Reading the book and wondering if she really did encounter God caused me to lose a little of my spiritual equilibrium. In my understanding of a much bigger God than I had previously thought, I began to wonder if God could embrace other faith practices as well. I mean, who am I to say God works here and not there.
Alan Watts, a philosopher and a Buddhist, talked about his concept of eternal life as being absorbed into the universe and living on as a part of everything else. I must admit that that sort of talk made me a little uneasy. Okay, REALLY uneasy. I don't like the idea of being "absorbed". I am a unique individual and I believe I have a destiny and relationships beyond this life.
In church we sang the song “Amazing love”. The song talked about how God was concerned about me and gave of Himself for me. Tears welled up inside me. I realized that I am wired to need someone to connect with. I don't want to connect with an indifferent cosmos. I need to know that there is someone who understands me even more than I understand myself, and cares about what happens to me. I need a God who can be my creator, as well as my protector. In some of my darkest hours, I have felt the comfort of a God who cares, and has walked with me and loved me through the shadows. God has felt as real and personal as any companion. In those times, when there was nothing left but God, I came to realize that God was all I ever needed.
I can't say that God doesn't work through other religions, but I can identify one reason I am a Christian. I prefer a personal God.
2 comments:
I love that song. It makes me tear up when I sing it in the car. Another one that always gets me is MercyMe's "Spoken For". The line, "To hear you say, this one's mine. My heart is spoken for." It's such a great feeling to know that God loves ME. He has a relationship with ME. I don't have a relationship with the universe. I have a relationship with my Lord and Savior. What an AWESOME thing!! I'm with you...I want a personal God. I want a God that DOES care what happens to me and is connected to me and through that connection connects me to others. I have to agree Chris Tomlin when he says, "How great is our God!"
My own faith was recently shaken when my 13 year old told me he didn't believe in God. My first thought was narcistic, "where did "I" go wrong?" Then I realized it wasn't about me. I asked my son why he didn't believe in God. His first response was the typical teenager response.."I don't know" with a little more probing he finally came clean with what was his reasoning.
You see my children were abused by their father for several years and I had turned into one of those lifetime movies were everyone asks how did she not know..
Anyway, my son had been asking God to make daddy stop. Please make daddy a nice daddy. My son said that God never answered his prayers so there must not be a God if there is one then he doesn't listen to him so if God hates him then he was going to hate God.
I started to cry and I just grabbed him and held him for quite some time. When we were done crying, I broke the embrace and looked at my son in the eyes, with my hands still on his shoulders I told him, "God did answer your prayers." He said No and I said yes he did. "God gave me the strength to leave daddy and in leaving daddy, you were no longer being hurt." Even if you don't like the way your prayer was answered it was still answered. God is listening we just have to accept his reply like it or lump it!
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