Connect with God?!... Ok if I must

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Perry
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Connect with God?!... Ok if I must

Post by Perry » Thu Jun 30, 2016 12:12 pm

There is something I have been noticing over time in lots of people on the Divine Love path. And that is, people have an interest in the subjects of Divine Truth/Love and how that can benefit their life (which is great of course) HOWEVER - I don't get a strong feeling from many people that they DESIRE a relationship with God. Its also interesting that out of all the videos Nicky and I have created on our YouTube channel, 'Desiring and loving God' is the least viewed video!

There has been quite a few questions lately on the forum (and in personal discussions) which have indicated this to me. Questions are being asked with a flavour of:

Is God really there for us?
Is God active in our lives?
I don't trust God?
Why does God give us free will?
Should I put God first before emotional processing?
Can I do this without God?
How do I know God even exists?

So many questions about God!
At the end of the day, there is only really one answer to all of those questions, and that is... You must start to build a relationship with God, and ask God those questions!

Here is what I have discovered over the years...

1) Asking other people about God will not solidify the answers in my very own heart and soul. A person can tell me all the amazing experiences and qualities of God, but until I feel it for myself, it will still just be theory, and I will beg for more questions!

2) Desire... to desire God! I realised that I didn't love God as much as I thought when I heard a Christian preacher say "If God never gives you a single thing again in your Love life, would you still Love God?" - Hearing this, I realised I only Loved God if I thought God would make my life better. I didn't love God for the sake of loving God. I always wanted more from God, without much thought about loving God. I was not grateful for all the gifts that God had already given me. I realised that I was NOT GIVING LOVE to God. I realised my relationship with God was a one way street. (And are we like this in all other relationships I wonder?)

3) I started to want to put God first in my life. I genuinely started to thank God daily. I sincerely sent my love to God, and this would make me cry lots for I could feel God receiving it - there was a lot of joy from both of us in this interaction.

4) Ways in which I now relate with God (Pretty much everyday - if not everyday) In varying degrees I...
* Journal and write to God
* I read about God (Padgett messages, Through the mists, life Elysium etc.) And watch Jesus and Mary's material relating to God.
* Sing songs to God throughout the day
* Pray and talk with God about my feelings, joys and concerns throughout the day
* Send my love to God throughout day
* Thank God for my life (even when I don't understand what is happening)

5) By relating with God like I have mentioned above, I started understand and learn lots about God. All of this didn't happen over night! It has taking time, patience, action and trust (Trust in what Jesus and Mary have been teaching me). Over time, like all relationships, the bonds become stronger!

6) When life gets hard, I don't blame God. Although the strength of my Faith may vary, I don't give up on God. I realise the problem must reside inside of me - not God. I remember that I have gotten through major blocks before in life - so I can do it again! (Faith)

7) I understand that there must be so much knowledge out there that I have no clue about. I understand that there are ways in which I can develop in love that at the moment I feel is impossible. I don't let the feeling of 'impossible' put me off- Once upon a time I would have NEVER believed you if you would have told me that in the future I would totally give up alcohol - ( I drank pretty much every night from the age of 18 to 29... and I would be heavily drunk 3 nights out 7)

8) Be prepared to make mistakes. Be prepared to have set backs. I am not expected to be perfect right now, however, my joy will increase if I desire to become perfect - As God! (If I stay the same, my life becomes mundane, boring and painful)

9) Receiving Gods love is the most incredible feeling ever...
SO yes START WITH GOD!

10) If I do not want a relationship with God... Why not?

and so, if you need some inspiration to get you going with YOUR RELATIONSHIP WITH GOD then watch this link (God bless Oprah ;) )
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bBkkp4LEYpc

Thanks Guys
Perry

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Maxine
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Re: Connect with God?!... Ok if I must

Post by Maxine » Fri Jul 01, 2016 4:24 pm

Hi Perry,

Beautiful clip!

