Talking To God (2)

Saturday Stories

December 15, 2018

I

Henry David Thoreau once wrote: "The mass of men lead lives of quiet desperation." He meant that many people feel a sense of being incomplete, and they try to fill the gap in their own ways. There are those who are unhappy, deep down, even if they may not appear that way. I've been up and I've been down so I know how it felt, and this is why I don't judge people because of their situation at any given moment. There was a time when I felt there was something missing, and thank God those days are over. Speaking of God, in the early nineties, He saw a letter addressed to Him that was full of sadness and anger, and most of all, pain – and He answered it.

II

"Thy Will be done," we say when we pray. But what exactly is God's will? A lot of us believe that the will of God is what happens in our lives. We think that God gives out cancer or senseless deaths like a judge giving out sentences or Santa Claus giving out gifts. Yet God Himself is saying now, through the "Conversations With God" series, that we got Him all wrong. He says that our will is His will – but His will is not our will. It means that if you want an apple, then God also wants you to have an apple, because your will is also His will. God wants us to have what we want, but we need to understand our relationship. God says: "I don't 'give' you anything – you call it forth." Everything in our lives is a reflection of our thoughts and emotions and words.

III

Yet God never condemns our choices. "I don’t make a judgment about what you call forth," He says. "I don’t call a thing 'good' or 'bad.'" We are the ones who judge everything all the time. God says: "You are a creative being — made in the image and likeness of God. You may have whatever you choose." He adds a crucial point: "But you may not have anything you want. In fact, you’ll never get anything you want if you want it badly enough." It simply means that if ask for something while feeling emotions of lack and scarcity, we will get what we feel. God says: "I produce what you call forth. You call forth precisely what you think, feel, and say. It's as simple as that."

IV

The letter was from a man named Neale Donald Walsch who was at the lowest point of his life. He lost his family, his home, his job, and he broke his neck in a car accident. But it wasn't just a rant, it was also a demand for answers – and in that receptive state, God was able to come through. There were no chorus of angels, just that "still, small voice" we all heard about but we don't always hear. God answers everyone all the time. "I am never not with you," He says. "You are simply not always aware."  We can talk to God because He is listening and answering all the time, but only if we tune in. He also understands that, sometimes, we get so busy, yet that is precisely when we need Him most. God says to us through Neale: "All the more reason to have included your soul in the process. These past months would have all gone much more smoothly with My help. So may I suggest that you don’t lose contact?"

Photo courtesy of Penguin Random House