Your beliefs can be like fences that surround you. You must first recognize the existence of such barriers – you must see them or you will not even realize that you are not free, simply because you will not see beyond the fences. They will represent the boundaries of your experience.
– The Nature of Personal Reality by Jane Roberts
Yesterday I was in a Nonviolent Communication practice group and we dealt with beliefs about God that we are uncomfortable with. I thought I didn’t have any but then I realized that I did.
Deep down, part of me thought that God doesn’t care about the Democratic Republic of the Congo. If God cared, he wouldn’t let the people there suffer so. If God is loving and compassionate, then how can He allow such suffering? When asked what my judgments are about God, I realized I think God is cruel. God should get off His a** and stop the suffering. (And yet, at the same time, I think I shouldn’t be judging God. It’s scary to criticize omnipotent beings.)
The worksheet we were completing asked what needs of mine were not met by this belief. Well, if God doesn’t care about Congo, it doesn’t meet my need for the well-being of the Congolese people and territory. It doesn’t meet my need for everyone to matter to God.
When asked what I need to mourn when I see that my needs have not been met, I started crying. I realize that I don’t think I will ever be able to mourn for the over six million Congolese who have died, the boys and young men who have been forced to become “soldiers,” or all the girls and women who have been raped, mutilated and publicly humiliated. But if I knew God cared, that would make it somehow bearable. Thinking God doesn’t care deprives me of hope. It would be better not to believe in God than to believe in a God that doesn’t care.
As I was leaning over this abyss of depressing hopelessness and sharing the view with my friends, one of them asked, “Does God have free will?”
I leaned back and considered. What do I believe about that? I believe that God gave human beings free will. And when we were given free will, it gave us the opportunity and the power to stop the suffering – or to cause the suffering. If I sit back on my a** and allow others to cause suffering while I cry about God doing nothing, I am not using the power God gave me.
I believe that when I separate myself from God, I disempower myself. And when I believe that God is separate from me, I disempower God.
My new belief is that God does care about Congo. The Congolese people do matter to God. The proof? All of us who care. Because we are all one with God.