 Namaste
FEARING GOD?—or FINDING GOD?
Some varieties of religious experience place great virtue in being a “God-fearing person”. Instilling this “Fear of God” in us has been the mission of most religious institutions and creeds for centuries; how else are they to keep us under the control and influence of those who are empowered to dispense ‘salvation' ?
Many years ago, I grew very tired of being told that I was condemned because I did not live up to someone else's conception of God as a vengeful, ill-tempered old man—a Being off in the sky somewhere, who keeps score and doles out punishments and the occasional favor. So I decided to seek my own understanding of God. It's a concept that I heartily recommend, if you, like me, cannot reconcile a view of a fierce God of vengeance and retribution with a God which is pure, unconditional Love. How could we be expected to love a God who sends AIDS, hurricanes, tsunamis, and politicians to punish us for our sins?
I do not fear God because I believe that God is Love.
Fear is the opposite of Love. Emerson tells us that Love is a synonym for God. The New Testament says, “He that loveth not, knoweth not God, for God is love.” It also says, “Perfect Love casteth out fear.”
Meister Eckhart, the mystical Dominican monk quoted in our thought for the month, was considered a heretic and troublemaker in his time, and the church nearly burned him at the stake for his heresies. He said, “Man's best chance of finding God is to look in the place where he left Him.” And he wrote that God is pure being; not a person ruling over us, but a presence within us. So why do we insist on looking without for that which is within? Because that is what we have been trained nd indoctrinated to do; that is part of what Don Miguel Ruiz calls “ the domestication of human beings ”— being taught to place our faith in whatever we have been told.
In the teaching of Religious Science, we do not tell you what to think; we strongly suggest, however, that you think! And part of being a thinking being is questioning the answers. Question the answers until you come up with an answer that makes good sense to you, and affirms the greatness, the innate goodness, the potential, the right instincts that you know lie within you. That is God in you. That is Infinite Intelligence and Power, and Love, individualized as you! And It is always for you, never against you. As Dr. Holmes said, “ You have never done anything bad enough to make God mad at you, and you could never do anything good enough to make God love you.” That's the way Unconditional Love works! It just loves! If you're looking for God in your life, look within. That's where it is! |
