The Stories We Carry About God

Every one of us carries a story about God. Whether we grew up in a religious home, rejected religion altogether, or have spent years exploring different spiritual paths, we have formed an image of who—or what—we believe God to be. The question is whether that image is true or simply another story we have accepted without ever examining it.

Many of us learned about God long before we were capable of deciding for ourselves. We absorbed the beliefs of our parents, teachers, ministers, and the culture around us. Some of those beliefs brought comfort. Others brought fear.

Perhaps God became someone who watched your every move, keeping track of your successes and failures. Perhaps He rewarded the faithful and punished those who strayed. Maybe He felt distant, silent, impossible to please, or simply absent during the moments you needed Him most.

Without realizing it, we carry those ideas into adulthood. They become the lens through which we interpret our lives.

If something goes wrong, we wonder if God is trying to teach us a lesson. If life unfolds differently than we hoped, we question whether He has abandoned us. We may even believe we have somehow disappointed Him.

A Course in Miracles offers a very different understanding.

It teaches that God is only Love. Not love mixed with judgment. Not love that is conditional or earned. Only Love. That simple statement has profound implications. If God is only Love, then He cannot punish. He cannot withdraw His presence. He cannot decide that one person is more worthy than another. He cannot use suffering to make us better because Love does not heal through fear.

The Course goes even further by telling us that separation from God never actually happened. What we experience as fear, guilt, shame, and unworthiness are not created by God but by the ego's belief that we have somehow left our Source. If that is true, then perhaps our greatest obstacle is not that God feels far away. Perhaps it is that we have believed a story about Him that was never true. This doesn't mean we ignore pain or pretend life is always easy. We all experience loss, disappointment, illness, and uncertainty. The difference is in how we interpret those experiences.

The ego asks, "Why would God allow this?"

The Holy Spirit gently asks, "Would you be willing to see this differently?"

That question opens a door.

Instead of searching for reasons why God has abandoned us, we begin looking for the Love that has never left. Instead of trying to earn His approval, we begin to question whether His Love was ever something we could lose. This is not always an easy shift. The stories we carry about God are often some of our oldest and most deeply rooted beliefs. They are intertwined with childhood memories, religious teachings, family traditions, and personal experiences. Letting them go can feel unsettling because those stories have shaped our understanding of life for so long.

But every false story we release makes room for a truer experience. Not an experience based on doctrine or belief, but on peace. The God described in A Course in Miracles is not asking us to become worthy of His Love. He is inviting us to remember that we have never been without it.

Perhaps that is the story worth carrying. Or perhaps, in the end, we discover we no longer need a story at all.