"Tis the Reason For The Season?

"You will NEVER come to truly know God until you forget who you once thought He was."

Okay.  It's Christmas time and there are a lot of people out celebrating a lot of different things.  Some say that Christ Jesus is the reason for the season.  Others say that Christ was merely a prophet; just a man with a whole bunch of wisdom.  Still others say they believe something of the nature of Christianity took place, but they are not sure if Christ was that something.  (However, not many of them forego the opportunity to take Christmas vacation time, take advantage of the "holiday" sales, Christmas bonuses, etc., but we won't go there today!)  But still, there's a growing population of people who believe there is no such thing as God. And after learning what is being taught out there by those who claim to believe, I don't blame them.  Let me explain:

Unfortunately, most who claim to witness for God don't even know who God is (John 4:21-24).  They go to church, learn and memorize the stories about Him--without having any real understanding of what the stories mean--and then begin to passionately teach what they don't truly understand to others!  If I didn't know God, which I do very well, I'd be turned off by such debauchery myself!  They teach God as Santa, who makes a list of who's been naughty or nice, and either blesses them with a bunch of material things and money, or withholds gifts from them for merely being human!  Or, more popularly, they teach Him as this Great Troll in the sky who casts people into hell for not following the rules as outlined by religion.  Well, He's neither.

There are those who have part of His story right, just not enough.  The problem is that they teach God as a physical being who is all caught up in the physicality of this world.  For example, those who go to certain churches, and I will say no names, where what should be a simple prayer lasts for 20 to 30 minutes.  Well, that's a long time to be standing there with your eyes closed, praying with someone who really doesn't even mean what he's saying.  (He's typically doing it for show or saying what he thinks he should be saying because he's heard it all somewhere before!)  Jesus spoke about these repetitious babblers in Matthew the 6th chapter, beginning at verse 5, although it won't hurt to start at 1.  God is not caught up on the physical things we do, good or bad.  He is concerned about who we are and what we do spiritually--that means how what we do forms in our hearts and minds-- our motive.  When you do a good deed, for example, you connect or disconnect with God at the thought and the belief of why you're doing what you do--not at the action itself.  When you pray, He feels the sincerity of the prayer from your heart, He's not connected to your words at all.  Newsflash, He doesn't understand them anyway.  This is not His language.  Read Romans 8:26-30.  The real God doesn't even expect us to KNOW what to say.  He gets our fallibility as humans.  He just expects us to want to say something, He will teach us the rest.  That makes no sense to you?  Then try this: what drives you to pray is the request for something.  He doesn't expect you to know how to put that request into perfect words or the format of the Divine.  The fact that you want to speak to Him at all is what bends His ear.

I think the most confusing part of understanding God is that we're taught that He's everywhere, but how can that be?  God is a Spirit; not a human.  Spirit doesn't have the physical limitations of a body, therefore, it can be in the United States and in Paris at the same time.  Kind of like spreading Christmas cheer.  If I'm in the spirit of Christmas and I greet someone at a store, for example.  If I'm cheerful enough and share an exciting moment with the person I greeted, when I leave, that person is going to be cheerful, too.  We are now sharing the same excitement.  That person goes home and calls a friend and shares the story of having spent that exciting moment with the happy stranger at the store.  The friend spreads it to his/her spouse...get it?  And so it is with God.  And yes, it is that simple, but religion and church has used scare tactics, rather than the excitement of God, for the purposes of controlling their congregations/parishioners over the centuries, and have turned Godliness into a very, scary thing.  Because of this, things have been spinning out of control for far too long, passing the fear of what God will do to you if you don't serve Him down through the generations.  Who wants to serve a troll?

So now, we have to forget what we've been taught about Him by those who were scared and start all over.  Are you ready?  Here goes:

God is synonymous with good.  God is the Spirit of everything that is truly good.  From the sincere "Good Morning" to a stranger, to the visiting of an old friend who could just use a pick me up (without you judging his situation), to the anonymous donating of time, energy or even money to families in need at a time such as this.  It is God in the heart--good in the heart--that carries God from one place to the next--not the following of religious rules or practices spawned by the fear of a god you serve, but don't even know.  So He is the reason for the season.  This year, take some time to find out WHO you're celebrating; not what.  Merry Christmas!