From birth to death is a journey into the unknown. Whether or not we realize it, everyday is a searching for meaning, purpose and belonging. We long to have a strong purpose, to make a difference somehow and make the world a better place, so we have that sense of belonging.
From the moment we are conceived our world begins to develop slowly over a period of 9 months, then we are thrust into a whole new world at birth where the development almost starts all over again. The first time we open our eyes, what do we see? It’s most often going to be the face of our mother or father. Slowly we grow and develop physically as well as emotionally and mentally. Our worlds are beginning to take shape and form because of the way we literally see things. There are no boundaries as an infant, then as we develop into toddlers, the word “no” is introduced and all of a sudden all the parameters and boundaries are put in place. The boundaries are intentionally placed there with love, to protect us from hurting ourselves, and others.
As we grow, the filters that we use to process information through began forming, I believe at the first ‘no’. These filters will sometimes expand and sometimes narrow down and get smaller and tighter. We begin to see the world around us, and our personal world differently with every filter we put into place. These filters can be innocently formed by rejection, loss, disappointment, and unfulfilled expectations, but also by love, acceptance, acknowledgement etc. Each of us personally decide what filter we are going to use to process the information that gets thrown at us on a daily, moment by moment basis. Whatever filter we use will determine our response!
Over the period of the last year or so, I have been on this personal journey to see God in everything and everyone. God IS all and IN all! Our filters have told us what He is in and what He is not in. Growing up in a strict religious home, my filters were put into place at a very early age. I was told what was good and what was evil. I was told what I could or could not do. Told what I could or could not say. So, now as a woman in my 50’s I have been walking down a path not knowing who I was. My life had been so filled with being and pleasing everyone around me, because I didn’t know how to be me!
I’m tired of religion, I’m tired of religious people and churches. It’s all a big production. Sometimes it feels as if God is not even in the churches today. I can find God, or maybe see Him more in the bum on the street, in the person feeding a community of hungry people. I see Him in the nurse that is holding a wife who just lost her husband or in the teacher that has endless patience, devotion and passion to the children he/she is entrusted with everyday.
If you’re like me, you were raised to believe that God is not in the homosexual, He’s not in the abuser, He’s not in the alcoholic or the drug user. God is only in those that are doing the “right thing”! Which to me have been those people that are judgmental, critical and constantly defaming or shaming those that don’t believe like they do. THIS is NOT God! God is love…period!
So where do you see God? Every single human being that has ever been born on this earth since the creation, have ALL been created in the image of God! God is in each one of us, but our filters have told us to decide whom He is in and whom He is not in. I don’t know about you, but I’m really sick of the hypocrisy that the body of believers, called the church, walks in today. We turn away and reject the homeless, the homosexual and the drug addict. Where is the church touching those in need, outside of the 4 walls of the church building?
So again I ask, where do you see God? Do your filters limit your eyes to see those around you? Do your filters cause you to see a line that separates you from ‘them’? We are all children of God, no matter our color, gender, straight or gay, rich or poor, etc. I encourage you to see things a little differently. Try to see God in the next homeless person you come across. Don’t look at their circumstances, because you could be there too. Look into their eyes, and into their heart…I guarantee you will see God in them!
Freely Authentic 