God’s favor: Spiritual truth or egoic oxymoron?

favor-nehemiahI frequently hear others claim that they have God’s favor. It compels me to ask: Since favoritism isn’t fair, why do we think God does it?

Is God’s favor a spiritual truth or an egoic oxymoron? It seems that humans have always declared themselves “chosen” or “favored” by their god. Some even have written that God told them that they were favored. Fascinating stuff.

We love to feel special, don’t we? And we love to feel more loved than anyone else. It makes us feel safer in a scary world in which threats lurk around many corners and everything is constantly deteriorating, dying—or both.

What favor implies

As with other beliefs we hold about the Divine, we don’t consider the implications. We’ve agreed that there’s just one God, yet we impose regional and cultural restrictions on One who cannot be confined to a culture or region. Can we really win favor with the Almighty because of what we do, how and how much we worship, and what rules we obey when practices considered sacred in one culture are sacrilegious in another?

God's favor can turn everything aroundWhich part of the One God are we offending and which part are we serving? Which part favors us because of our particular practices?

Cue up the Superior Dance music

This “God’s favor” concept fulfills our egoic need to feel superior: “God gives us attention and blessings,” we sing, thumbing our noses. “God gives us whatever we want: great jobs, homes, cars and perfect mates. God even helps us pass exams and win sporting contests.”

Meanwhile, millions of our siblings in other parts of the world do not even have clean water to drink. God does not favor them? What kind of God would withhold life-giving water from His child? (Please fill in the blank: ___________)

Generally, if you want favor, you have to worship God a certain way: our way. Ours is the only path leading to a god whom we’ve limited to a gender and confined to a spot in outer space.

Do you see what I see?

If we took the blinders off our I’s, we’d see billions of God’s children who’ve never heard of our path. If we dared to turn a discerning ear to the things others told us to believe, we might even wonder why God only told some of “His” children how to get back to outer space. Instead, we complain that we ordered grilled onions on our double cheeseburgers and they were raw.

Whatsoever you do to the least of my brothers, that you do unto MeIf we had a modicum of “whatsoever you do to the least of my brothers” empathy, we might be pained that millions of our siblings are living without God’s favor, suffering through droughts, famine, civil wars, tent cities, sexual abuse and genocides. Instead, we boast that by virtue of God’s favor, we are protected from harm.

So children who are molested by pedophiles are not favored? Those whose homes or homelands are destroyed by natural disasters are not favored? Babies born in war-torn or famine-stricken areas are not favored? Women worldwide who are victimized by rape and other abuses are not favored?

What kind of God would protect some, but not all, of His children from these traumas? (Your answer here, please: ___________)

I asked you to fill in these blanks to encourage you to think about your beliefs, and the ways they (and you, by extension) demonize God. We claim “God is Love,” but ascribe behaviors to God that bear no resemblance to Divine Love.

Divine Love is universal. It does not reward some and harshly punish others. Divine Love does not judge or condemn, kill, crucify or cause human suffering. And oh, by the way, Divine Love is not capricious; it does not play favorites.

We hurt no one but ourselves by believing before thinking. We are so afraid of being ostracized or criticized by those who want us to blindly parrot their beliefs that we join their chorus and sing their refrains claiming that God does things Love would not.

We’ve done this for centuries; we can stop at any time. We can start by examining the concept of God’s favor: what it implies about the god we serve—and what it implies about us, as members of the global human family.

 

God’s “favor”: Spiritual truth or egoic oxymoron?

favor-nehemiahI frequently hear others claim that they have God’s favor. It compels me to ask: Since favoritism isn’t fair, why do we think God does it?

Is God’s favor a spiritual truth or an egoic oxymoron? It seems that humans have always declared themselves “chosen” or “favored” by their god. Some even have written that God told them that they were favored. Fascinating stuff.

We love to feel special, don’t we? And we love to feel more loved than anyone else. It makes us feel safer in a scary world in which threats lurk around many corners and everything is constantly deteriorating, dying—or both.

What favor implies

As with other beliefs we hold about the Divine, we don’t consider the implications. We’ve agreed that there’s just one God, yet we impose regional and cultural restrictions on One who cannot be confined to a culture or region. Can we really win favor with the Almighty because of what we do, how and how much we worship, and what rules we obey when practices considered sacred in one culture are sacrilegious in another?

God's favor can turn everything aroundWhich part of the One God are we offending and which part are we serving? Which part favors us because of our particular practices?

Cue up the Superior Dance music

This “God’s favor” concept fulfills our egoic need to feel superior: “God gives us attention and blessings,” we sing, thumbing our noses. “God gives us whatever we want: great jobs, homes, cars and perfect mates. God even helps us pass exams and win sporting contests.”

