The God That Needs A War

I’ve been sitting with something this morning, as often happens with me… One of those things that I can’t really do anything about, but won’t leave me alone either.

Maybe that’s what this is. Not an easy answer, but just telling the truth about what seems to be moving through me today.

Part of what’s bringing it up is the moment we’re in. Headlines shift by the hour… bombing and wars, talk of ceasefires, then talk of them not holding. Tension and drama building up, easing, then building up again. It’s this low-level hum that something is off, and layered into all of it is hearing the language of faith in the same sentences as the language of war.

The idea that God is somehow on one side of a battle, and both sides think It’s on theirs. That violence can be justified if it’s framed the right way. And I find myself with the nagging question…what kind of God needs a war?

Because the Jesus I was taught about growing up - the one I’ve spent a lifetime trying to understand - wasn’t about domination or winning or proving anything through force. What I’ve come to know, in my own life, is something much quieter. A presence, a stillness, a sense that whatever God is, it isn’t out there picking sides in a war.

It’s here. In us. As us.

And I know there are people who believe very differently. I’m not trying to argue or change anybody’s mind. I’ve spent enough of my life inside belief systems to know how deeply they run. This is just me being honest about where I’ve landed.

I don’t see God in war. I don’t see Jesus asking anyone to fight on his behalf. And I don’t believe Source or Divine Mind needs violence to prove its power.

If anything, I’m learning more to recognize the difference between the voice that needs a battle to feel justified…and the presence that never required one in the first place.

I don’t have a conclusion. Just a little deeper sense of what feels true to me now, in this moment, and a willingness to just sit with it.

Sitting meditation, just like the Buddha talked about. Must be what this is.

So I sit. :)