Friends With God

In primary school my siblings and I were excused from religious classes to sit in the library instead. Both mum and dad went to boarding schools where they had detested the religious teachings so they were keen to spare us. In year 11 and 12, I went to a private college where I couldn’t so easily avoid the religious classes and discovered for myself that they were pretty tedious.

But now my life is centred around God. I can’t quite remember when that started but it was definitely a slow build. Maybe it was only 7-8 years ago that I began to properly believe. And then it took more time to grow from simply believing to actively engaging.

I don’t have a lot of people around me who are similarly aligned. Australia doesn’t overwhelmingly embrace God. Research suggests that loosely half the population are believers but I don’t really see it. In Latin Americans, there seems to be a passionate faith that captures the entirety of their being. I haven’t encountered that kind of embodied devotion in Australians. What I notice more is the popularity of new age spirituality. People’s relationship with that seems more superficial and addictive than committed and devotional.

In years gone by I have absolutely eaten up much of what new age spirituality had on offer. At the time it really spoke to my yearning for more from life. Mediumship, designing the future through creative visualization, ice baths, positive thinking, breathwork, affirmations, meditation, astrology, magic, tantra, plant medicine and past life regressions – I’ve embraced them all. Some elements I still appreciate for sure, but now I’m stronger in my critical thinking I can see flaws. If the capacity to face hard personal truths is absent, any practice or belief can take us a long way in unhelpful directions.

I used to buy into the popular new age belief that I could become God. It gave me a great sense of internal power which I enjoyed. I’ve shifted now. That orientation would be like learning from a great teacher and imagining that one day I could evolve myself enough to actually become them. Or like imagining I could join a company, develop myself to the point where I could become the founder, and thereby claim credit for all they had previously established. I can emulate them for sure, but I can never grow to actually become them. I can’t claim what has obviously been achieved before my arrival. I can never become God but I can certainly become more and more God-like every day. That’s what I seek now – that my heart is indistinguishable from God’s heart.

My allegiance to God compels me to be deeply self-reflective, outrageously brave, rigorously honest, exceptionally bold in my ambitions, endlessly patient, continually opening to change, living full of passion and desire but surrendering plans, loosening my mind always from having to know the answers, infinitely loving, willing to take seemingly illogical actions with blind faith, and proceeding forever into the wonderous unknown.