I’m changing a lot of things in my life at the moment which has been both cool and terrifying. One of these things is my relationship with God and religion. I’ve been a Christian my whole life, but I’ve always felt like I’m doing it all completely wrong.

We’re all sinners, and we’ve all fallen short of the glory of God (Romans 3:23), so I can’t really say I’m different in that regard. I swear, I lie, I gossip, and I am judgemental and angry more often than I should be. I also feel very strongly about pro-choice matters, I want better treatment for women and marginalised groups, I want the church to fight for enviromental protection more, and I wish the church was less ruthless in its persecution of LGBTQIA+ matters. I think we need much better conversations around these topics, and more educated voices speaking up with compassion and love.

In my short time on earth, I have not known a lot of peace or comfort, but God and Jesus have literally been the only constants for me. I won’t give that up now, so I want to make this work. I recognise that there are probably things I’m misunderstanding and perhaps a little too prideful to give up yet, but that is the journey.

Anyway, in my efforts to use this time online to create a digital record for my life, I want to document where I’m at, including these recent thoughts. I’ve had some revelations that have changed the game for me that I want to record. I’m still navigating this bit by bit and day by day, but progress is more important than any kind of perfection. I mean, perfection is an impossible goal anyway, so progress is all we ever have.

My first revelation is nothing really surprising, but my understanding around it has changed. Okay, here it is: we are all expressions of God. Literally, we are all individual beings who bear the characteristics of God. I love that, and it has changed how I look at and interact with people. Every single one of us bears God’s face and body, and God has shared out His characteristics and skills amongst us. (I’m going to use ‘He’ and ‘Him’ as God’s pronouns for ease of reading but honestly, even that is too restricting for such a multi-faceted God).

That is awesome. I think its so cool that God is so expansive in that way. It reminds me of this quote that I printed out and stuck in my Bible:

“But perhaps God is strong enough to exult in monotony. It is possible that God says every morning, “Do it again” to the sun; and every evening, “Do it again” to the moon. It may not be automatic necessity that makes all daisies alike; it may be that God makes every daisy separately, but has never got tired of making them. It may be that He has the eternal appetite of infancy; for we have sinned and grown old, and our Father is younger than we.”
― G.K. Chesterton, Orthodoxy

Absolute bars. Like the daisies, God doesn’t get tired of making people, because there are so many possibilities out there for how they will look, act, believe, and live. And He wants to see and experience all of them with and through us.

I’ve been realising how God is just so much bigger than I could ever imagine. If God is God, like the capital G-O-D creator of the universe and everything within it, then I am so small and inconsequential to Him. Yet, in Christian teaching, He loved me (and you) so much that He first imagined me/you and my/your life, and second, He took on a human form and died to bridge the gap so I/you could have an eternal relationship. He did that for everyone. I mean, that’s pretty metal.

It puts things in a bit of perspective, and I find it both humbling and emboldening. I’m here for a reason! Even if I’m still figuring out what that is, and have only recently decided to embrace it, but better late than never, you know?

I often wonder why we get the journey’s that we do—I mean, its the typical question around why are some born with disabilities, why do others get cancer as children, why do some suffer from Alzheimers while others don’t? Because God wanted more variety? At my most judgemental level, I think its a bit…cruel (not sure that’s the right word) that God gets to dole out tragedy to some and overwhelming joy and success to others. I think the whole ‘eternal afterlife in Heaven’ bit does take some of the edge off, but present suffering is always a bitch.

The thing is, God wants a relationship with us. Christianity is different because it affirms our weakness, and doesn’t require us to strive for something we couldn’t reach anyway (salvation). God did all the work and He wants to accept that and go through life with Him every day.

I’ve been thinking about this especially as I wonder why He hasn’t just taken away some of the problems I’ve been dealing with for years. I prayed and I begged for help and freedom from these things, and yet there just wasn’t any change. I wondered if He cared, if He wanted me to suffer, if He was powerful enough to do the things I asked, and ultimately, if He was real.

While crying out again, I finally heard Him say that He wanted me to do the journey to get well. I was a bit stunned, but I got the message: I need to be an active participant in my life. He wasn’t ‘helping’ me because I was asking for Him to just easy-fix all my problems without putting in the effort.

God wants us to be active participants in our lives. He made us because He wanted us to exist, wanted our unique existence in this world. Becuase like the daisies, he never got tired of making different people. Now its my turn to actually exist here. I need to choose what I want and go get it—with God.

A lot of Christian teaching is about listening to what God wants for our lives, but I think this gets a little muddled sometimes. I probably took it to the extreme, not wanting to act at all until I knew exactly what God wanted my next step to be.

Instead, I think He is watching and waiting to see what I will choose to do—knowing that he is there to help and guide me. Relationships are about existing together, loving one another in all our expressions and phases. It means respecting boundaries too, and working together to create fun memories. God does have a lot of rules, but if you’re Cosmic-Creator-of-the-Universe GOD, I think you’re allowed to decide what goes on in your creation (and I think the opinions of your tiny little creations may be cute but a bit inconsequential and limited in the grand scheme. I mean, no human being is listening to an ant for tax advice, so I think its kind of the same when we tell God off…) As the Creation myself, I am learning to respect that too, tough as it is sometimes.

God made us though, and we’re definitely not ‘shells’ that are completely empty of all desire and intention. I believe that while creating us, he also wrote plans, desires, wonder, and love into our DNA. People know what they want to do, deep down, even if they are unable to admit it to themselves. For me, I want to write and create. I love making art. I love connecting with and to people and ideas. I love change and different ideas and growth.

It’s not anyone’s fault that the world we live in today only values competition and capitalistic gain. That wasn’t God’s plan—just ask the trees. But this is where we are at for now. Doesn’t mean its forever either, I mean, capitalism is a modern invention, so it’ll undergo its share of changes eventually. Humans have not historically been known for keeping things exactly the same, and we’re already seeing the rise of AI change the landscape again (sadly, I don’t think this will be much better but hey, it could be the catalyst for some positive change too!)

Anyway, thats where I’m at for now. It might all change next week, and it could take me years to get back to this point. I could be all wrong about this too, or totally right, and I won’t know until I find out what does happen at the end of this life. In the meantime, I’m going to keep working, and keep learning. The only way you fail is if you stop, so let’s keep moving.