Monday, May 7, 2007

We all need God

In the greatest struggles of my life, I have learned a most important lesson. I can’t do this alone.

~ Unknown

The good news is, we don't do anything alone. God is the ever-present help that gets us through the day and moves us on our way. We don't accomplish anything of substance without divine aid.

As the sun keeps on shining and the earth keeps on turning, God keeps on loving and living through us.

The more we honor God in everything we do, the more we realize His omnipresent Love, His ever-present companionship, and His unfailing care. We're never alone and never have been.

God was here first! And we came into His ever-present company...
By Evan Mehlenbacher
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4 comments:

Anonymous said...

I too am finding that I am not alone, that the Divine is always with me.

I'm wondering though why anyone in the 21st century would persist with such a blokey God as the one you speak of, Evan. I know Mary Baker Eddy used the masculine pronoun extensively and referred to God as Father far more often than she did Father-Mother (apart from the 3rd edition of Science & Health where God was "She"). But we aren't in the 19th century now and gender-inclusive language has become widely embraced even for deity.

Could I respectfully suggest that a masculine God is offensive to many women and some men?

May 7, 2007 at 10:48 PM
Anonymous said...

Thanks for this lovely idea that we are never alone.

And to Anonymous who uses the word "blokey" Are you Australian?? Anyway, liked your comments about a masculine God. MBE talks about the masculine and feminine together constituting completeness. The way I see it, she had a consistent understanding of God as Father - Mother, but used the language of the day to convey ideas. Once I understood that, I could see beyond the masculine only thing.

May 8, 2007 at 1:48 AM
evan said...

To above per use of masculine...

This is why I love blogging. My readers catch all my slip-ups, and I am improved as a result!

Yes, I agree with you. I usually am quite conscientious about being gender inclusive when referring to God, but every once in a while, my old school education rears itself and out comes the word "He." I hear it so often from others, and was raised with that connotation as a youngster, that the tendency to default to its use surfaces in my thought occasionally. More out of laziness to state it correctly than anything, I suppose. But I am well attuned to God as Mother-Father! There could be no other way.

Thanks for the reminder.

May 8, 2007 at 7:45 AM
Gary said...

It is my estimation that God does not have to translate the word-symbols we use when praying (or just thinking to ourselves or speaking to others) about God. I believe God hears meaning, not the word-symbols we use to express this meaning.

So, with this said, I don’t think it makes a difference to God what gender we are using when referring to God. What we are MEANING at the time is what counts. Are we at every moment loving God with all our mind and heart and strength…

There is no gender in Spirit, anyway – Spirit is like thought, not masculine or feminine – so Christians can think of God in whatever gender-sense pleases them.

But I would suggest not letting an understanding of this Truth allow someone to intentionally offend another who may be quite sensitive to calling God by the established masculine terms of He, His, Him or Father – and would be shocked at having God addressed as a She. Addressing God as an “It” to avoid stating gender is not good either, I would think.

The reason Jesus referred to God as his Father is because the Spirit – the Holy Spirit, God’s Spirit – played the masculine role in Jesus’ conception in Mary’s womb. God was Jesus’ Father. There was no sex involved, of course.

Jesus never referred to God as his Father-Mother for obvious reasons: God was not Jesus’ mother too; Mary, a human being, was Jesus’ mother. There are reasons Christians refer to God as their Father too, which I will not try to go into here, as I’m already being long-winded, I feel, in expressing my personal opinion on Evan’s blog.

However one last thought: In thinking of God only as masculine, as being unbending Principle, or Law, which can be counted on as forever in action – this doesn’t seem to include the necessary idea of mercy and forgiveness, which could be called the feminine side of God’s nature. Both are necessary for our understanding. So in this sense thinking of God as Father-Mother is a well-rounded perception of the Almighty.

May 9, 2007 at 8:01 PM

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