How often does God speak to you?
This may seem like a strange question at first, but lately it’s been getting a lot of attention. When Neale Donald Walsch wrote his hugely successful series of books called“Conversations with God,” many people, especially those who knew him, thought he had lost his mind. Who was he, a formerly homeless man whose life was in a shambles, to speak directly to the creator of the universe? In the end, especially as people began reading, then sharing the amazing result of that exchange, the question began to shift. It was no longer who is Neale, or you for that matter, to have a conversation with God, but rather, who are you NOT to? Is it possible that God is always talking to us, even pushing us into direct communication, but we simply haven’t been listening?
I’ve often thought that the biggest problem with God has nothing to do with God, but rather, our ideas of how we define the ultimate source of all that exists. Definitions get in the way, especially when we’re trying to describe something that’s impossible to rationalize. Before long we get into a battle of human wills – my God is better than your God, or God is on my side but not on yours. Wars have been fought for ideas like these since the beginning of human history, and even when it seems to be about something else, there’s often a link back to the idea that I’m right about God and you’re not. Most of all – God loves me more than he (or she) loves you. Do you realize that more people have been killed in the name of Jesus than any other person in the history of the world? Wasn’t he the same man who said to lay down your sword and love your enemy? Strange how we can turn things around so completely, making a mockery of someone whose only desire was to bring us back to God.
Speaking of Jesus, it’s funny how often Christians forget that he wasn’t a Christian at all. He was a Jew, completely committed to his people. For centuries Christians blamed the Jews for his death, making them responsible for killing the Son of God and forcing every generation thereafter to pay to the crime. I wonder what Jesus would have thought about that policy? The same man who made forgiveness the cornerstone of his philosophy would have surely had a different attitude than: “Kill them all, and let God sort out his own.” Funny what we do…all in the name of the Divine.
But I digress. This is supposed to be an introduction to a book about a nice Jewish girl who talks to Jesus – setting things straight once and for all. I remember the first time I heard about Robin’s project. I thought: “At last someone is writing a book about the esoteric teachings of Yeshua ben Yoseph (that’s his real name, in case you were wondering), intended for the Jewish people he loved.” She shared many of the stories she’s included here during a series of coaching sessions that I had with her to help her refine the book you’re about to read. I loved it – especially the ways she struggled with the material, and how it must have felt to live in a very Jewish community, with a husband studying to be a rabbi, all the while talking to the one guy nice Jewish girls are never supposed to mention. It’s that kind of struggle that makes a book like this great, and I think she accomplished that task. It’s personal and universal at the same time. It makes us think about who we are, and our responsibility to the world in general. This, after all, is what the message of Yeshua is all about. He didn’t come to force us further apart, but to show us what we can be when we lay aside our differences and focus on how we are the same.
I feel very connected to this beautiful book, not only because I’ve been watching its careful progression for over a year now, but because I think the time is right for a message of such clarity. Going back to the original question I posed, God speaks to you every moment of your life. Robin was just brave enough to listen and write down what she heard.
Now the question is: Will you do the same?