Guilt and God

I have never in my life had a problem with God.  In fact, I would go so far to suggest my Angels only confirmed what I already believed.  I don’t believe in warfare of ANY kind.  And I don’t believe there is a reason to intentionally take a Human Life.  And as far as understanding the Grace of God, I have never had a problem with anything related to His Grace.  I really believed that belief didn’t really make much difference.  So, what I am saying here is that as far as God is concerned, I felt as though I knew and understood God BEFORE there were Angels in my life.

But the problem I have is with people in general.  I am gregarious enough, but the fact is, that my problem with guilt hasn’t come from God, but from people.  Let me explain something about myself that I never really wrote about here before.  I come from a free church tradition.  My father was a pastor in the free church tradition.  In the free church tradition, pastors are chosen by the local church.  There can be some input from church leaders, but the fact is, the final choice of a pastor is the local congregation.  This means that the pastor and his or her family essentially take on the role of politicians within the local congregation.  The local congregation sets the perimeters of the minister’s salary.  The thinking here is that if the church is going to grow and the minister wants a larger salary, he will expand the congregation.  In this regard, as the son of a minister having grown up in the free church tradition, I never thought about what God thinks in regard to anything I either did or didn’t do.  And in effect, I still don’t.  It was part of my responsibility to family and to my father that I would please people.  And more often than not, I wasn’t really a people-pleaser, but I cared about what people thought.  I grew up with the idea that what people thought about me personally reflected on my father who was a very visible person in the communities in which he served.

And now, much later in my life, I can honestly say that people can drive me nuts.  Literally.  So, the fact is, I am happiest being quite alone.  And really, this is my nature.  Now, I am not sure why God would send me Angels giving me the task I claim that I have.  But really, my personality really is suited to being a reclusive writer.  I don’t even like to interact with people in regard to most anything I write or post, even to social networking sites.  Gregarious people wouldn’t understand why I like to be alone.  And really, at this stage of my life, I am probably the happiest writing about my experience with my Angels and NOT interacting with others about the experience.  But when it  comes to my relationship with God, I couldn’t be happier.  It’s not that God is what I suspected Him to be before there were Angels, but since my experience with my Angels, I can honestly say that the only thing about myself that the Angels changed was changing my belief to knowledge.  I know now what I already believed.  And really, this is true about what I know about God.  I don’t live with beliefs.  So, when it comes to any guilt I have before God, I can honestly say I live with none.  But when it comes to people, that is another story.  People can literally drive me nuts.  Peace.  I am Brother Ralphie writing for my Angels from The Angels of Life institute.  Brother Ralphie works from his study for the promotion of Peaceful living and inner Peace with God. He calls this the “Sanctity of Human Life Movement.”