Just the title, "Growing God", might make us queasy -- it's almost as if even listening to the words "Growing God" will cause the God of our childhood to smite us! When we think of God in the three omni's -- Omnipresence, Omniscience, Omnipotence -- we think there is nothing in which God is lacking, thus there is nowhere God can grow. To declare that God is growing, much less that we could have anything to do with that growth, is tantamount to saying that God is limited, an idea anathema to the Unity/New Thought student.
Sidebar: Have you ever noticed how the state of appreciation seems to be at least one of the desired outcomes of any experience we engage? Even if the outcome itself is undesirable, we strive to find something to appreciate about the experience and, if recognized, the experience "wasn't a total waste"? I think there is a clue to our relationship with the Divine that is hidden in that striving for appreciation in each experience.
We pick up from the first paragraph: If God is All Power, All Knowledge and Everywhere Presence, can there be anything that God is lacking, any deficiency for which God can grow to fill? Consider that God is ALL -- as we believe Her/Him to be. If He/She is One, then She/He lacks the experience of appreciation. Appreciation requires contrast, and contrast requires more than one: a subject (one to perceive) and at least one object to be perceived. But if God is One (the Subject), then where is the object to be perceived? Thus arose the motivation to cleave, born of the Divine Desire to experience appreciation, resulting in the two Expressions of the Divine -- God and God1. To convey God1's experience of appreciation to God, the two remain connected at a deep level, thus God1 shares its experiences of appreciation with God and is appropriately compensated (more on that in a bit).
Yet God1 could only offer one perspective on God, so it was decided that God1 cleave again, resulting in God1 and God2, thus began what has become a Universe of different perspectives and experiences, the many expressions of God known as Fred, and Hilda, and Dorothy, and John.... each striving for the experience of appreciation regardless of the experience's outcome. Being connected to God, Fred conveys to God appreciation whenever it is experienced. As each experience of appreciation occurs, God benefits, adding to the store of appreciative experiences.
Have you ever noticed that when you experience appreciation, fully experience it, it feels like the experience of unconditional love? If not, then the next time you appreciate something, consider that you are adding to God that particular experience of appreciation. Rest in that awareness that you are growing God, adding to His/Her experience of appreciation. Then notice the unconditional love that flows back through your heart into your experience. It's like the 'read receipt request' you may sometimes place on an email to ensure the recipient has received the missive. That experience of unconditional love is your Divine Compensation for your deposit of appreciation in the God Bank.
Knowing you are an emissary of the Divine, on a mission to experience appreciation as much as possible so that you can contribute to God's experience of appreciation, does that change your desire to find appreciation in your every experience? And being duly paid each time by the return of unconditional love, is there any other compensation you demand?
Grow God, in joy.
Sidebar: Have you ever noticed how the state of appreciation seems to be at least one of the desired outcomes of any experience we engage? Even if the outcome itself is undesirable, we strive to find something to appreciate about the experience and, if recognized, the experience "wasn't a total waste"? I think there is a clue to our relationship with the Divine that is hidden in that striving for appreciation in each experience.
We pick up from the first paragraph: If God is All Power, All Knowledge and Everywhere Presence, can there be anything that God is lacking, any deficiency for which God can grow to fill? Consider that God is ALL -- as we believe Her/Him to be. If He/She is One, then She/He lacks the experience of appreciation. Appreciation requires contrast, and contrast requires more than one: a subject (one to perceive) and at least one object to be perceived. But if God is One (the Subject), then where is the object to be perceived? Thus arose the motivation to cleave, born of the Divine Desire to experience appreciation, resulting in the two Expressions of the Divine -- God and God1. To convey God1's experience of appreciation to God, the two remain connected at a deep level, thus God1 shares its experiences of appreciation with God and is appropriately compensated (more on that in a bit).
Yet God1 could only offer one perspective on God, so it was decided that God1 cleave again, resulting in God1 and God2, thus began what has become a Universe of different perspectives and experiences, the many expressions of God known as Fred, and Hilda, and Dorothy, and John.... each striving for the experience of appreciation regardless of the experience's outcome. Being connected to God, Fred conveys to God appreciation whenever it is experienced. As each experience of appreciation occurs, God benefits, adding to the store of appreciative experiences.
Have you ever noticed that when you experience appreciation, fully experience it, it feels like the experience of unconditional love? If not, then the next time you appreciate something, consider that you are adding to God that particular experience of appreciation. Rest in that awareness that you are growing God, adding to His/Her experience of appreciation. Then notice the unconditional love that flows back through your heart into your experience. It's like the 'read receipt request' you may sometimes place on an email to ensure the recipient has received the missive. That experience of unconditional love is your Divine Compensation for your deposit of appreciation in the God Bank.
Knowing you are an emissary of the Divine, on a mission to experience appreciation as much as possible so that you can contribute to God's experience of appreciation, does that change your desire to find appreciation in your every experience? And being duly paid each time by the return of unconditional love, is there any other compensation you demand?
Grow God, in joy.
