Scared to Death #2

From age six, the Church augured into our heads that our purpose in life was to know, love, obey God, and be happy with Him forever in heaven after we die. God is not an angry old white man sitting on a throne watching over us. Unfortunately, that's the image I grew up with. But the thought of spending eternity with that angry old God terrified me. I didn't want to know or love Him.

“That’s why god is pictured that way – to scare the hell out of you – because you’ve got a lot of hell in you,” said one of my brothers. My brother was about ten years older than me, and I didn’t want to ask him if he had a lot of hell in him, too, because he might hit me. And in my family, if you got hit by a bro, it hurt like hell. 

Anyway, I spent my early years shaking in my boots – or old shoes with cardboard in the soles – whenever I thought of god. So frightened I would not capitalize god because that mean old guy didn’t deserve to be honored with capital.

You’ve also heard the saying, “Sticks and stones will break my bones, but words will never hurt me.” My friends, that is NOT true – words, “love an angry old god so you can be with him in heaven,” scared the hell out of me, and that hurt – more than any sticks or stones.

Years later, I came to the realization that words did not represent reality. That old picture above the altar was not the reality either. Words are like a menu; they do not provide the real substance. If we worship the Bible, we only look at the menu and do not experience the actual food. It is important to understand this and start experiencing the real food.

Nurture your heart, and don't eat the menu.