What is God?
A mystical experience.
An inexplicable presence.
A focal point in man's longing for meaning.
A call that cannot be ignored.
Fine enough... but what on earth does that mean!?
And what is it, this lost word covers - and why does it stir such strong feelings in all who take it in their mouth?
It is one of the most used, misused, feared, loved and avoided words in human history.
God.
Stop - and sense it before you push it aside. Or let yourself be filled with automatic response - no matter which side you fall to.
What do you actually know about that word - and what it tries to gather and capture?
It has raised temples and started wars. It has comforted the dying and inspired poets. It has given birth to civilisations and laid the foundation for law, order and reverence.
But today... there is something that has been lost.
Modern man has not just lost the ability to understand what God is - it has lost the desire to even try. Numbed by a flattened culture that has turned the world upside down.
For God has become associated with everything we either want to avoid or mock -
Authority. Guilt. Condemnation. Submission.
And perhaps most of all - Mystery. That does not easily let itself be captured or explained.
But God has never been an old man on a cloud. That is a children's story we never outgrew - perhaps because spiritually impoverished left-wing educators were put to explaining it to us in school, with the understanding and recognition of a seven-year-old.
So let me try.
When Man for thousands of years has spoken of God, it has never spoken of a person. Even though history's greatest artists most often depicted the figure that way to - symbolically - tell a story we could relate to.
What we have spoken of is the highest, the most beautiful, the most true. About the deepest order in the chaos.
The eternal intelligence behind all living.
That which cannot be seen with the eye - but which everything in us longs toward.
The one point in which everything gathers at the very top in Truth. From which everything radiates and springs.
God is the absolute. That which we must align ourselves with, if our life is to make sense. God is the name for that which is not made by humans - but which humans are created to find their way to.
Whether you call it God, Logos, Tao, Brahman, The One, The Great Spirit - it is the same phenomenon, seen through different cultures' lenses.
God is not a religion. It is an experience. Of something larger. Of something that holds everything up. Of something which, deep down, we already know, but have forgotten how to speak about.
And here is important nuance to understand.
It does not matter what you say your God is - for what you in practice worship as your God can be read in your life.
What is it you sacrifice your time to?
What governs your choices?
Who or what gets your attention, your energy, your fear... your love?
What do you sacrifice yourself for.
Is it money? Status? Security? Sexuality? The body? The environment? The nation?
Is it recognition? Your boss? Your phone? Your mirror image?
Is it your child, your partner, your identity, your likes, your sense of justice?
That which you cannot bear to lose - which you put EVERYTHING at stake for - that is your god.
We can all say we do not believe in anything.
It is very modern these days - to believe everything is coincidence, chaos, meaningless and irrelevant.
But.
We - and that is all of us, you too - always live as if something is sacred.
We are created to sacrifice and worship.
It lies in our nature.
So the question is not whether you have a God - but whether your God is worthy of you. Whether it makes you a whole person.
Whether your God pulls you up or keeps you captive. Lifts you up and fills you with light, hope, grace and love - or leaves you weak, fragile, broken and depressed in darkness without faith it will be better tomorrow...?
Reflect a little on that.
We live in a time when God has been made into a private matter.
But no culture and society in world history has ever been able to survive without a common understanding of what the highest good is.
And without God we begin to call ourselves the measure. And that does not hold.
A human being needs something larger than itself.
A North Star.
A Sacred Centre.
A Responsibility that reaches beyond the individual and its feelings.
For it is only in the encounter with something larger that we ourselves grow.
And if we make Man the greatest - who then is the standard we should live up to - who is the example?
The Prime Minister?
A pop star?
Elon Musk?
Stalin?
All fall through.
All come short.
None live up to the example we need, to be able to orient ourselves correctly, with our face toward the highest.
For this purpose we therefore need - have need for - to establish a character that embodies God, which we can mirror ourselves in and measure ourselves against.
An ideal so far beyond reach that we throughout life try to reach for it, in the hope of doing a little better tomorrow than today.
And that is what Man has always been called to see - and especially in Christianity.
God is not a threat.
God is the invitation.
To become the most true you can be.
To begin taking God seriously is not to close your eyes to the world.
It is to open them.
For real...
It is to say - There is something I have not invented myself. Something that reaches beyond my will. Something that deserves my humility. My direction. My best.
Not to satisfy God.
But to become whole.
So what is God?
The best answer is not found in a sentence.
But you know it when you stand before it.
And you feel it when you are moving away.
….
Should I have a wish with these words, it is to awaken the sleeping nerve in the Western world.
The side that once knew that what we called God was the source of both freedom and responsibility. Of man's inviolability. Of the idea of rights, law, and dignity for all.
That it was God we stood on the shoulders of when we raised the idea of democracy - not as a gift given by the state,
but as a structure for humans created in God's image.
If we want to preserve the free society, we must rediscover our love for that which is greater than ourselves.
Not in fear - but in truth.
Not in coercion - but in longing.
And granted -
God is not for the weak.
But for those who dare take the sacred seriously.
And stand up for it.
Unconcerned and without fear.
The West has only a future if we again learn to bow our heads - not to power, but to that which is greater than power.
❤️🔥🪽
…
Those were the words from the road - where I again this year sacrifice myself with a daily fixed 7-8 kilometre walk with 20 kilo weight vest on top of the normal training.
Not because it is easy.
But because the strengthening of the body, health and life force is part of the pact I have with God.
He delivers it.
If I do my part.
With Fire in the Heart.
