For so many of us even in the most loving families, from the time we are children we're taught that we are separate from God. We are given to believe that God/Spirit is something unimaginably huge, powerful, and uncommunicative toward us, who sees and judges who we are and what we do. This God is the ultimate authoritarian, the universal parent who has absolute control over us, and who loves us, but loves some of us more than others. Since we are at his mercy, we must respect and fear him, so we try to figure out what he wants and then do the best we can to please him. That way, he won't hurt us except when we're bad, and maybe he will answer some of our prayers if we are good, and we ask the right way, and if we deserve it. But in actuality, none of that is functionally true, and when we try to follow that formula, things get complicated because we are not always sure what's right, and what's good.

So over eons of time, great souls have sought the answers and set up churches and religions to tell us. We didn't really trust ourselves to ask God and we didn't trust the answers in our own hearts. That's where we ran into trouble, and we are still struggling even today. Sometimes, what others say is right turns out to not feel right for us, and even, terribly wrong to us, such as religious wars (as one obvious, but not the only, example). We need to remember that religions after all are just people. We are people too. Each of us has wisdom of the heart.

The Bible says God created us after his own image. But many of us somehow got a picture of God "after our own image" a God with human faults and flaws, only bigger. Bigger love, bigger anger, and bigger revenge. That's not God; that's us picturing God to be like us. God is not limited by that, nor by our beliefs. God remains God, no matter what. God/Spirit/the Universal Consciousness is All That Is, including us (you.) You are God's expression in this world. You/we are given free will so that we can make all the mistakes we need to, on our way to learning the truth about ourselves and God.

Religions have sometimes been helpful and also sometimes obstructive in our quest for the truth about ourselves and God. One of the biggest obstacles religions have placed on our path to God and truth is this idea that we are separate, and we must work hard and plead with God to accept us. Obstacle number two is the concept that we need to go through someone else, some group or outside element to reach God, like getting a lawyer to plead our case in court. We don't need that, for several reasons. Once we recognize this, our fears and helplessness evaporate like morning fog when the sun rises, and we see the truth clearly.

First of all, there is the simplest truth and most profound truth: we cannot ever be separated from God. God is entirely in and through every atom of all that is, including us. We are not like the eggs of a sea turtle, planted in the sand and abandoned on a beach, left to fend for ourselves in this life. Yet a great many of us hold that concept of our relationship with God – that we are here and God is somewhere out there, far away. That God is huge and we are terribly small. Not so. Each one of us is very important to God.

In truth, everything that exists in our universe is God expressing. We, the human form, are his best work, created in his own image. That doesn't mean we look like God, for God is all forms, all things, and all beings. It certainly doesn't mean we act like God - totally loving and forgiving. It means we have been given consciousness and discernment and free will of thought and action, and the power to create worlds. We do in truth create our own world, events, and the circumstances of our lives and our planet, either knowingly or unknowingly. That is the universal law, and it's how this life works.

Everything in our world serves us in some way. We have created or attracted the circumstances and relationships and challenges in our lives, "good or bad" in order to do the growing, learning, and work our souls came here to do. God is always fully active and fully available within us as our ultimate Source, for material things, for guidance, for comfort in times of loss or sorrow, and for a greater-than-human-strength in any challenge where it's needed. When you are seeking answers to deeply personal problems and decisions, turn within. Ask, and listen. The answer may not come immediately, and may not come in words, but the answer will be given, and in a form that you can personally recognize and understand.

You don't need a go-between, a preacher, a priest or a guru, and you don't need a spiritual attorney to plead your case. Those things may help, support, or inspire you, or they may temporarily misdirect you. But your own heart will never lie to you, even though it may often surprise you. That is where God speaks to us, not from the outside, but from the inside.