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Originally posted by slvrnblck
Another thing I dont understand. In what form exactly will his answer come. I just asked God for a sign to prove to me he exists, yet I didnt get a sign, why did he not answer. This is what I dont get. Does the answer come from within? If so, than its not god.
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Much of the reason why it's difficult to understand God (and much of the reason why the Jews of His time had difficulty accepting Jesus) is that we as humans have an unending urge to project our own thoughts and expectations onto God. We expect God to be this way or that way, but instead God is just the way He is. In fact...even talking about God does this inadvertantly because we use words to describe God such as Him or Her or It but God is not some thing because God is not created - something we cannot understand and something which there is no adequate language to truly describe. Thus, I think that's perhaps one of the reasons it is said that Jesus taught not to test God, because the very act of asking God for a sign is projecting our own expectation of God (I expect God to prove His existence to me, or I expect God to speak to me in this way) onto Him. God, however, does not obey our will and our desires and He cannot be understood by us as we are living in a created mindset and are attached to created things.
So, I guess my point is, why can't God be within? Why must He be without? Or, better yet, why can't He be both?
Thomas Merton - someone who I've only just recently been introduced to the writings of but whom I already have great respect for - basically says that we cannot come to know God in any substantial degree unless we abandon our preconceptions and expectations of Him. This involves abandoning our ego and pride in terms of projecting our own will onto His. Many people, I think, do this to a great degree and, for that reason, I think many people lose their faith easily. "I'm sad because God let my parents die in a car crash. How could God let my parents die in a car crash. There must not be a God." How audacious it is for us to expect God to work for our own Will really. Not saying that we don't all do it at times, but I think that's mankinds most significant barrier to meeting God because we have such an attachment to our own ego and created things.