The Curiosity of God

Is this why I stare at my baby doing nothing and laughing at it? What will she do next? Move her mouth? Grunt? I can’t look away!
And why I find every unexpected phrase that comes out of my older children’s mouths to be brilliant and hilarious.
Maybe I am just too inclined to think my kids are amazing and worth staring at. But maybe God does the same with us?

Wonderful, JRL

I agree with JRL that God looks on us much like earthly parents look upon their children.

It’s not that God doesn’t know what we will choose or discover or learn, I think He takes joy in watching us choose, discover and learn.

I can see two ways in which God lives “infinite lives”. One is His Being encompassing multiple dimensions of time. A second, and possibly third, dimension of time gives Him the ability to infinitely multitask. Secondly, He “relives” infinite mortal lives through us, vicariously (if that’s the right word), as an earthly parent relives their childhood through their children.

This vicarious reliving might take on additional meaning considering that the Holy Ghost can be our constant companion and can literally dwell within us.

I love this idea. I think I tend to be overserious at times and maybe I am attributing that aspect of myself to God (wrongly). I know one night, very late, I had been writing and thinking in a flood of the spirit. Finally I determined to go to bed, but still lay there awake and elated with all that I had been thinking and feeling. I thought smilingly, “I am so awake. It must still be the Holy Ghost bringing such alertness. And here people say He goes to bed after midnight.” Immediately I heard (?) a thought saying, wryly, “don’t try to pin this on me.”

It was so unexpected I laughed. But I wondered if it was…irreverent of me, somehow, to assume it truly was the spirit speaking back to me like that.

I struggle with giving appropriate awe/sacredness and veneration to God while still being his confiding, intimate daughter. I know we are supposed to speak in “prayer language” but this feels sometimes to put up a barrier. When pouring out my thoughts, I am awkward with the formalities. But am afraid to dispense with them, as that seems disrespectful. It’s a hard balance to strike and various general authorities seem to come down on different sides of it. Would be interested to hear how others navigate it.

Marilyn- the language of prayer is something I have thought about a lot. I grew up in the Church and I have always used Thee, Thou, Thy, Thine. So it is just the way to pray for me. Then I learned Spanish and thought it was interesting that we pray using the Tu form, which is the informal way to speak to another person. I figured out that Thou corresponds with Tu, but Thou still seems more formal to me. Then I studied a lot of history in college and learned that Thou was the informal form of address, as opposed to You. That was one reason that the Quakers annoyed people – they insisted on calling everyone, including nobles and kings, Thou.
This language conundrum sort of sums up my challenge in prayer, which you have described so nicely. We want to show respect, but we are also addressing our father. Do we really want to call him Sir when we address him? Maybe when we are in trouble?
So for me, I still find Thou to be the only way to pray. But there have been a few times that I can remember when I have used You, just because I felt like that was the only way to address Him at the moment.
I know this doesn’t answer anything very well, but I was happy to reflect on it for a little while.

Jrl: what does the original Hebrew and Greek of the Bible use? Do/did those languages have formal/informal? And what did the King James translators intend when they used thou/etc.?

@Marilyn,
I believe that when my prayers are the most intimate and conversational, I probably drop into a mix of Thees and Yous, because I am not paying attention to my language.

“And about the ninth hour Jesus cried with a loud voice, saying, Eli, Eli, lama sabachthani? that is to say, My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?”

So, you know, just learn ancient Aramaic and then you’re good. What’s the problem?