Tuesday, March 23, 2010

Push or Pull


Running last night, a question came to me - "Can you have an internal locus of control, and still believe in this benevolent and loving God? And does it matter?

External
It seems to me that the churches which advertise this God often teach things like -

- "It's okay, pray and God will help us",
- "Okay, these are the rules, and it's so because God tells us so",
- "Just live your life well and then God will decide how and when to reward you".

...that is, it's all about putting the power in some external place. These all seem like very 'external locus of control' things to say.

Internal
I'd say I have more of an internal locus of control.
I also believe in a God.

I believe everything in existence are all Gods, or Demi-gods, and that the sum of all our parts, is a larger God, a whole God.

Which reminds me of a quote -

"Our greatest fear is not that we are inadequate,
but that we are powerful beyond measure.

It is our light, not our darkness, that frightens us.
We ask ourselves, Who am I to be brilliant
,
gorgeous, handsome, talented and fabulous?

Actually, who are you not to be?
You are a child of God.

Your playing small does not serve the world.
There is nothing enlightened about shrinking
so that other people won't feel insecure around you.

We were born to make manifest the glory of God within us.
It is not just in some; it is in everyone.

And, as we let our own light shine, we consciously give
other people permission to do the same.
As we are liberated from our fear
,
our presence automatically liberates others."

- unknown source.

Coming together

The more I think, the more I think these aren't two mutually exclusive ideas. After all, we'd only follow this external God if we believe in what he's teaching, and we'd only create our internal God through what we believe.

And then from there, regardless of whether the God is inside or outside, it steers us and guides us to where we're going.

I guess the only difference is how we feel about that process.


Life ei? Full of choice and options. Let's have some fun :)



2 comments:

Anonymous said...

quote is nelson mandela

Marc said...

That's what the website said but I understand that Mandela denies ever having said it. One of things that's been wrongly attributed to someone and just never been corrected.