I grew up long before computers showed us how they could handle millions of requests all at once. So in college I began to have serious questions whenever our preacher asked everyone to bow their heads and say a silent prayer to God. And our preachers back in the 50’s and 60’s did that a lot. How could God hear all those prayers being offered up at the same time? There were several hundred at our church and many more throughout Tupelo who were in church from 11 until noon on Sunday, plus in our state and country and around the world. Lots of prayers were being offered up all at once, so how did God sort them all out.

Another problem confronted my teenage mind. If God created the world and said it was good, how could He possibly stand by as we humans messed it up? For surely God didn’t mean for us to have wars and kill millions of His creation. And maybe God realized that tornadoes and hurricanes were an unintended result of the weather patterns He had created. Or maybe He was sad that he had created viruses and bacteria, or whatever causes cancer.

Well you get the idea there are a lot of things that need fixing in today’s world. So I wondered how this all knowing, all powerful God could keep hands off of His creation. Since He surely saw all of the problems that we humans from time to time see, how could He just sit there in Heaven when with the flick of His finger or the wave of His magic wand he could instantly fix it? That inaction on His part really confused my rational, logical, teenage mind.

And that rational, logical mind, that I still have by the way, needed a solution to these questions. I’d like to share with you what I came up with. It is a story of course, but we also now know the story of Adam and Eve is just early man’s story of how God created the universe. Actually my solution to the problem was quite easy. Here’s how it goes.

Yes, God created the universe and all that is in it and pronounced it very good. But then He realized that His creation might not actually be the perfect Garden of Eden that He had planned and also that as time went by and more and more humans inhabited the Earth they would, well do what we have done. And God thought to Himself, “How will I ever be able to keep from reaching down and fixing it.”

Then in a flash of Divine Brilliance that only God could have, He said, “I’ve got it. The universe I have created is good, very good, especially if I allow it time to mature and learn for itself that all is good. So I will dissolve myself into my creation and make myself as part of all that is. This will also be the best way for me to watch over my creation and to be a part of it forever. It will also avoid the temptation to fix it. The humans I’ve created and who will now be part of what I am will be totally in charge. It will be their responsibility. And my goal was always to create humans in my own image. So let it be done.” And poof God was infused into all that He had created.

This action solved both problems. No need or temptation to fix it and no problem about unscrambling all those millions of prayers being offered up to God because He wasn’t there to listen to them. Now we would need to listen more to each other to hear the voice of God.

What Matters Most………This is just a story and who can say if it is true or not. In my story God is everything, now you might consider this means that God is nothing, but when God is in everything, I consider God to be everything. Then instead of praying to a God out there somewhere and worshiping that far away God, we can begin to pray for and toward others, worship and respect all others as well as all of Creation, and care about others and all of Creation, which is what God actually is for me. In my story there is not God and us, there is only God as Us, and everything else as well.

© 2014 #3