A SHORT INTRODUCTION TO GOD
- BY A LIBERAL PROTESTANT
Whatever else you ever hear about God, always remember his main emotions are love and compassion.
Become a God-person and you will make the statement, “I’m alive,” become vibrant with meaning.
How can I claim to have knowledge of God?
The answer is, I have looked at god-persons (practising religious people who have a god) over the years, and I study what is said by the most intelligent people who at the same time are very kind. Readers with a scientific bent might laugh at my method of gathering information. Well — The truth is, we folk who are not scholars have always looked to the more intelligent and knowledgeable people for reliable information we cannot turn up on our own. Usually we check to see which famous university stands behind the information we’re looking at. And this is a respectable thing to do.
In this vein, I’d like to say that I’ve noticed in recent years that some people no longer trust even the most prestigious universities and thereby will trust instead questionable sources. This worries me — it is a sign our civilization is weakening at certain points. I wish I knew how to persuade people to keep trusting the experts who’ve been recognized for generations.
Self-Actualization as a God-person:
People who are favourably disposed to psychology but are letting their religion fade away, often make the mistake of bringing up their children to be self-actualizers in every way except the two most important for a Christian — and those are: first, one’s personal morals and second, the giving of peace and love. On the other hand, the child being presented with both religion and psychology, it’s to be hoped, will learn the importance of being a righteous person (the moral life- most of us put this first). Next, being a giver of peace and love (answering God’s main call upon us — we place this second) And third: engaging in self-development and growth. God pulls us lifeward (there is a new word for us).
Self-development:
What do we mean by this term ? Well, mainly it means learning how to do things — it means acquiring various skills over time. Some people learn a few skills in early adulthood or when younger, and then throughout life follow a life-style in which he or she can have years and years of wonderful experiences which would have been impossible without those skills. Another way of going about self-development is to acquire a skill, practise it for a few years, then drop it to acquire yet a different skill and to practise that for a long time. But it must be said that if circumstances or a health condition prevent you from being a self-developer, then God sees and knows and understands where you are better than any human can understand. Being a self-actualizer takes in the three main callings God gives to us -
the three main callings in brief are:
- to be moral
- to be loving and peaceable
- to engage in self development (and this includes emotional development)
Self-actualizing is the way (in action) to keep up our part of the wonderful relationship we can have with God. This is why we live. It is God’s will, first and foremost, for every person that we be self-actualizers to the extent we are able. There are many degrees of ability and disability. Some of us may only be able to lie in bed and pray or just hope for time to go by. That is playing the part, too, for some of us.
I said “in action” above, because a nonactive important aspect of our relationship with God is our praying.
God is Love:
There is a saying, “God is Love.” This saying can be found in hymns and other sacred literature. It means that of all the emotions we believe God has, this is the most important one. Yes, God is a loving God, and he loves each one of us and cherishes us, watching us as we go, to aid us when we call on him.
I have said “watching” us, as though God had eyes, but he hasn’t, of course, for he is a spirit — he has no physical body at all. Some people say they can hear God in the rustling leaves and in the tall grass. They sense him beside the ocean or when gazing at the mountains. God is in nature, and he is in some ways the creator of all nature. I share with some other Christians the view that our world and all creatures including us are the result, partly, of intelligent design. And God is the intelligent designer. We are not denying the theory of evolution totally.
God Knows Us:
When we were one year old and sleeping in a crib, God saw us and loved us. When I was ten and struggling at various games, God knew me and said “Way to go”! When we were thirteen and having our first case of puppy love, God saw and loved us — always, all through our lives so far, God has known and loved us. And he is waiting for you, hoping others will tell you about him, and that you will talk to him and look to him and to Jesus for guidance.
A God of Love and Peace not Wrath:
I don’t believe there is any reason to be afraid of God. He is not punitive, in spite of what is said in the bible here and there. Ideas about God’s wrath in the minds of people long, long ago were, I believe, false ideas. I take a clue from what my 6o-year-old brother said. His wife got him to go to a church where the bible was read dutifully by groups with never a “nay, nay,” uttered by anyone. They were not used to having a doubting Thomas around. One day the bible reading told of God instructing Hebrews to go into a certain country and disembowel many of the inhabitants there. My doubting-Thomas brother couldn’t stand this. He said audibly for all to hear, “I don’t believe God ever gave such orders.”
