I want to have a gripe session today. I don't know exactly why this bothers me, maybe you will after I explain. I have found that many people have a "gimme" relationship with God.
I constantly talk to people who see God merely as an ATM machine. "How do I put the right code or energy in, so I can get out what I want?" It is as if the entire relationship is built upon satisfaction of a need. "Need a healing?" "Need money?" "A relationship?" "In trouble?" Whatever you need turn to God! Don't get me wrong, it works, but the question is: "is that all it's about?" Tell me this, would you want to deal with a person whose sole reason for interacting with you was because they want something all the time?
Let me digress for a moment, I want to stick in a quick story here. A few years ago I decided that I needed a financial planner. (It is the "in" thing these days.) He was going to help me find ways to make the little money I have work for me. He assessed my expenditures. He talked about everything from how much I tipped my hair stylist to how much groceries should cost for a single person. Then he really got personal. He asked me about my dog "Hani." How much on the vet? On boarding? On food? (Now, I don't know if you have pets, but he was treading on thin ice, and this was before I got my two aquariums.) He said, "Sandra, as often as I have come to your house I don't think I have ever heard Hani bark." To which I replied "he never barks when I'm at home, if someone is at the door he jumps to his feet and starts running back and forth between me and the door until I get there. He gets excited because we have company." Personally I thought it was cute. He jots something down on his note pad. The he says "I think you may come out cheaper with a home security system, because your dog really doesn't serve much of a purpose here. Let's be rational, (he saw my face) Hani can't help around the house, he doesn't seem to protect the house and probably is more trouble than he is worth since you have to feed, clean and pay for all those other miscellaneous things that vary from month to month." I am going to stop there because my reaction is not the point here. Let me go back to what I was writing about.
People often maintain relationships because they think they can benefit from it in some tangible way. Some of us have friends more so for what we perceive the advantages of the friendship may be rather than for the shear pleasure of the friendship itself. This would be precisely how some of us view a relationship with God. Serve out self-interest. Examples:
- To get their prayers answered. "God gimme" like He's an ATM machine.
- It makes them a good person. Belong to this group and you too will be good and everyone else is bad.
- They can get into heaven in the end.
This example may piss you off but. . .Let's take my dog for example. No matter what I do. If I scream at him, hit him, not feed him, stay out all night or any of a thousand other transgressions - he still loves me. It is unconditional! I've learned a lot about love from having a big family yes, but I have also learned a great deal from my dog too. I love my friends the same way. Not because of who they are, what they have or what they can do for me but simple because. People are not simply a means to an end neither is God. ACIM says something like man is generous out of self interest but check this out. .
God loves us all through extension. We are what God is. God express Itself as us. I love God by loving me, which means loving you. Seeing you as wrong or flawed or seeing you as anything less than a perfect expression of God means that I am not loving myself or God, since that would make God flawed. Get it?
Leading the spiritual life is about seeing the face of God - yes! Know that that face is everywhere, in whatever your eyes can see and in what they can not see too. We are immersed in God. Knowing that despite what you think God does or does not do for you, love anyway, be thankful anyway because God is You! Gimme God? Gimme Me!
Oh and for those of you that were wondering. Hani is still with me, I have about 20 beautiful fish in two tanks, a bunch of plants, I feed the birds and hug the trees, but the tree thing is free. What I don't have now is a financial planner.
Copyright© 2001 By Sandra Bishop Ministries
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