My God

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I have been thinking a while about who/what God is. I realize that I am incapable of actually defining or describing God. Nevertheless, each of us has to create our own image of God. And after many years, I am gradually coming to my view. My view is not the God of the Old Testament. A God who is a white haired white bearded old man, surrounded by a bunch of angels who sole responsibility is to feed his ego. Nor is he the god of the New Testament a young man who stands on street corners handing out mercy lollipops. Rather, my image is of a man I feel comfortable referring to as Dad. A man that one could visit while he is sitting on a couch, and you can go in and sit next to him. He looks at you and says Hi, thanks for stopping by, how are things going, what’s on your mind? You can say, well I’m struggling. There are so many things I don’t understand. I don’t see why I can’t see why people sometimes act the way they do. Why are some people blest in their physical and mental capabilities and some people seem to be challenged in many ways. Why do I have to see suffering that I can’t do anything about? Why? Why? Why? Life seems to be an unending sequence of whys. And I struggle, because I can’t answer most of the whys. And Dad says, when you were a child your world was small and defined by a bunch of dos, and don’ts. Everything seemed to have its place. but when you grew older, it became more complex. You had to assume greater responsibilities. And the same thing was true for your brothers and sisters. What all of you struggle with is free will. It is both a blessing and a curse. It is a blessing, because to allows you to decide what is right, and what is wrong, what the truth is. It is a curse, because you must suffer with the consequences of your choices. Often, there are consequences of the consequences which lead many to believe that situations are unfair. But to a certain extent fairness contradicts free will. If I interfere, I also contradict free will. But sometimes the consequences are too great to ignore. So, I must try and mitigate those consequences, and I do that by challenging you and your brothers and sisters to help bring my family back together. What you and they do is my grace in the world. The larger the family becomes the greater the challenge. At the same time, more of you have accepted the challenge and have left you with the results of their efforts. It becomes your challenge to see that and pick up the baton that has been left to you.