Beyond that statement and a little mild giggling, I don’t know what took place in that little group, but I know I am with my brother in this. The God I have known all my life didn’t say such things.
We — much of the human race — have evolved and developed. Our efforts to understand God have changed over the centuries. He is a God of peace, and what he wants for the whole human race, we trust, is life in a state of lasting peace all over the world. Some highly intelligent God persons believe that probably God has been evolving too, as the human race has been evolving. And this could explain why God seemed so fierce in early times, yet is now eminently the God of peace.
Experiencing God’s Presence:
We have moments when we can feel that God is present, and we wish that feeling would come to us more often. My experiencing of God being present has usually been when together with a large number of worshippers, either in a church or outdoors in the evening. But if we could settle for just a feeling of serenity, beyond what we’d ever feel at special quiet times, then that feeling comes over me every time I attend church.
I was perturbed one time to read where a well known Canadian woman dropped her religion, lightly it seemed, when she walked into an open (empty) church, sat down in a pew, looked around and felt nothing. She had no sense of God being there. So on that huge amount of evidence this lady waltzed out of the church and said to whoever would listen, “There is no God.” I had a high opinion of that lady, and didn’t turn against her — I just wished she had extended her search.
In the 1600’s there was a Catholic monk in France, Brother Lawrence, who said he had practised the presence of God. People paid attention to him. He said that it wasn’t a matter of trying to be aware of God once and, failing to feel anything,walking away, saying, “There is no God.” You had to keep on believing your prayers were being heard, and someday you would become sure you had a holy listener. He was a humble monk and did not write a book, but a collection of his sayings can be found online — just type in “Brother Lawrence.”
The Extent of God’s Caring Work:
I like the name for God, Emmanuel. It means”God-with-us.” This is one of the best things we can say about God and, when all else seems to be failing, God is still the God who is with us. We are not alone. Let’s remember that. Someone might say, “Well, if we’re not alone, how does God help us”? To what extent can God help? Yes — we speak in terms of whether God is able to help, not just whether he is willing. And God can help sometimes. There are other times and situations, when God feels tremendous compassion, but sadly seems unable to help. In this kind of honest speculating I am totally going against what true believers think, and that is most church goers.
Some brilliant thinkers say that God’s plans often mysteriously go awry. And sometimes there is little mystery about the trouble because bad humans get in the way of God’s good work and plans and spoil things. And as I’ve been reading about this thwarting of God’s will, I wondered: what if there really is an invisible force for evil in this world, and this thing (I would not call it a person) brings harm to natural processes, even for example, causing damage to a fetus in the womb. If this is to be part of one’s thinking, we must be ultra careful never to speculate whether some particular persons are possessed by this evil thing. Great harm has been done in the not-too-distant past, when it’s been believed that a certain individual is possessed by the evil force. It can cause hatred for that individual.
If we’re going to take up a belief in an evil thing spoiling God’s work, then let us free ourselves of all our angers and not let the evil thing come riding out on the waves of our animosity or negative attitude.
I was getting acquainted with a new counsellor once, and I told him I did not believe God was all-powerful (the formal word is omnipotent), he volunteered to think aloud saying “She believes in a passive God.” WELL — let’s slow down here. Saying: “God is not omnipotent.” is not the same as saying: “God is totally passive.” A passive God does not do a thing at all, at all. That’s what passive means, and when my new counsellor said that, he was exaggerating my statement beyond, and even distorting it.
Where this leaves me (saying God can do some things) is in a place where atheists will probably laugh. It is in a state of having to say what percentage of power God might have. And that leads to a rather humorous statement: “We have a three-quarters God.” The sign outside our church, if we all agreed, would say: Come and Worship the Three-quarters God! As amusing as this seems, it comes about when we look at the tragic and horrific things which befall people, and there is no sign of divine help. If any human actions are responsible for the bad happenings, many Christians will say “Oh, God allows free will — he won’t interfere if this is due to any person’s decision.” After this consideration, we are left with human suffering due to natural causes, such as diseases, unavoidable accidents, mudslides, tsunamis, and other natural disasters.
