other musingings was somthing most likely greated by a bored old man with a lot of imagination and thought. if its easy for us to believe his crap then we can beleive everyone elses.. its not that we stoped listning its that theres just a lot more to listen to; it kinda screws with our head. suppose now is your time to say what you want heard out there. someone will listen im sure. maybe not god. maybe god stop listning before we did. maybe he was never there.
who knows
October 8th, 2008 at 12:34 am
No rules, just God.
this is the first time on this site that i haven’t given advice. this is because your words really caught me, and they seem to ring true without having to be fancy and intricate. your last statement hit home the most, and i wont forget it.
Thankyou.
Love always,
Stephanie xoxo
September 6th, 2009 at 2:44 pm
If God would hear this I’m sure he’d be so pleased, especially after all the bad things HE supposedly could have stopped or shouldn’t have done. If God wants You he’ll call You himself, he called me and told me everyone should stop doing stupid things. I answered I didn’t know what exactly he wanted me to tell em. He said: “You’ve got a point, after all everything I try to give as a peace solution just causes more havoc. Oh well, just try to find your own path to me then. Just don’t listen when people blame You without understanding”