So spot on with what you said. It is a truth I have admitted to myself recently in the last few weeks - that I am more interested in improving my soul condition/ending my pain than loving God. Only this morning I was writing to God about my blocks and that I am even blocked to my blocks or that is how it felt today.
Though since you seminar I have listened to United pursuit again and again - the whole album takes me to a moment, a time in the past when I did feel God, and again for a few seconds that day. But the wall I have created stands there too most of the time. And yes RJLee shows me so much - but as you say in the end I know it is the experience that I have myself that counts more than anything and for that I can't avoid the blocks or the truth that I don't want to know or face God because of them.

So I guess I sent a prayer in my writing/my heart to know and understand more and I was drawn here and read your post. So thank you.

I also came across a clip called "Feeling how God feels about the damage We have done which helped me realise one big block.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gZ9oOkm69vI

I have had so many LOAs this week telling me to involve God in the process I am in and to resist is only causing suffering. So yes don't dodge this issue!

love
Maxine

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Re: Connect with God?!... Ok if I must

Post by Anita » Sat Jul 02, 2016 7:58 pm

Thank you Perry, beautiful and so inspiring!

Anita
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Mary
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Re: Connect with God?!... Ok if I must

Post by Mary » Mon Jul 18, 2016 2:51 am

Hi Perry,

I love your post**** (except if I am honest the Oprah clip - I had to click on the link twice just to be sure that this was the clip you wanted us to watch. Honestly I didn't get it? I found that the emotions in the people involved were pretty insincere about God and felt a lot of facade in everyone. Do you feel like these people have a relationship with God?)

I thought to pick up on your last point:
10) If I do not want a relationship with God... Why not?
This one is really important and I suggest that if people aren't yet connecting to God it is because they aren't yet willing to work through their emotional reasons for NOT WANTING a relationship with God. I notice that while people are still very involved in maintaining their facade that they can find it difficult to admit just how much they DON'T want the relationship. Yet discovering our resistance to God and challenging the emotions that create it, is crucial to connecting to God.

Some things that Jesus has helped me with and I do to challenge my resistance to God are:

1. Write a letter to God about why I DON'T want to connect to Him
I tell God why I don't want to know or feel Him
(I have found this to be so powerful in connecting to childhood beliefs and emotions that I am projecting onto God)


2. Attempt prayer and allow the emotions that are triggered without judgement or too much analysis.
(Focusing on my body sensations helps me to get out of my head and into more emotion. For example in asking for love I find I tune into my heart, I have lots of awareness of my body's resistance and usually find emotions come up. I have connected to anger, grief and fear in this experience).


3. Get real about the excuses for not wanting to change
Most of us know that having a relationship with God is going to change us and change our lives. Often we live in fear of relationships changing or living in ways that might challenge others.

Or we might know that we will have to give up being the 'victim' or the 'abused' in everyone's eyes and instead we'll get on with our lives. We won't be able to use our pain as our identity, in fact the way we perceive ourselves might completely change.

All of these things can be powerful EXCUSES to not connect to God and not let go of pain and false beliefs. For example, I recently wrote in my journal:
Holding on to false beliefs about God and Love helps me to maintain the viewpoint of hopelessness. This helps me to avoid ACTING and doing things that confront my fears. I don't want to feel fear, so I don't want to connect to God.
We need to be willing to confront and let go of our investments in remaining separate from God - and to see that these things are fear based and cause us further pain.


Thank you again Perry for the post. I think it provides a list of things that people can be doing everyday to work on establishing a relationship with God.

I love that it focuses on positive, faith building actions. I think it can be easy to deny that those things you listed are available to us each and every day to engage and to help us to make steps towards connecting with God.

I also like that you mentioned that this is a relationship that you developed and that strengthened OVER TIME. In the modern world we are so accustomed to instant gratification and want quick responses from everyone and everything. I love that God desires for us to develop true character and sincerity as we grow closer and closer to Him.

When I conscientiously do those things that you wrote that you do, I always become more emotionally connected to the reasons "Why" I don't want the relationship with God. I made my additional suggestions about exploring the "Why not" because I that know in the past I have wanted to avoid answering that question so much that I just GAVE UP on all of the things that you do all the time. There is a lot of emotional power in answering
10) If I do not want a relationship with God... Why not?
so much emotional power that, when living in fear, it can be tempting to avoid answering the question altogether. So I encourage everyone to be really honest about the emotional reasons they are resisting a connection with God.