There are some who claim that God will not allow suffering beyond what a person can bear. I recall a home I visited where my hostess had put up a poster which said: “God will not bruise the tender reed beyond.” I have had three times in my life when it was all too much for me. Yes — this tender reed did get bruised too much, and those wretched times haunt me still. Twice it was my psychiatric illness causing horrendous suffering (it can happen) and another time it was physical pain.
There are many aspects of life which our liberal Christian God leaves to us to structure as well as we can and in ways most suitable to ourselves, when we have the freedom. I cannot think well enough to understand the birth of my child, which shocked me and left me in a shocked state for years. By suffering, I mean the sickness of mental illness as well as various kinds of physical pain.
Help Against an Addiction:
To come much closer to home, I imagine that most people who find themselves helpless against an addiction feel that God is not paying attention. Or he is unable to help with addictions and therefore does not answer the addict’s prayers. It has been my experience that God doesn’t listen to my prayers when I ask him to set aside scientific facts. An addiction is a brain illness and the brain is a physical part of us — all its functions being the study of scientists. And when we have a problem which is a scientific matter, God cannot usually help, unless his help comes as a rare miracle. In the case of a brain illness, God’s help comes to us via medicine, psychiatry, pharmacology, psychology, and so on. There are various ways to heal addictions but they are difficult and all the ways do not work for all seekers. (Working with the brain for addictions has not developed yet).
We can ask God to help, but at the same time we must be involved in a program, and ideally, also seeing a psychologist regularly for talk therapy. At these sessions, the talk should be about one’s hourly and daily struggles against the substance. But some of the talking should be about all one’s relationships. And we need to look at how grown up our behaviour is or is not. The therapist must be ready to role play to convey to his clients new ways of behaving and talking.
God is Lenient:
There are several big, important issues which are looked at more leniently by the God liberal Christians worship. I cannot think of the many of these. But one very important such aspect has recently come to my attention, and that is the matter of suicide. The Christians of old all held the view that suicide was a sin, but I have thought of this carefully, with prayer, for a long time, and ladies and gentlemen, it is not a sin. God is first and foremost merciful and if a person has had more of life than he/she can endure, then God blesses the person as they try to end their life. God is always with us in times of difficulty. This is what I have believed for a long time.
We must pay attention to the wonderful fact that more and more people are now accepting of those we mean by the letters LGBTQ. These letters refer to all people who are lesbian, gay or bisexual or transgender. On googling the letters, I learned that the Q has been added to the letters to indicate people who identify themselves as queer or are confused about their sexual identity. Let us be with the affirming group.
Let’s remember those who have some degree of mental or emotional illness or addiction or other medical conditions which result:- in their being out of the mainstream; — in their having to attend daily to their bodies and minds in many ways; — in their knowing that their lives will soon end.
Let’s not forget that ordinary racial prejudice still exists and needs mending. This and all the other needs are urgently needing repair and healing.
God looks with tenderness on the vulnerable people, always hoping for their happiness and courage.
And speaking of courage, always remember it goes better when we can be cheerful. Yes, cheerfulness is a virtue. Of course, if we are clinically depressed or recently bereaved then no one expects us to be cheerful. But everything goes better with cheerfulness. We should have cheerfulness in our worship.
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Liturgical Colours:
The word “liturgical” means “of the liturgy,” and that in turn means “of the ways we worship.” Some churches in their worship around the year, involve colours — colours for the vestments (uniforms) of the priest or minister and for the various hangings on the dais or altar. Generally, the Protestant churches do not have these colours. This is a mistake, I believe. Colours are very important. They are important for us artistically and psychologically, all through our lives from early childhood to old age.
Below you can see the colours of church seasons as ordained by the Episcopal Church of the United States
Advent: (The four weeks prior to Christmas) — Colour, Blue
Christmas and Easter: Colour, White. In our Western cultures, white is the colour of celebration, joy, and peace.
Epiphany: (Ordinary Time)* — Colour, Green.
Epiphany begins with the second Sunday after Christmas. There are five Sundays in the Epiphany season. The colour is green.
Lent — Colour Purple
After a few more special days, Ash Wednesday occurs which starts the period called Lent. There are four Sundays in Lent, culminating in Passion week which ends with Good Friday.
