What's in it for God?

Wake up People: God Wants Your Company.

It is as simple as that. He doesn't really need gifts, or slaves (in the way we understand those words), the whole sacrifice and tithing thing are about supporting a priesthood—call them what you will, priests, pastors, ministers, reverends, basically all the professionals supposedly representing God on this Earth. Intercessors, teachers, confessors and so on. Whether God actually cares about that or not is another topic, and I would argue that he doesn't. He wants a personal relationship with each and every one of us. He wants to share joy and sorrow with us. He wants to have friends, lovers, and companions.

My mother in Law to be, Linda Herfurth, gave a sermon yesterday at The Carpenter's House here in Modesto. It is not the Church I usually attend (Susanne and I go to New Hope Christian Fellowship), but Susanne (my blushing bride) and I went yesterday to support her mother, and to hear her preach. Her sermon topic was on prayer, and the fact that most people (herself included) find excuses not to pray. Too busy, too tired, too distracted to give it your full attention, and so on.

She also said that there are three levels of prayer life that people can evolve through. The first is monologue: where the person talks to God, asking for help, or giving thanks, or telling God about their day, without expecting a response. That is beginners prayer I guess. Next is a dialogue: When a person talks to God, expects answers, and gets them. God talks in all sorts of ways, sometimes he actually speaks to a person, sometimes answers come from another person, or in the guise of coincidence, and in various other ways. The third way is continual prayer: this is when a person has developed such a close connection with Jesus that he is always there with them. The dialogue is ongoing and is reflected in the persons every moment and action.

Of course, the third level is where we would ideally all live. That reminded me of an Orthodox mystical book my brother Nick introduced me to, The Way of The Pilgrim, which told the story of one mans quest for and discovery of that state of continual prayer. I'm not going to go any farther with that right now, but I would recommend the book to anyone who is earnestly seeking God. It's quite interesting. Anyway, Linda's sermon ended with the idea that God wants our company more than anything else. And that is an idea I developed separately a couple of years ago as I went through my own trials and tribulations before coming to understand that Jesus is the way. I still don't much like the category “christian” because of the behavior of far too many people who claim that moniker, but I have become a follower and friend of Jesus.

Here I'm going to discuss my reasoning for the claim that God wants your company.

In Genesis 1:26-27, God said, “Let us make mankind in our image, in our likeness, so that they may rule over the fish in the sea and the birds in the sky, over the livestock and all the wild animals,and over all the creatures that move along the ground.”

So God created mankind in his own image, in the image of God he created them;
male and female he created them.

So, what does this tell us about God? The “us” is the trinity of God, I'm sure, and we can assume that the image he was speaking of wasn't his physical image, or not only his physical image. What are some of the most prominent traits of humans? Particularly the best and the brightest of us? The “good” qualities, but also the troublesome ones, the parts of our personality that make us volatile and vulnerable?

Intellect, curiosity, and creativity are some obvious ones to start with. Without these God would never have come to create the universe in the first place. From the Bible itself we know that he feels Love, also anger, jealousy (ouch, that's an ugly one), essentially all of our emotions except for maybe hate, yet it is said that he hates sin.

One thing that people don't often mention, but that is an intrinsic part of being human, is the loneliness of God. Can you imagine how lonely he must have been before he started creating companions for himself? I AM, the only thinking, feeling entity in all the void before the universe existed?

I believe that he created the Angels, and then Humanity, for the company. For some reason, the Angels weren't enough. Even though they have to have free will, or they would have never been able to rebel. Perhaps because being immortal and living with God, they never sufficiently differentiated themselves from their creator. Were never able to surprise him, or bring something new into the conversation. So, he created humanity, and set us loose in the world to develop in our own way without too much direct interference. Of course, I could be wrong about all that, but I think I'm at least in the ballpark, and I'll find out one way or another in the end.

Why are we different from angels, aside from our mortality that is? I don't know exactly, but I suspect that our being mortal, and our having families so we have to worry about the welfare of our dependents, give us a lot more motivation to learn, grow, and change things than the angels would have developed. Maybe that is exactly what God wants.

The Church is spoken of as “The Bride of Christ.” That means that humanity, or at least everyone who makes the final cut, will be wife to the Lord God almighty. Something tells me that it is not the sexual union of marriage that is meant here. Rather the companion, partner, sweetheart, confidant that a good spouse is. One person in all of creation you can relax and be your true self with, the one you can be vulnerable with, the one you can let see your weaknesses.

That part of all this kinda scares me because it implies that all of us will be one at that point. Parts of the “body” that make up the bride. That implies a loss of individuality, and that is something that scares me. Nonetheless, I expect that it will work out ok, its just that we don't have the language to describe what is coming.

In any case, we are here now, and if we would be closer to God, talking to him like a friend, or even a beloved father might be better for both us and him than treating him like some high king and groveling at his feet. He made us in his image, so perhaps he is a lot like us, and wants to have real give and take relationships with us. What can we each give him that no one else can? What does he need from us?

It's obviously not our labor (he made the universe on his own hook, what could I do that could top that?), he doesn't need us to pick up his socks, or clean his house. Angels would be much more efficient at that sort of thing than any person one would assume. He doesn't need any Thing from us. It has to be something that he doesn't have already, or at least didn't have when he decided to create us.

I could go digging through the book and find a bunch of references to support this thesis, but then others would drag out other references as to why not (and the arguments are both in there), so why bother.

If God indeed exists, and has gone to all the trouble of creating us, and raising us, and finally decided to even forgive us all our excesses, for nothing more than the cost of belief and repentance of sin. Then why? Why are we worth the trouble? I am pretty well versed in the history of the species, and I am human, and I am just about ready to write us off as a bad job and wipe the slate clean, so why hasn't God? What does he want from us?

The only thing that I can think of that any human (or every human) could give him that he couldn't get easier somewhere else is simply our company. Someone to talk to, someone to walk with, someone with a different perspective on the problems of life, the universe and everything. Maybe I'm crazy, or blinded by hubris, or just an idiot. But maybe I'm not.

It would explain so much, and I know that if I were alone in the void, I would do everything within my power to get some company. Being alone sucks. Loneliness is worse than any physical ailment, it hurts deep down and flavors everything with ashes. So that is my considered answer to the question of what God wants out of us. What's in it for God?

Your company, so be a good host, invite him in, and have a chat. You might learn something.