Still searching
I am still struggling with things like the word love and Loving Higher Power. So I keep searching the internet to find solutions and I found this article: finding a new Higher Power.
Find below my first attempt based on the suggested exercise in the article: first describe my current view of God, then my ideal view of God.
What do I think God is right now?
Somehow I still think God is that kind of old bearded man on the pulpit of the “Grote Kerk” in Vriezenveen. It seems I can’t really get rid of that image, that picture in my mind.
So it is a man, a man of like 60 or 70 years old. And he has a long grey beard, like Khomeini. And is giving all these laws, these rules and regulations, rules and regulations that I try to follow, but often don’t manage to follow, like I was not able to keep my relationship and I was not able to keep my jobs.
And some of my own rules, like not getting in debt, not having debt, and paying all my bills. I couldn’t even keep that simple rule, as I lost most of my money and was not able to earn enough. So humiliating.
God right now is almost always disagreeing with everything I do, with everything I want, with virtually every decision I make. And he lets me know, as he lets me fail in almost everything I do, e.g. does not allow me to meet the right partner, does not allow or help me to find the right team members for DoctorsConnect, does not allow or help me find team members and friends otherwise.
It is a very dispecible God as he mostly lets bad things happen to me, gives me hope at first, but then takes things away, like with the dog training recently.
It seems he finds pleasure in making my life as miserable as possible, including giving me these dreadful feelings of anxiety and such so I can’t even work, can’t even succeed, like putting time and effort in things I still want to do, still try to do, including doing Step Work and such.
So it seems my current God of my understanding is more like the devil, not like a loving God, helping me and supporting me. Recently I am starting to wonder why He even created me, as I am doing everything wrong in His eyes anyhow.
The worst of this God is that I can’t even escape Him in death, as He will keep haunting me in eternity, in life after death. So even suicide is not an option, as He will just continue annoying me after I die. He will just laugh at me, like, see, here I am again, here I still am, you can’t escape Me.
The kind of funny thing is that He created everything, and many or most things are really beautiful in this world, in this universe, even though of course there is pain and suffering. But yes, it seems most living creatures don’t suffer as much and as long as I am. Kind of weird, as how important am I to God anyhow. Just one of those six billion people or so, so why would He care to bother me so much, give me so much pain and suffering.
Or is that indeed love, finding a way to get my attention? Well, I guess He got it now. Except I don’t know if so much negative attention is really what He wants or needs from me. Wouldn’t He rather see me happy and satisfied?
Another image of God I have right now is some kind of universal force, but a force that is kind of neutral, a force that comes from ‘energy’, from the things I now know or believe the universe is made of, like strings from string theory.
Strange that that second image of God, of Higher Power, is kind of neutral. That force would not allow me or anyone else suffer so much. It would just be neutral and support any effort to create something, like me creating DoctorsConnect and get rich; or me earning enough in some kind of way.
If I could have anything I wanted, any God I wanted, what would that be?
If I could have anything I wanted, any God I wanted, that God would give me everything I want and need. Or at least He would support me in my decisions and in the things I do. As to me that is what the word love implies: giving someone everything he wants, so he would lead a happy life, would enjoy life.
And of course this God might or would just use the worldly things to help and/or support me, like putting the right people on my path to help me with DoctorsConnect, even though there might be miracles, like letting go away my mental disease of having so much emotional pain and anxiety. And yes, he might let me win the lottery or something, so I could pay my debts and such and live a happy life without being a burden to other people. He would certainly not use my mom to let me survive financially. He would have allowed and allow me to visit her every year or so, by giving me the means, the financial funds to do so.
He also wouldn’t let me wait so long for my ING internet banking code, even though that long wait seems to have helped me with keeping my ABN AMRO account or something.
That God wouldn’t have made me like feeling guilty and ashamed almost all the time to other people and towards Him. As how could I be responsible, especially to Him, about who I am and about the decisions and choices I made?
He would never put me in the embarrassing position I am in now, not even being able to buy the normal daily things from the money I earn.
And I think I am just writing too much here. To me a loving God or a loving Higher Power would just give me anything I want and need to lead a joyful and loving life, being able to enjoy life myself and help others if needed.
And He wouldn’t come with those stupid ideas that I already have enough, that I already have what I want and need.
Yes, of course I have already what I need, like a roof over my head, a bed to sleep in and food to eat every day. I even have more, like a computer and internet access and people around me. But is that really all I need to be happy and joyful?
And yes, looking back He may have given me what I need in the form of suffering, of being poor, of loosing everything, so I know more about life, about where other people stand, how other people live. So yes, that is certainly a good thing. But I guess it is only a good thing if He would somehow find a way to give me the things I want, like money and a car and maybe a nice house again, this time in a way with having the funds to maintain it and such.
Ah, and he would certainly not have let my mom, and my dad before, to suffer financially. Or emotionally, like not allowing me to go home, go to The Netherlands regularly, like every year.
Going back to the exercise as described:
He would sound very nice, maybe whisper to me what I need to do, could do to be successful or something. Yeah, He would whisper guidance to me all the time, so I would make the right choice all the time. He would leave no doubt of what He means, unlike the God from the church, from the bible, who just tells me to be obedient and do His Will, without giving me any clue about what that exactly means.
He would not really think anything of me I guess. He would just let me be me and be successful. He also wouldn’t need to, as I guess He would be busy enough taking care of all things in the universe, so I wouldn’t really need a lot from Him. I can just manage alone, as long as I have enough funds and such. If He would give me enough money now I am pretty sure I can manage most things myself, without needing further assistance from Him. I would just want him to see me enjoy life, see me do good, good in the sense of material stuff I would enjoy, as well as me doing good to other people, do good in the world. He would laugh in a nice way, enjoying seeing me enjoy life, enjoying seeing me travel, build businesses, helping other people be happy and joyful.
Right now He would say about me something like “Hey, see, that is Guus. He suffered so much, but I gave him money, gave him what he wanted, and see him now, see how much he enjoys and how he does good in the world. Take a sample in him, as he overcame all this suffering, didn’t kill himself even, no matter how much pain and suffering I gave him, but he endured and finally got what he wanted and is living a perfect life now, a life as how I meant life to be”.
And I am not sure how He would look like. Maybe like a younger version of me, but then more handsome, like someone I would be sexually attracted to.