Contrary To What Some Might Think, God Isn’t a Dictator

I’m sure I don’t stand alone in my occasional fear that God loves me, but doesn’t like me. You hear all the time that God loves you, regardless of the demons you have tucked away. “He” knows all, feels all, and there’s no hiding who we are in the eyes of God. Should I have expected myself to be a carbon cutout of a saint, or to be flawless in my life choices? Everything inside of me says no, yet I cannot help but worry that the weight of mistakes makes me unworthy of divine connection. The organized religion I was raised in taught me to believe that I was born evil, as if I was a rotten apple, while still just a seedling. Even though I no longer affiliate with Christianity, there is a deep fear at the core of who I am… an insecurity that I live a life of sin, or carry myself with a delusional concept of God since stepping into spirituality. Not knowing whether my fluid belief system transformed my concept of God into a more authentic representation of Divine Love… or if I altered my beliefs to feel more comfortable, with a more palatable version of God, but one that is removed from truth.

Let it be said, I do not claim to know the universal truth of who God is. I also believe that truth has infinite expressions, and it is not as black and white as some might assume it to be. What I do know from my lived experience, is that my relationship with God has felt the most true it ever has since I separated from the masses of organized religion. The rigidity of the rules held me captive from seeing a higher truth… The name of God matters little, and the essence of your practice is everything. Speaking bluntly, the church needs bodies to stay afloat… while the intention isn’t always self-serving, it is a true part of these organizations. Without people coming in for weekly services or donating money, they could not remain operational. It makes sense that they would push fear based dogma, for survival purposes. I want to make it clear that I don’t think that there is anything wrong with being a member of an organized religion. There is undeniable power and beauty in joining with others for a common belief, in giving thanks in a shared space, communal worship, and sharing conscious attention towards a higher power. However, we should each be allowed the agency to find God in whatever way we are most open to receiving its Divine Love and essence.

I was raised as a nondenominational Christian. I was taught to love my neighbor as myself, and honor God in all that I did. I was raised to believe that God sacrificed his one and only son, so that humanity may be resolved of our sins. I kept many of the pieces of my religious upbringing close to my heart. I still do my best to embody Christ consciousness. Yet there was a level of misrepresentation within Christianity that I chose to discard, because they did not feel true to a creator that was all-loving. To me, it felt like there was an underlying message that caused separation from others, from the natural world, and above all, a separation from God itself. Non-believers being deemed as sinners and somehow worthy of eternal damnation because they didn’t subscribe to the same credence. Animals and nature were given to us by God to have dominion over, as if God is not also the trees, the land, the animals, and everything to ever exist. God is a man that sits above us in the clouds, looking down on us, and this idea that we are unworthy of being with him, as if we are not an extension of God. I was always perplexed by the concept of a God that could be judgmental and create a place of eternal damnation, yet was said to be all loving. Wouldn’t that contradict the truest nature of God? If God is LOVE, how could those two dichotomies exist in the same entity?I also refuse to believe that God is a man, or a gender of any kind… but instead an androgynous energy of both divine masculine and feminine traits.

I felt repelled by the judgment of others who practice a different faith, and the quiet undertone of pity for anyone who did not know God… As if God could not exist in spaces outside of Christianity. The idea that the only ones who are saved are those who practice Christianity in a set way. How bold to assume that anyone would be given the authority to determine whether or not someone else is living in harmony with God. As if we are not entitled to an entirely personal and unique relationship with the Divine. Fed the illusion that the Christian God is more valid than any other facet of our Creator, cross-culturally or interpersonally. How naive to think that God is a one-dimensional being, and to connect with it, you must practice it within the confinement of one religion. In attempting to restrict God to these finite rules, we attempt to limit the power, potency, and love of God. We try to set parameters around a presence that simply cannot be confined. God is the all-creative, all-loving, and omnipresent force that makes up the eternity of all things that have ever been and will ever be.

If God is the embodiment of love, and I believe it is, it would know nothing of separation because “it” cannot be separate from its creations (us and all other living things). To cast one of us to aside would be to discard a piece of itself. Love has no place in punishment, damnation, and suffering, in the same way that God does not… which inevitably means that we do not either. God does not want us to live any other life than one that honors our own being and individuality because, in doing so, we bring honor to the unique reflection of its divinity WITHIN US. I find it beautiful that we have the freedom to connect with the Higher Power in whatever way feels most true to us. We have the free-will to choose how this power connects and manifests in us, and our life. We are all a drop in the sea, that makes up the ocean in its fullness. We are not the wholeness of the ocean as an individual drop… but as a collective of individual creations of the Divine, we make up a fraction of the infinite wholeness and embody the expression of it. I feel that it is crucial that we reflect on our idea of what Divine Love is in its truest nature. Regardless of what you name this power, does the entity or energy that you believe in embody Divine essence and love? In my own personal deconstruction of a belief system that could not hold the full magnitude of Divine Love, I was able to create a new foundation for beliefs that could embody the fullness of an All Loving Creator. This is not written to sway you, nor to change you… but it was written with the intention to share my truth, while encouraging you to reflect upon your own.

I encourage you to ask yourself after reading this peice:

When you think of UNCONDITIONAL LOVE, what comes to mind?

Does your concept of Unconditional Love align with your belief in a higher power, regardless of the name you give it?

Who were you taught that “God” or the Creator was? Does it/ do they still align with your current beliefs, and higher knowing?

What have you experienced or learned that defies the version of God or the Creator that you were taught to believe in?

Do you feel any pressure to believe in something that falls outside of Divine Love?

Do you feel any resistance to alter or change your belief system? Where does that resistance stem from?