Down to Earth God

The God I believe in.

I want to write about God for people who 'don't do God'; in plain simple language stripped of religious jargon. It's too easy to hide behind formula words and to be unclear, even in our own minds, what we really believe.

I find, when talking to 'non religious friends', that the God they disbelieve in is one I don't believe in either. If there is a God above the clouds manipulating events to his own ends then he's either not very good at what he does or distinctly lacking in compassion. The God I believe in is not like that.

A God who is easy to understand and grasp is hardly worth knowing. If God is not beyond our comprehension then what is? I don't claim to to know the mind of God and distrust those who claim they do. I can only struggle, within my limited comprehension, to discern what he may be like.

The God I believe in is beyond everything. He doesn't sit outside his creation, manipulating or remaining indifferent to it he embraces it in its entirety. He is infinite, the creative force behind an ever expanding universe.

But the same God who is infinite, beyond our comprehension, infuses every molecule of our being. He cares for every hair on our head and is more in tune with our true nature than we are. To be at one with him is to be in tune with our true nature and to become the people we were meant to be.

When I talk about God I talk about an immense unfathomable creative force that is behind everything and binds all together in a single purpose. At the same time I believe we can have an intimate relationship with God, that we are known, understood and loved and can be infused with his will for us.

Psalm 139
1 O LORD, you have searched me and you know me.
2 You know when I sit and when I rise; you perceive my thoughts from afar.
3 You discern my going out and my lying down; you are familiar with all my ways.
4 Before a word is on my tongue you know it completely, O LORD.
5 You hem me in—behind and before; you have laid your hand upon me.
6 Such knowledge is too wonderful for me, too lofty for me to attain.
7 Where can I go from your Spirit? Where can I flee from your presence?
8 If I go up to the heavens, you are there; if I make my bed in the depths, you are there.
9 If I rise on the wings of the dawn, if I settle on the far side of the sea,
10 even there your hand will guide me, your right hand will hold me fast.
11 If I say, "Surely the darkness will hide me and the light become night around me,"
12 even the darkness will not be dark to you; the night will shine like the day, for darkness is as light to you.
13 For you created my inmost being; you knit me together in my mother's womb.
14 I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made; your works are wonderful, I know that full well.
15 My frame was not hidden from you when I was made in the secret place. When I was woven together in the depths of the earth,
16 your eyes saw my unformed body. All the days ordained for me were written in your book before one of them came to be.
17 How precious to me are your thoughts, O God! How vast is the sum of them!
18 Were I to count them, they would outnumber the grains of sand.