When I first started attending 12 step meetings some 20+ years ago, I heard that I could redefine my Higher Power. I was assured that I was able to make him anything that I wanted to.
This was a great thing to discover because at that time in my life, the diety of my childhood wasn’t very nice.
I won’t say that I was taught about a punishing God. But, I will that is what I learned. There were a number of things that I learned that were dissimilar to what I was taught.
A large part of this ‘education’ included matters related to self esteem and self confidence.
So, when I learned that my God could be redefined, it was a great relief. I was allowed to define my God as very Non Judging and that loved me no matter what. I heard a person say that his God “knew what I was doing and loved me while I did it”.
I guess that a lot of us have learned “to act as if God is watching, because he is”. And, if this was the case, I was in bad difficulty because of some of the things I had done while growing up.
Now that I did not have to worry about being thrown into the “depths of Hell” for what I had done in my youth, I was able to begin living a good life.
So, if you have a God that is not Compassionate, the best thing for you to do is to sit down and create a “designer God”.
I do not mean to be flippant about this but you need to have a God that is loving if you are going to have a good life.
We don’t want to be “looking over our shoulder” to make sure that our “punishing God” is not breathing down our neck.
Life is too short to be endured running from a God of our parents. It is time to define a God for you that is caring and loving.
I have heard it stated that our only trouble in life is our “sensed separation from God”. That separation is very easy to imagine if the God of your understanding is punishing and mean.
If you want the see a unique view of how to be happy, visit Dave Owen’s site “I Choose Happiness”. You will find ways to be happy, one smile at a time.
