GOD BEHIND A WALL
It has long been my thought, my contention, that every human being knows, somewhere deep within themselves, that there is a being who exists outside of all they know and understand. That there is something, or someone, who watches over all of us, who is behind the lights in the sky at night, and behind the thoughts of a thousand ants burrowing into the sand to make a home.
Even the most devout atheist and the most pious religious follower fights against this deep knowing that there is indeed a great someone who lives and breathes beyond them. Who needs neither their faith to exist nor their service to thrive.
This suspicion is, of course, agitating to those who would stand firm in their conviction that there is no God, no force of the universe that can’t be explained by science. And yet I have seen it, I’m certain. I’ve seen it while I listen to the scholar who sits stoically, hands folded—that glazed over, disconnected look in his eyes while he forms the words to describe all he understands about life and living. I see the lost hope of the child he once was.
And I’ve seen it in the eyes of the angry atheist, although really, if there was no God, why are you so angry at all the injustice he has allowed all over the world. Yes, I think you do know he is there. You would just rather believe he is not than accept that he lives and does nothing.
IN JERUSALEM…
In Jerusalem, the religious men and women crowd the streets. They grope at artifacts and press their heads against a cold, ancient wall. Their hearts cry out for a connection with this elusive God, this piece to the puzzle in their hearts that nothing else will fit.
They believe that if they strive long enough, if they wrestle hard enough, they will prove their devotion to him, and will one day earn his favour. They don’t see him as an active and close participant in their lives, but a distant force who raises his eyebrow and glares at the thousands—millions—of souls who have dared defy him https://indipill.com/dk/generisk-levitra-indien/.
They taught me in the religious circles I grew up in that God is love. Not just that he loves, but that he actually is love itself. But every sermon and every lecture that strove to drive that message home was also peppered with a good dose of fear that he was also angry. And not about our suffering. He was angry with us. And about to burn a whole lot of people I cared about (hopefully not me) alive for eternity. Unless I, of course, did something about it.
And it wasn’t only that. He also couldn’t stand sin. He would shut any of us out who even thought about something he didn’t approve of. They taught us that he even turned his back on his own son.
I watched as a Jewish man pressed his forehead against the old western wall of the temple in Jerusalem. The wall was littered with small prayers, written on scraps of paper, and rolled up. Thrust into every crevice the sons and daughters could find. The wall was un-climbable, impenetrable. The closest the Jewish people can get to the Holy place. Where they believe God lives.
I watched with my heart squeezed with grief like an olive in a press. I wanted to scream out, “He’s not in there! He’s out here and in there and all around us! He doesn’t want you to prove anything to him; he wants you to see that he’s already proven everything to us. He’s proven that you, my friend, are worth dying for. He’s not angry with you; he’s angry at everything that has damaged his sons and his daughters, and has kept them from his arms.”
Turn around! He is not behind the wall they constructed for him. He is close—so very close. He is speaking—you can hear him. Listen to his voice in the wind. Listen to his breath in your spirit. Feel his heart beating in your chest. You are not alone.
Forget your dogma—yes! Throw out everything they ever taught you about him. Topple the idols they built down onto the stony ground. And ask him to show you who he really is.
If anything you have learned about him turns out to be real, you will know. He will show you and it will resonate with the God of love he has made himself out to be. Read the scriptures with new eyes. Not through the spectacles of religion that have been strapped to your face from the time you were old enough to attend Sunday-school.
The God you have loved—the Father your childlike heart has longed for—is closer than your skin. And I promise you, he no longer lives behind a man-made wall.
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