What God Wants?

I have been meaning to write this since Sunday, but have been both busy and simultaneously slacking, so here it is Thursday before my thoughts become words.

This is another one of those rare instances where I want to chat religion. Fair warning that I am my traditionally brutally honest self in this post.

I recently attended and helped put on a Gospel Brunch in Kansas City for the HRC. The goal was to bring civil rights organizations of all types and religious organizations. As an outreach project, I thought it was great, the event was a hit, and fun to boot.

During the brunch we had several groups perform, including the Heartland Men's Chorus, the primary gay men's choir in KC. My friend Randy had a solo that he was both excited and nervous about. He had also just come from a very moving church service that coincidentally was very similar to what the brunch was all about. Anyway, Randy was going on about how he hoped that God would give him the strength to sing, etc. and lots of other people there were expressing similar thoughts about their own lives. At that point, it really struck me why I clash so violently with the average Christian religions.

I used to think that my more open view of the world is what separated me from organized religion. How can you believe in things like horoscopes, magic, spirits, etc and still believe in God? That never seemed to fit, because I more believe in everything than I believe in nothing, but I still never could align myself with one religion. Now I think I know why: They pray for the wrong things, and the wrong reasons.

I recently read a story that I loved sometime in the Middle Ages, a farmer was looking at his crop, and he got down upon his knees and thanked God for a good harvest. A religious man of some sort (I am still trying to get at what religion he was) said "Do not thank God for your harvest. Instead thank yourself for your heard work. If you want to thank God, thank him for making you in such a way that you have the ability to grow food for yourself."

Bingo. That's it. To me, God created me. He gave me all the innate abilities of who I am, and the potential of who I can be. He then set me free to make my own life on my own. It is not He that makes me laugh or cry, but He who gave me the ability to do both, and the chance to chose what things were in my life. Randy has a great voice. A God given talent if you will, but when he goes out there, it is not God that is with him, only himself. It is his hours practicing that made him ready. His desire to do well that pushed him.

I see so many religions hold people back because they think that nothing can be done without God, and that anything that happens is directly attributed to Him. No wonder no one feels they can stand on their own two feet. I would imagine that God hates the way many religions view his work. Everything is by God's hand, but we are made in His image, giving us the ability to be our best. Hiding behind divine intervention is a waste of a life, and to me that is the biggest travesty against God.

Just the same is doing things that are atrocities in the name of God. I mentioned this last time, but I think I have found the reasoning behind it now. When people think that God is guiding each man's life, he can justify anything without holding himself accountable. "God wants me to do this," or "I wasn't able to do that because God wasn't with me. He didn't want that to happen."

I think that what our job is, is to be the best we can be with what we are given. God may have made the rules, but WE play the game. We have the power to make the difference in our lives, not by prayer, but by action. By faith in ourselves as God's creations perhaps, but not his instruments. By taking credit for the good and the bad in our lives, and not hiding behind divine intervention.