3 AM Thoughts

In the past year I have been on somewhat of a personal mission to discover what I believe about God and religion. I was raised Catholic, but the more independent I become, I am realizing that I don’t agree with a lot of what the Catholic Church teaches. I have taken a step outside of religion and tried to stay observant but separated. Recently, I have come across the topic of fearing God.

What does it mean to fear God? This is a question of ethics, and whenever you are dealing with ethics, you have to clearly describe your subjects before diving in. I don’t have all the answers right now, but my point of writing this is that I feel like I’m onto something.

I recently got out of a relationship with a girl who grew up in an abusive family. Their religious beliefs followed the Pentecostal Holiness Church. The church’s theological roots derive from John Wesley’s teachings on sanctification. According to them, being gay will send you to hell. Her parents constantly reminded her of this too.

Being gay is has impacted my relationship with religion and God for sure, but not to the extent that I would deny something I was born with to please God. But she could not make that decision because of how she was raised and abused. She feared God so much that she broke up with me. (There are other reasons too but I’m pretty sure this was a big one.)

I want to explore this more. I want to understand where God was in this situation. Why should you fear going to hell for loving someone? Why does the fear of God control some people, and empower others?

I talked to my sister Grace about it a little and she gave me this insight:

Fear of God analogy.

Parent and child walking in woods. Two scenarios, one with a parent who seems controlling, not letting the child leave their side. They both want to be together yes, but the love is restricting and the child fears tripping and messing up or disobeying the will to stay close together. The other scenario is a parent who lets the child walk where they want to, perhaps they stay close to their side, or perhaps they get distracted and fall behind. Then the motivation to be near the parent is one of free love, as the child runs (not walks) to catch up. (No analogy is perfect, only meant to describe some greater message.)

Hopefully this makes sense. The audience for the project would obviously be Christians, because anyone who doesn’t believe in God wouldn’t bother to engage. I don’t know what medium I would use for the final project yet.