Thought for the Week: My God

Judy Clinton reflects on her relationship with God

Who or what is my God? My God is the peace and inspiration that comes to me when I’m in natural beauty. It is that great moment of wonder at the gorgeousness of creation, and in it I expand out of my little, fretful, fearful, thinking-controlled self and simply become at ease with what is. I don’t want or need anything. What is is sufficient.

My God is when I’m driven to speak out at injustice or any form of double-dealing. My God aches within me when those I love suffer, and wants me to do something to alleviate that suffering. My God steps in at unpredictable times and makes things clear that were confused and chaotic. My God has the whole picture; I only have fragments.

My God can speak to me through other people, events and in the silence. My God can bring me peace and comfort, or cause such unrest within me that I am forced to act – or not to act.

My God is the still, small voice within me, which is all too easily shut out by activity, compulsive thinking and external noise. My God is my wise self, the self that is ancient in understanding and creative potential. My God cannot be tamed. It cannot be shut in a box. It cannot be defined, categorised, measured, assessed or proved. My God is both vast and immediately present within me.

My God is mysterious – way beyond my capacity to comprehend, but my God is known unto me: in my heart, in my soul, when I become still within and am receptive to that which simply is, in the very depths of me.

My God cannot be claimed by any religion, though all faiths point towards the one God without which we could not be and would have no meaning. My God I know from experience, but cannot explain nor fathom with my intellect. I yearn for my God, yet all the time my God is here, waiting for me.

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