Resolve: Can Someone Tell My Daughter Who God is, please?

I am charged with always being ready to offer a defense for my hope. Never has that been so prevalent than today. Yesterday, while scrolling through the Freshly Pressed section half way down the page this blog from W.T.F (Words, Thoughts. Feelings) appeared. It was somewhere after 12:30 am and I confess I was exhausted. I left the blog up and went to bed. All throughout the night, whispers came and went until I had no choice, but to arise and give a defense for my hope.

What follows is my response to the question.

I preface every word I write here with a little background about who I am today.

For me, it is important to recognize that my influences, experiences, and subsequent worldview both in my writings and life are intricately predicated on my version of who God is for me. I offer this preface as a way to way and test any theories, statements, beliefs, notions, or spiritual truths that follow here. They are my truths, and I am comfortable enough in them to acknowledge while in some ways they do exist in others, they cannot and should not be an overlay for everyone.

Throughout the course of my life I have used many names to describe who God is, because the God of my experiences during the formative years did not resemble the God displayed every Sunday, Wednesday, Friday, and Saturday at my childhood church. Yet, this is where my first memory of who God could be originated.

In search of evidence, I would leave the church for almost ten years looking for God, the Higher Power, the Supreme Being, Mother Earth, you name it. I sought to learn more about this then elusive God from other religions and/or belief systems, such as, Islam, Buddhism, and Wiccan. This is not a collective bibliography; it is offered to show the lengths taken to solidify God’s reputation with my reality. I offer this forward not as proof of who God is, but as background falter on who I am, which directly correlates to my relationship with God presently.

Through many trials and tribulations most of which carried a death sentence, had it not been for God, I would come to reconcile the God of ethos to the God of consciousness. Although, my attendance at church wanes at times, I do have a church home. It was here, I began to learn more about having an intimate and personal relationship with God, under direction of the Holy Spirit. It was here, for the first time in twenty something years, I was asked to test everything I knew or attributed to the Great I AM. It was here, God for the first time in a long time became both flesh and spirit. It was here, elusive imagery became substantive knowledge. There are those in my life during this time that saw a transformation I had unknowingly been seeking. To be truthful, I fought against such a transformation. Yet, I was no longer the same and uniquely still very much the same person from 20 years earlier. It was here above all else God became tangible to me.

To some my journey may sound crazy or even a little heretical at times. So be it.

I have learned my faith in God is based on my testing of God. Case in point, when I finally began to see God in church, it was a Wednesday night bible study session. At some point, the instructor almost caused me to fall out of my chair with these words, “Don’t believe me, don’t believe the pastor, read for yourself and test God’s faithfulness”. I confess, there were a lot of characteristics I held towards God at that time and faith was indeed one of them. However, not the blinding and unwavering faith present for most career Christians. So I began reading and searching scripture in a mnemonic way. Asking questions and then opening the Bible to an indiscriminately page. There would be an answer uniquely relevant to where I was in the universe at that time. After a while, I wanted to see if this ‘faith anomaly’ held real merit for application in my life. I began asking normative questions others would ask their friends or these days the GPS system on their phone.

A particular question from this time comes to mind.

I was headed to-night school from work one evening and wanted Taco Bueno. Now, consciously I could not figure out where there was a Taco Bueno in the area, I knew were Taco Bell was, but that’s not what I wanted. So, I posed the question, “God, you say I can ask you anything large or small and you will answer. I yield to your direction. Where can I find a Taco Bueno?” Seriously, I was craving a B.O.B! I turned off the music, and listened. Instinctively, I began driving and made several turns all of them leading me away from school. For a good twenty minutes, I drove making a circle ending up close to where I started the trip. At times I had moments of doubts about posing such a question and following such otherwise intangible directions. Exiting a freeway, there was a Taco Bueno on the right-hand side. That was one of the best B.O.Bs of my life.

I make a concerted effort to speak and write from a universal worldview and often succeed in this attempt. However, I am a believer in Christ and a follower of The Way, as such; please charge any grossly scripture undertones or rhetoric supposition to my evolving worldview and not to the spirit of my heart.

Now, having laid the foundation about why you should even entertain my response to, Can someone tell my daughter who God is please? I offer the following commentary.

The short answer, God is indeed love which is not always reflected in the people we see or in the environment we live. Yet, above all else your version of God is directly related to your experience with God. Anyone can speak on the true character of God, but only you can speak on who God is in your life. I might even add an anecdotal statement, such as, “God knew you before you were in the womb, and he saw it was good. God is greater than the eye can see and bigger than the mind can comprehend. God is infinitely equipped to help you through every situation or circumstance presented to you. But above all else, God will forever be your reflection of self”.

The long answer, that’s an excellent question,”let’s find out together”.

T.Dawn, with your permission I would like to share this to my blog as it tracks well with delving deeper into reflective thinking. Thanks for the opportunity to share.