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Perry
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Re: Connect with God?!... Ok if I must

Post by Perry » Tue Jul 19, 2016 11:37 am

Hi Mary,

Thanks for your reply, glad you liked the post.

Re the video clip: Do I think these people have a relationship with God? Your question gave me something to chew on.

When I posted the clip, I guess I must have thought that they (not all of them) had some kind of relationship with God (or some kind of Faith), as they were singing with such passion about God changing their hearts. Also the spontaneity of the singing impressed me (As does God's spontaneity always surprises me). Also Oprah organised and paid for the whole thing, and so I saw that as her wanting to 'give back' and create something amazing because she has received so much. I get that feeling after receiving God's love... the feeling of being so grateful, that I want give or create something to show Gods greatness. (In my post I talked about 'Giving love' rather than just receiving, so that was the link there in my thoughts) ... And I think what I was trying to convey with that clip was to show the 'intensity' and 'passion' that the women had when they singing (granted maybe not about their feelings about God), is the same kind passion needed for God, not some luke-warm feeling (or fear) - but more like, lets have some excitement and joy about God - Lets celebrate.

After your feedback I re-watched the clip a few times to see if I would be sensitive to the things you mentioned.

I must admit it wasn't totally obvious to me, but eventually I did start to get a feeling that maybe it wasn't so much about God that the singers were so passionate about, but more that they wanted to put on a good show, and live up to their 'legendry names'. And the audience were just responding to a good show? And so it wasn't really about God at all.
Is this what you were alluding to?

I'm really interested to know what your feelings were about the façades and insincerity so that I can become more aware.

Thanks Mary

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Re: Connect with God?!... Ok if I must

Post by Mary » Fri Jul 22, 2016 8:05 am

Hey Perry,

Here's what I saw in the clip:


1. The emotions in the singers felt aggressive, competitive, arrogant and 'showing off'. They were singing songs supposedly about their gratitude for God and yet I didn't feel that they were directing any gratitude or emotion towards God at all. Their main emotions seemed to be about showing off their powerful voices and attempting to illicit a response in the audience (more on that in the next point). I also found that some of the singing felt very forceful, aggressive and demanding. None of these are emotions that I associate with being able to connect with or being in connection with God.


2. Oprah's purpose in creating the concert part of this event was to, by her own description, 'take' the audience to a particular place, that is, to manipulate their emotions and have them have a 'spiritual' experience. This intention is not in harmony with God's Way. God's Way offers people gifts of love, truth and other things, even music, but has no investment or desire to have other people feel or act a certain way in response to the gifts. I felt that there was a desire to actually manipulate people's will based choices to feel and behave a certain way at this part of her event.

A person might have a pure intention to inspire people but I felt that the pridefulness that Oprah and the singers seemed to have about THEIR abilities to have people feel certain things didn't match with a person acting in their heartfelt desire to offer a gift without expectation or investments.

If you think about the way Jesus teaches and shares - he always speaks from his heart, he is connected to his own emotions and he offers the gift of his self expression and of God's Truth to others. Very often that creates an emotional response in people but he doesn't ever feel prideful about that, nor is he setting out to design something in which God will 'show up'. He knows that God is already there (laugh) but that people connecting with God is dependent on their personal desires and he never attempts to manipulate those desires in other people.

One way is all about offering gifts and perhaps even hoping to inspire, the other way is to design something to play on specific emotions in order to have people have a particular response. The first way is God's Way. The second is what I feel Oprah was doing.

There seemed to be a lot of pride in Oprah and the singers about their ability to manipulate people's emotions and create an event where 'Jesus' showed up. Again, people who truly want to inspire people towards God don't feel prideful or arrogant when their efforts are rewarded by people making an emotional connection with God (which I don't actually think happened at this event anyway).

3. Oprah also seems smug and condescending about the 'white folks' not knowing what was going on. The implication seems to be that the 'black folks' know how to be spiritual and they are amused by the 'white folks' not 'getting it'. It is NOT in harmony with God or God's Way to make fun of people who are confronted or surprised by people being expressive. Nor it is a reflection of someone who actually has a connection with God to be so arrogant about what they created or to have the belief that what was created was something 'spiritual' when it felt to me to be a very addictive exchange between performers, the organiser and the people in attendance.

