A Divine Understanding

"No other gods, only Me." (Exodus 20:3, The Message)

I don't believe that there are any other gods. There is only one. The rest are stories made up by humans who felt the divine tug at their spirits and made up stories of thess other worldly beings that would help explain the way things were, the way things happened, how the world worked.

I was a Latin student in High School. There weren't many of us. We knew taking Latin wasn't very practical. (I later discovered many in this class with me were Roman Catholic, so maybe it was practical for some of us, and yes it's true, I wasn't very observant at the time.) What I remember most about those 2 years of Latin was that I was the only guy in the class. (which is why I took the 2nd year as I recall!) The second thing I remember most was our study of Greek mythology, of the gods of the Greek peoples. What a web of intrigue. It's like reading Entertainment Weekly or People magazine, discovering whether Brad Pitt will ever marry Angelina Jolie. The Greek gods were an interesting bunch!

So I took a Greek Mythology class in college. (I'm not sure exactly why, maybe because underwater basket weaving was already full!) It was interesting. I don't remember all that much about it, but I still have the books and refer to them once in a while.

I think that is why it doesn't make sense, why I know that there are no other gods. Human speculation about these gods have made them out to be way too human. That's why I think God is displeased when we place our trust in any god that shows so much weakness, so much lack of wisdom. While I believe what the scriptures say that God is jealous, it's because God has revealed himself to us and we find something lesser to trust. We as humans will look for anything we can grab on to that makes sense to us, because trusting God doesn't always make sense.

So we make try to make God in our own image, a god who will conform to our understanding, a god whom our minds can wrap around instead of the God who wants to embrace humanity with acceptance and unconditional love. I can see why God is jealous.

And when we don't want a god ruling over us, we put ourselves in the role of God.

It's because we don't understand God. We don't comprehend the mystery, which is why it's called mystery. It's not meant to figure out, it's meant to accept, to embrace in return. Why? Because God just wants to be close to us. Donald Miller, the author of Blue Like Jazz, in his newer book, In Search of God Knows What, desribes God as one who creates humanity in an act of utter selflessness. God created humanity so that God could relate to them, have relationship with them. It was not in arrogance, but in love, especially recognizing that once created it was going to take a great sacrifice of love, God's only Son, to redeem these people. God's jealousy was not and is not filled with spite or anger, but with sorrow and disappointment because God just wants to be with us, and ultimately, us with God, heart, mind, soul AND body.

Not Zeus, not Buddha, not Ba'al or Asherah, not the wind, fire or rain, not any living in an underworld, not even self, not by any other name, not by any strange method or mantra, it's just God.

"No other god, only Me," God said. "I am what I am," (or "I will be whom I will be.")

When we trust this, when we trust Him, it all begins to make sense.

I still don't understand God fully. I never will in this life. But I understand where God needs to be.

First!

Peace ><>
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