Meanwhile, millions of our siblings in other parts of the world do not even have clean water to drink. God does not favor them? What kind of God would withhold life-giving water from His child? (Please fill in the blank: ___________)

Generally, if you want favor, you have to worship God a certain way: our way. Ours is the only path leading to a god whom we’ve limited to a gender and confined to a spot in outer space.

Do you see what I see?

If we took the blinders off our I’s, we’d see billions of God’s children who’ve never heard of our path. If we dared to turn a discerning ear to the things others told us to believe, we might even wonder why God only told some of “His” children how to get back to outer space. Instead, we complain that we ordered grilled onions on our double cheeseburgers and they were raw.

Whatsoever you do to the least of my brothers, that you do unto MeIf we had a modicum of “whatsoever you do to the least of my brothers” empathy, we might be pained that millions of our siblings are living without God’s favor, suffering through droughts, famine, civil wars, tent cities, sexual abuse and genocides. Instead, we boast that by virtue of God’s favor, we are protected from harm.

So children who are molested by pedophiles are not favored? Those whose homes or homelands are destroyed by natural disasters are not favored? Babies born in war-torn or famine-stricken areas are not favored? Women worldwide who are victimized by rape and other abuses are not favored?

What kind of God would protect some, but not all, of His children from these traumas? (Your answer here, please: ___________)

I asked you to fill in these blanks to encourage you to think about your beliefs, and the ways they (and you, by extension) demonize God. We claim “God is Love,” but ascribe behaviors to God that bear no resemblance to Divine Love.

Divine Love is universal. It does not reward some and harshly punish others. Divine Love does not judge or condemn, kill, crucify or cause human suffering. And oh, by the way, Divine Love is not capricious; it does not play favorites.

We hurt no one but ourselves by believing before thinking. We are so afraid of being ostracized or criticized by those who want us to blindly parrot their beliefs that we join their chorus and sing their refrains claiming that God does things Love would not.

We’ve done this for centuries; we can stop at any time. We can start by examining the concept of God’s favor: what it implies about the god we serve—and what it implies about us, as members of the global human family.

 

Your choice, your truth: Are you human or divine?

In honor of George Washington, can we talk about truth?

I ask because the issue arose while commiserating recently with a friend. She was bewildered and hurt by her husband’s suddenly pubescent behavior. At 40, he had become obsessed with the gym, his brand new muscles, rap artists and flirtatious young women who thought he was buff.

“Is it a mid-life crisis?” she wondered.

The Loud Mouth also wondered what was the underlying truth. I didn’t doubt that my friend’s husband was going through a crisis. Actually, I found it rather ironic that his intolerance over her failure to wilt into a dead faint whenever he stepped out of the shower or entered a room actually rendered him rather unattractive, except to someone who valued superficiality.

This poor man truly had created a crisis. I simply wasn’t sure it had anything to do with mid-life.

Backpack instead of briefcaseHuman Life Can Be Calculated

Actors on Earth’s theater who identify themselves as their characters—as humans—have a beginning, a middle and an end. For these fine folks, everything and everyone is physical. Nothing exists unless they can see, feel, taste, touch or hear it.

Most of them believe that they were made in God’s image. But what is that image? It changes from one culture or country to another. Always has. As Greek philosopher, theologian and religious critic, Xenophanes (c.570 – c.475 BC), once wrote:

Ethiopians say that their gods are snub-nosed and black and Thracians that theirs have blue eyes and red hair….If cattle and horses or lions had hands, or were able to draw with their hands and do the work that men can do, horses would draw the forms of the gods like horses, and cattle like cattle, and they would make their bodies such as they each had themselves.”

Simply put: Those who believe that humans are merely physical bodies typically worship a god who looks human, complete with body, gender and a defined space in which to live. Their anthropomorphic god behaves in ways that are more characteristic of humans, rather than divine (2 Kings 1:10):

  • He is volatile, violent and vindictive (Ez. 25:17);
  • He changes His mind (Gen. 8:21);
  • He solves problems by slaughtering or sadistically torturing His children to death—one at a time (Mark 15:25) or all at once (Gen. 6:17);
  • He is jealous (Ex. 34:14);
  • He demands obedience and rewards it with physical bounty (2 Cor. 7:15);
  • He brutally punishes disobedience forever and ever (2 Peter 2:4);
  • For all of this and more, they say, he is “worthy to be praised” (Ps. 18:3).

The Divine on a Calculator

There are others who also believe that they were made in the image of God, but they perceive God to be invisible, invincible and immortal spirit (John 4:24). They believe God is everywhere, rather than somewhere.

