I’m not ready yet to talk about whether or not God exists, because right now I believe He does.  The question for today is: if you believe in God, what kind of God do you believe in (and this is with the full realization that Nietzsche accused us Christians of doing this very thing…creating the God we need).

The reason I’m asking is that several reviews of Eve–namely from religious sources (or sources who have religious reviewers)–have stated that I’ve made Eve’s Elohim too feminine or too tangible or too human.  Really?  Seriously?  [There’s that incredulous refrain again!]  I’m curious, then, as to what kind of God they’ve experienced.  Do they not feel close to God?  Do they feel God is mostly male, and how can they support this from the Bible, knowing that male scribes would definitely ascribe maleness to God, since they were male?  Do they feel they have to put God up on a pedestal and adore Him wholeheartedly?  To me, that sounds like He’s a loony butler, perched on the edge of the pedestal, waiting to flutter here and there for you whenever you pray, and I’m not sure I can picture God doing that.  In fact, I’ll go so far as to say that I don’t tell people I’m praying for them anymore–not that I’m not–I just don’t know if the God I worship is concerned about the teensiest things I pray about, and yes, those teensiest things include sickness and disease (as I’ve stated before, this is the natural order of things…just because you or I get caught in the middle of them doesn’t mean God has it out for you or me).  [Oh, Elissa, you’re going to hell in a Prada purse!  Note: if I’m going to hell, I’d like to go in style.]

I’m not at all upset by the reviews.  I’m simply flummoxed that readers of the Bible don’t “get” God as being all those things.  I think it has more to do with our upbringing, than actually reading the texts as though we’re reading them for the first time.  [As I discovered when outlining Eve…many of the story items I had heard as a child were simply not there in the Biblical text.  Wonder of wonders!]

On my home page, I say that writing Eve changed my view of God, and it did.  My God is not the judgmental, angry God I grew up with.  He wants closeness.  He wants discussion (but how could we ever possibly keep up with Someone who made the entire universe?).  He wants true and honest and upright living.

I still don’t know what to do with a God who wants us to adore Him.  That’s a barrier, in my opinion, unless as He stated in Genesis, He made us in His likeness, and if that’s the case, we all want to be loved.  Every single one of us.

But for some reason, God wanting to be loved makes us all think He’s weak.  I’m not sure that’s the correct way to look at it.  After all, He “handicapped” Himself by allowing us to do what we pleased, and to a certain extent, because of this, He cannot intervene.  Not because He can’t, but because He won’t, if He’s following the laws that He’s laid down for Himself.

All in all, I know I’m not embarking on an exhaustive study for you here in my blog, but I thought, perhaps, you might want to examine the type of God you believe in, if you do.  And how does that relate to how you were raised?

To your relationship with your parents?  To your relationship with your difficult or easy life?  [Meaning, it’s been said that believers create a God they can believe in, and who can help them out, more often when times are rough.]

If all of us gathered in one giant room, I can guarantee you that every single one of our visions of God would be vastly different.  Isn’t that frightening…and amazing…?

So.  Be honest with yourself.  Do you know who you’re praying to?

If you’re praying, that is.