Religion and denomination have ruled our spiritual contemplation for, well, ever. Going back to medieval times where the church ruled as a government, and to now. Though we are all "free" to ponder the world and supernatural entities, we are bound by our past teachings to rethink the already thought. And because these redundancies are too great to post in one single blog I thought that I would write about one, for now.
But first let me divulge my religious background; I was raised Baptist (not harshly), I went to a Christian school for many years off-and-on, and I have many friends who have different religious opinions. There is so much to cover about my background I will simply say this: “I am done with religion and I have moved on to just being.”
So back to that one aspect of spirituality about which I am going to speak, it is about the fear of God. Now you need to know that I talk to God very often at night, yeah I know that sounds crazy. If you have ever read "Conversations with God" you would understand, but anyway. All of my teachings were based around the fear of God. Teachers saying "Well to love him you must fear him" and "he is your creator you should fear him out of respect." Of course all of this made sense to me and I accepted it because I was naive, but recently I came to the conclusion that this all seemed wrong. I was lying down speaking with God about fear, asking him if I should fear him and if that was necessary. He seemed to respond with a reference to my parents. Asking if I fear my father, to which I said "Yes, in a way." Then he asked, "Do you fear him because you love him or because he could hurt you?" I said because I love him. Then things started to piece together. God was saying to me; "I want you to love me.
Fear and love are separate. One does not come with the other. I do not want love brought on by fear or fear brought by love. I don't want people to be scared of me because I am God." This all made so much sense to me. He made me realize that fear is the absence of respect and love. I do not love my dad out of fear and I do not fear him out of love. I respect him because he deserves respect and I love him because he deserves love, just as God deserves love and respect, not fear. Respect and fear seem to go hand-in-hand in modern society, but spirituality is ancient and wise.
I realize that my talking to God is farfetched to some, but for those please look past the entity and look toward the epiphany.
We are a people cringing in fear of others, well I say it is time to extinguish fear and ignite respect and love. And together we can love that which is pure and respect that which is righteous. And above all we can believe with love and without fear!
Fear and believing?
By Dbandy1990 - Posted on March 10th, 2008
I feel inspired. Though I do not speak to God in conversations, nor he to me. He speaks to me with actions. I cannot say how many times it puts a smile to my face as I feel grateful the many times he has seriously saved my life, my face, my dignity and most of all my faith. =)
Speaking is only one form of conversation. I should have defined what I meant by speaking. It is like thinking deeply then all of a sudden a realization that a human could not come up with pops in my head like a thought. I'm sure that you have just been lying in bed and thinking about something and you realize something, well if it is profound, then it was all God. Thanks for reading asegura23.