They also believe that God is Love (1 John 4:8), and embrace Paul’s definition of love captured in 1 Corinthians 13:4-8: Love is patient, kind, not envious, boastful or proud. Love does not dishonor others, is not self-seeking or easily angered. It keeps no record of wrongs. It does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. Love always protects, always, trusts, always hopes, always perseveres, and never fails.

For these believers, anything that claims to be said by God, written by God or done by God, but does not fit within Paul’s definition of Love, mocks and demonizes God.

As humans, we create crises, not because of our age or any fear of aging. Generally, it’s because we choose to worship our mortal body costumes. We’ve made them our only reality. We’ve diminished ourselves to a calculable beginning, middle and end. But think about it:

  • If we are made in God’s image, are we spirit or is God a man?
  • If God is spirit, as John claims, how do we calculate God’s beginning, mid-life and ending?
  • If we are spirit, how do we calculate our own beginning, mid-life and ending?

We choose how we will perceive ourselves and how we will perceive our God. We can be, think and act as if we’re merely humans marching toward death, even on the way to the gym. We also have the option of traversing this world as divinely as humanly possible.

Our outcomes—our joys, our pains and our suffering—reflect our truth. For better or worse.

Are you human or divine?

In honor of George Washington, can we talk about truth?

I ask because the issue arose while commiserating recently with a friend. She was bewildered and hurt by her husband’s suddenly pubescent behavior. At 40, he had become obsessed with the gym, his brand new muscles, rap artists and flirtatious young women who thought he was buff.

“Is it a mid-life crisis?” she wondered.

The Loud Mouth also wondered what was the underlying truth. I didn’t doubt that my friend’s husband was going through a crisis. Actually, I found it rather ironic that his intolerance over her failure to wilt into a dead faint whenever he stepped out of the shower or entered a room actually rendered him rather unattractive, except to someone who valued superficiality.

This poor man truly had created a crisis. I simply wasn’t sure it had anything to do with mid-life.

Backpack instead of briefcaseHuman Life Can Be Calculated

Actors on Earth’s theater who identify themselves as their characters—as humans—have a beginning, a middle and an end. For these fine folks, everything and everyone is physical. Nothing exists unless they can see, feel, taste, touch or hear it.

Most of them believe that they were made in God’s image. But what is that image? It changes from one culture or country to another. Always has. As Greek philosopher, theologian and religious critic, Xenophanes (c.570 – c.475 BC), once wrote:

Ethiopians say that their gods are snub-nosed and black and Thracians that theirs have blue eyes and red hair….If cattle and horses or lions had hands, or were able to draw with their hands and do the work that men can do, horses would draw the forms of the gods like horses, and cattle like cattle, and they would make their bodies such as they each had themselves.”

Simply put: Those who believe that humans are merely physical bodies typically worship a god who looks human, complete with body, gender and a defined space in which to live. Their anthropomorphic god behaves in ways that are more characteristic of humans, rather than divine (2 Kings 1:10):

  • He is volatile, violent and vindictive (Ez. 25:17);
  • He changes His mind (Gen. 8:21);
  • He solves problems by slaughtering or sadistically torturing His children to death—one at a time (Mark 15:25) or all at once (Gen. 6:17);
  • He is jealous (Ex. 34:14);
  • He demands obedience and rewards it with physical bounty (2 Cor. 7:15);
  • He brutally punishes disobedience forever and ever (2 Peter 2:4);
  • For all of this and more, they say, he is “worthy to be praised” (Ps. 18:3).

The Divine on a Calculator

There are others who also believe that they were made in the image of God, but they perceive God to be invisible, invincible and immortal spirit (John 4:24). They believe God is everywhere, rather than somewhere.

They also believe that God is Love (1 John 4:8), and embrace Paul’s definition of love captured in 1 Corinthians 13:4-8: Love is patient, kind, not envious, boastful or proud. Love does not dishonor others, is not self-seeking or easily angered. It keeps no record of wrongs. It does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. Love always protects, always, trusts, always hopes, always perseveres, and never fails.

For these believers, anything that claims to be said by God, written by God or done by God, but does not fit within Paul’s definition of Love, mocks and demonizes God.

As humans, we create crises, not because of our age or any fear of aging. Generally, it’s because we choose to worship our mortal body costumes. We’ve made them our only reality. We’ve diminished ourselves to a calculable beginning, middle and end. But think about it:

  • If we are made in God’s image, are we spirit or is God a man?
  • If God is spirit, as John claims, how do we calculate God’s beginning, mid-life and ending?
  • If we are spirit, how do we calculate our own beginning, mid-life and ending?

We choose how we will perceive ourselves and how we will perceive our God. We can be, think and act as if we’re merely humans marching toward death, even on the way to the gym. We also have the option of traversing this world as divinely as humanly possible.

Our outcomes—our joys, our pains and our suffering—reflect our truth. For better or worse.