Voice of Authority (I)

All of us have that voice in our head - the voice that tells us what to do and makes a direct link with our emotions and "gut feeling," thereby causing us to feel the need to obey it and do what is right.  Therefore, it is the voice that tells us what is right and what is wrong.  Many people call this God's voice - and I agree that it just may be.  However, there are some earthly links to the spoken voice and the subsequently evoked emotion (the "do what is right" emotion, or the "I am right" emotion).  One of those links is with other voices - the expressed and passed-down beliefs, values, and ideals of our earthly father and mother.

Sometimes when we approach God, we'll hear our parents talking instead.  The core feelings toward what is right and what is wrong will be directly linked to what your parents - your mentors, teachers, and authoritative peers - had taught you was right and wrong.  They had the aura of authority, and expressed the emotion of confidence and the "this is the right thing to do" feeling to you whenever they gave you a command, drilling their ideals into your head.

Now, I acknowledge that, because of this, parents are indispensable tools - they are the symbols translated from God's authoritative side into what we as human beings can perceive and understand as "authority."  Thus, they are to be in many ways representations of the Father.

However, parents aren't always perfect.  They've got impurity issues and many of them have fallen prey to the system of this world.  Most parents, specifically of those who have raised children in a Christian household, have more than likely drilled in beliefs to their children that have subconscious roots in fear.  "Stay close to God," my parents told me, "and stay far away from this world."  The effect of them was yes, always reading their Bible and praying, being good and ethically righteous people; but there was also to the contrary another consequence, a sinister and more harmful one associated with the dogma of "keeping yourself pure and away from the sinful world."

And it was this:  inaction.  They never *did* anything.  Well, I mean they worked as most parents should - go out and get a living, work around the house - but as Christians successfully reaching out to the lost, not too much.
 
The reason for this is because they believed a theology where God was always wanting their attention, much as a possessive boyfriend would want the heart of his girlfriend to be wholly transfixed on him and no one or nothing else.  They believed that all you need to do in life is spend time with God - the rest of the world and other people in life were rather unimportant and "unholy" in comparison.  They believed that you need to spend time with God, yet this God that they got closer and closer to was more and more distant from the world.  Which is why they were always so confident and feeling like they were "doing the right thing" when they weren't talking to or avoiding "unbelievers," or talking to them (or rather *about* them behind their backs) in a very self-righteous and condescending manner.

So should that mean that we *not* spend time with God?  No, that's not what I'm saying at all.  But there should definitely be some discernment as to what God you're getting closer to, and how much of just one side of him you are indulging.  Specifically, I'm talking about the authoritative side.

There are many sides of God - he is loving, he is smart, he is socially hip, he is trendy.  All the "good" that you have ever known and will ever discover:  he is all of those things, *combined.*  So, if you're just focusing on his authoritative and confident side - that's a very dangerous trap you should avoid as it is very self-sustaining.  Here's why. 

You feel like it's the right thing to do to spend time with God, and soon you'll start to focus on his authoritative side.  When you see his authoritative side, whatever have been taught from birth will more than likely surface into your head and make an associative link with God.  In many cases, what we've been taught is actually harmful on a visceral level (as I have just described).  But since you feel it's from God (you're hearing his voice when you're spending time with him, remember?), you'll feel like your running away from him if you at least attempt to question and explore the possible harms of these core feelings, if not reject them or change them.  So, instead,you stay close to God, indulging more in his authoritative side.  And the more you indulge, the more you believe you are doing the right thing - so you indulge more and more, until you become so hardened and so self-confident in believing that God is telling you to do these harmful things learned from birth that you'll start to ignore everything else around you, labelling all those things as manifestations of "Satan."