An overheard discussion about there being more than one God really caught my interest. How can that be? Coming from an unexpected source, the conversation threatened to collapse my whole system of belief…a belief that has been an integral part of my life since I was four years old.
Without getting into the nitty-gritty of what other religions, atheists, agnostics, or even Christians believe about God, let me just say that after pondering this weighty question, here is what I came up with.
I knew God before ever laying eyes on a Bible or becoming a Christian (which isn’t a criteria for believing in Him). How? Because when I was four years old, an elderly lady told me about him and taught me the “Now I lay me down to sleep” prayer which at age seventy-eight, is still in my psyche, word for word. I was told about him and I believed.
It is generally perceived that the Ten Commandments (which I learned in high school when I was thirteen) were written by God and given to Moses to benefit the Israelites. Following is the first Commandment:
“I am the Lord your God…You shall have no other Gods before me…” (the Torah)
“There is no God except one God” (the Quran)
“I am the Lord your God…You shall have no other Gods before me…(the Bible)
“Thou shalt have no other gods before me” (Book of Mormon)
God created all people, but there are those who choose not to acknowledge him, or to disown him altogether.
Let me put it another way. Suppose one of my children decides they don’t want me for a mother. Suppose they choose to ignore me and my rules and regulations for their lives. Suppose they choose to instead, adopt a friend’s mother or a mother-in-law to replace me. They have the free will to do that, but it does not change the fact that I am their mother. Nothing will change that.
So with God; we can ignore him, misinterpret him, disown him, put our own spin on him, but the fact remains…He is God…the One, the Only…God. Period.