Which God Do I Believe In Today?

In her book “Christianity After Religion” Diana Butler Bass says that Baylor University Researchers have discovered that Americans “actually believe in four different Gods.  Not the Christian God, the Jewish God, the Muslim God, etc.” but ...

1. The Authoritarian God

2. The Benevolent God

3. The Critical God

4. The Distant God

What’s most interesting to me is that I think that (at only 1PM at the time I’m writing this) I’ve already believed in all of these Gods at some point over the last 7 hours.  

Earlier this morning I had this thought that God is ticked at me. 

“I don’t feel so good about myself.”

”Last year didn’t go quite like I imagined it would.” 

… And so if I’m disappointed in myself, God must be too.

Later on I felt like God forgave me for being stupid, forgave me for being the disappointment I often imagine myself to be.

Then I found myself longing for the day that God would make the world right as I overheard some co-workers talking about their difficult health and life situations.

And then I thought to myself that maybe God isn’t all that involved anyways and maybe that’s why the world is so messed up.

One minute he was AUTHORITARIAN.

Then BENEVOLENT.

Then CRITICAL.

And finally, DISTANT and ABSENT.

What I’m saying is that on any given day and at any given time it’s easy for my thoughts about God to evolve and then devolve and then shift and move and get all tangled up in knots so that I’m not sure which end is up.

AND.

Although some might say that’s a sign of spiritual weakness (a few years ago, that’s what I would have said to someone like me) ... dang. 

I don’t know. 

I think it’s more a sign of spiritual maturity as I find myself willing to move with the Spirit not because the Spirit changes or because God changes, but because through my experiences and life situations, the Spirit leads me and changes me and changes my views of the Christ that I’m trying so hard to follow.

Much love.