Easter — Colour White (The colour for holy week, the week leading up to Easter is red)
Then we move through the Easter weekend with Easter Saturday, Easter Sunday and Easter Monday. The colour for all the Easter period (six Sundays) is white. Again, white expresses a note of high cheer, and is held to be the most celebratory colour by all the liturgical churches. However, the colour for Good Friday is black.
Pentecost Sunday — Pentecost Sunday occurs 50 days after Easter Sunday, counting that day itself. The colour is red. Red symbolizes energy in this case, and remembering the flames from the holy spirit as they descended on Jesus and the 11 disciples. This day in history was already a very important day to the Jews, and now it had become a very important day to Christians also.
*The term “ordinary time” connotes days and weeks through the church’s seasons when nothing special is designated. This is mainly in the summer in the western world. The term, ordinary time, is used also by the Roman Catholic Church, with the same meaning.
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Some people might like these few prayers I’ve added. And, of course, God loves it when you talk to him in your own words.
Prayers for Everyday
(In these prayers, I use the old words, thee, thou and thine and thy, interchangeably with you and your.)
Morning
Dear God — Here I am. Morning has come, and as you were with me through the night, so you are with me now. Help me to keep an even pace, and enjoy your courage and tranquility. I thank you that you are hearing this prayer as you surround me with your holy, loving presence. Thank you, God. I ask thee, God, to allow my spirits to be lifted, so that I may feel full of good cheer and be a pleasant presence for others through the coming day. Let me be appropriate. Let me respect myself as well as others. Remembering Jesus, Amen.
Contemplating the Day Ahead
I will have challenges this day. I can be assured that thou wilt be with me through all the hours and minutes. Let me realize that though for the large matters in life, I must behave in loving ways toward people, still I do not have to like everyone. Loving and liking are two different things. Let me remember that I am to be in the world but not of it. Help me to be brave and peaceable, and though I may see glaring faults, not condemning. (Let me spurn the sin but love the sinner). “Forth in thy name O Lord I go, my daily labour to pursue.”
May the spirit of Christ be with me wherever I go. I’ve prayed in the name of Jesus. Thank you God, Amen.
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Evening
Lord, the day is ended. Now at this hour of rest, I ask thy forgiveness for any wrongs I’ve done today. Open my eyes to my true behaviour and emotions, and let me feel your perfect forgiveness and acceptance. Let me bask in this feeling of being loved — (as a mother rocks her child). May I be as relaxed as if I were sitting beside a naturally preserved lake, amid trees, flowers, grasses and the good earth. Let the imagined beauty be as a tonic to my spirit. Goodnight, God. Amen.
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This essay could turn out to be just an idle read for you, or you could decide to make it a life-changing read. To make it life-changing, all you have to do is make a decision to become God’s person. He will look at you when you tell him you wish to be his person, and he will say, “This is my beloved daughter/son in whom I am well pleased.” And every day from now on, you will be a new person.
Before I conclude, I want to make a short statement about Jewish people and Jesus. Some conservative thinking Christians say that all Jews have to become followers of Jesus — and I heartily wish they would not say that. I have read many psychology books, and besides I have natural psychological insight. What I understand is that the vast majority of Jews can never accept Jesus as the Christ for various reasons (some known only to them). One main big reason is that they have been harmed so many times over the centuries by Christians who I suppose were operating in the name of Jesus.
Considering all this, we have to understand the resentment and fury — and, of course, it is psychologically impossible for them to love Jesus, or ever think well of him at all. And if I, a mere human, can understand that, what do we suppose God understands? Well, of course, he knows well the heart of every Jew, and understands and accepts that they will never take Jesus as their special God-agent. And therefore God has another plan for the Jewish people.
As a PS to all the above, let me say there is much much more to be written about the God of liberal Protestants, but this short essay is all for now. With one exception — please be assured that the idea of hell has no place in the liberal form of Christianity.
Thank you for reading or listening. I am an 81-year-older lady. I’ve had many trials through my life and I believe God has always been with me, even trying hard to reach me when at times I couldn’t find him. God wants us to live fully and to have many blessings. Goodbye for now and best wishes. Sally Morrison