I feel that most of these gospel singers were more interested in manipulating the emotions of their audience and receiving praise for their voices than they were interested in actually inspiring the people present through their sincere and humble passion for God.

I notice Perry that you are attracted to worship or praise music. However a lot of these types of songs and performances have a lot of addiction in them.

Many times people performing at group worship events have a lot of investment in, pride about, and even feel a sense of power when their audience feels a certain way as a result of what they say or how they sing. This is out of harmony with God's Love.

However many audience members enjoy these kinds of events because it feeds a variety of their own addictions including:
  • relying on external sources of inspiration to feel more open to God,
    feeling a 'part' of a group which validates their feelings,
    desire to 'share in' emotions with others rather than to share emotions with God,
    avoidance of feeling painful or dissatisfied emotions in their relationship with God or in daily life
    desire to feel that they have a relationship with God when really they are just connecting to spirits through their unhealed emotions
(to name just a few).

There is also at times a sexual exchange between performers and audience, similar to what you can feel at regular concerts etc. If I were you I would question myself as to why I am so moved by clips and performances like these when they are so addictive. They must be meeting some addictions within yourself.

I'm not saying that people at these kinds of events never connect to God but I do wonder sometimes just exactly how much is about spirits given how few of the singers seem to be in a relationship with God themselves. These events seem to be places where codependent addictions between spirits and people on earth are often created and maintained.


Reading between the lines in the Oprah clip it seems that this concert was a part of a larger event aimed at her expressing her gratitude to people she perceived had 'paved the way' for African American women. I agree that when we feel sincere gratitude we are often desirous of giving back to those who have helped us.

But I didn't understand or see any relevance in the recommendation in order to inspire people towards God. I couldn't see any evidence of people who had received God's Love or were feeling for God in it. Since I didn't observe anyone involved showing evidence of humility or a relationship with God themselves I was a bit surprised.

Along with those things you mentioned that caused you to like the clip, I wonder if there are some emotions relating to your feelings about women and your sensitivity to their emotions that might be at play? This is what I suspect.

I encourage you to consider that you have spirits around you who have very similar emotions to the women in this clip and that they are feeding into your desire to have emotional experiences with them. This is really dangerous for your spiritual welfare and damaging to your ability to have a relationship with God.

If I were you I would also be a lot more thoughtful and seeking of the true reasons I was attracted to a clip that displays a lot of addiction and why I thought it to be inspirational when it came to having a relationship with God.

All the best,
Mary

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Perry
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Re: Connect with God?!... Ok if I must

Post by Perry » Fri Jul 22, 2016 9:14 pm

Thank you Mary for your very detailed response, it has given me a lot to reflect on.

Thank you
Perry

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Re: Connect with God?!... Ok if I must

Post by Emily Willmott » Tue Jul 26, 2016 10:04 pm

I really enjoyed reading your post yesterday Perry, I had listened to `let it happen` many times during the day and was then drawn to this post where I watched the opera video followed by the comments by Mary.

Firstly, I enjoy singing, I know there is a poet in me too which I'm encouraging to come out. I keep getting moments of inspiration where I want to sing and write from my heart and also share God's truth through song. When I hear songs like let it happen and some gospel music I feel connected to my soul and to prayer. But after reading Mary's response, it makes me wonder what loving music is.

Before I read the post I had prayed for guidence to write songs as I'm a bit stuck and I'm tired of just singing covers.
I think music which is simple and inclusive of others is a good direction but the idea that that can also be manipulating other people's feelings is a strange one for me to get my head around.. I can't think of an example where that doesn't happen. Music makes people feel so I'm confused... If a musician is humble and sharing truth and not demanding others listen, that must be a good place to start.

I guess I can also say I am addicted to forms of worship music, where I feel included in a group and where addictive emotions can be built together.. In what sometimes feels soothing.. Other times feels angry and competitive in a crowd. In terms of singing to/about God without 'worship'.. Must be more like singing to a friend you are really grateful to have.

Lots to feel about and play with. Thank you for you posts, it's been good for me to read.

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