Maybe It’s All In My Head

January 20, 2011 by Ruth 12 Comments

I’ve had times when I felt really close to God.  You know those mystical experiences that transcend understanding.  A presence felt so deeply that it touched your very soul.  Moments while meditating on God’s word, singing along really loudly to a particularly meaningful hymn or praise and worship song, gazing at a magnificent sunset, standing at the edge of the ocean and peering into the vastness, or sitting fireside at a cabin in the hills of North Georgia in the fall where it looks as if God took an artist’s brush to create all the colors on the mountainside. Yes, I’ve had those moments of being in utter awe at how amazing the world around me is and how God could just speak all of this into being in six literal days just six thousand years ago. That was when I actually believed in a young earth.  I’ve felt God in the little things, looking for His hand at work in everything around me.

I’ve heard others who have had the same experiences.  They trust God with every aspect of their lives.  They throw up popcorn prayers for the perfect parking space at Wal-Mart on a Saturday.  Prayers of thanksgiving ensue when just the perfect one opens up after they’ve been driving around the parking lot for ten minutes looking for a space.  What do you know?  God really does care about the details of our lives.  Friends proclaim how the awesome God has helped them pull of the perfect wedding for their daughter.  Another who proclaims how God is good because he helped her to finish her college classes in just the way she planned to in the first place. 

Then one day it occurred to me that all of these things really were just coincidences. I opened my eyes to what’s really going on in the world around me.  Christian women and children are abused by the thousands at the hands of those claiming Christ themselves and in His name.  Non-Christian women and children equally abused under different guises.  There are people starving to death the world over.  There are persecutions against every religion, not just Christianity.  Orphans without mothers or fathers to care for them.

Ah yes, but God really does care more about that parking space than He does any of that.  The one entity who could orchestrate the healing of all of that is more concerned with my friend’s daughter’s perfect wedding dress.  I’ve wondered if God really does play favorites like that.  Being prostrate on your face before Him begging for things that you know to be His will only to be met with silence can cause a lot of doubt.  Somehow I doubt if God cares about the colors of bridesmaids dresses or parking spaces or what kind of car you’re parking in that space.  And I think we all know my friend worked her butt off to accomplish the goals she set for herself for her college classes. 

I’m not saying there isn’t a God.  But I’m beginning to believe just as an observation of the world around me that he isn’t all that interested in being a personal God.  A lot of people might come here and think that I’m just angry with God.  I’m not.  I’ve just opened my eyes to the possibility that the God I’ve been taught about, the God I thought I was serving, isn’t the real true God.  I’ve opened my eyes to the possibility that there could, in fact, not be a God.  Maybe all those warm, fuzzy feelings I’ve had when I’ve been in awe of the Almighty have really just all been in my head.