Melissa Reddick

God loves you even if you worship other entities. God always Loves you.

God will love you even if you leave the church and strike out on your own. God will love you even if you do everything the church condemns and then some. God will love you even if you declare that He is not God at all.

The ONLY barrier to God having a good relationship with you is You choosing not to have a good relationship with God. You’re the one cutting off your connection with God when you do those things, especially when you try to hide them.

In fact, it might even be the God within you, or one of His or Her messengers, encouraging you to do the things that the Church tells you not to.

Maybe it is your Higher Self saying “come on, I really want to bang 20 dudes and see what that’s like for a change. I’m tired of just sleeping with women, they’re so boring, they just lay there. I want someone who’s actually into this once in a while.”

If the desire is coming from within you, it might not be coming from the holiest place but it could be coming from a place that might lead you somewhere holy eventually. Maybe. Depending on if your desire is to connect with God or turn away from Her.

Practicing discernment as a form of restriction without the experience to back up your choices, that is not discernment – it’s a form of mind and thought control. It’s a prison, a cage someone else taught you to build around yourself using religious language.

Not everything in your thoughts is holy, but here is something you should know about God and how He and She work with you.

Every action you take, every decision you act on, no matter how atrociously out of alignment it may seem to God’s plan or God’s will, God ALWAYS gives you a path to redeem yourself when you’re seeking it.

You have to live in order to learn.

Often times the only way we can really operate according to God’s plan is by going against what we think it should be and seeing what happens when we try to get into His good graces. We all know the old adage by now, FAFO. Except instead of it being used to make you operate fearfully, I’m telling you it’s the only way to understand God fully.

God loves you, but She can also see when you’re doing something that isn’t good for you or the people around you. You might not have the same clarity until you develop it. That happens mostly through trial and error, with a little bit of guidance from someone who knows just a tiny bit more than you.

Being out of God’s good graces is not the same as when your Mother is mad at you…well, not exactly. Is the God you know as emotional as your Mom and Dad?

Or is She somewhat more reliable, steady, constant, and solid?

I think God is all things that are good. Humans? Well, we have some work to do. Not because we can’t be good, but because we are still working to embody all that God is. Therefore, we’re not always perfect. As long as we are striving to reach that highest potential…

Not everybody wants to be perfect though. As soon as I start naming qualities of the Real God and Goddess – for they are one cohesive unit, Mom and Dad – most people start yawning. I mention “peace, stability, stillness, kindness, joy, love, somebody you can rely on no matter what happens”. A select few people start to Light up and feel a sense of relief. “This is the God I’ve been looking for EVERYWHERE” whispers a tiny part inside of them. That part gets curious. Hopeful, even. It starts to perk up even more. Relief starts to creep in. It gets you to start wondering “how can I meet a God like that?” Because that’s our true purpose. That’s who we came here to become. The version of ourselves where we embody everything that feels like a dream.

The rest of the people who hear me say “God is good” and then list the qualities of a truly good person, they get bored, angry, restless, maybe even violent. They want a God of war against humanity. They want God to be a ganster or a mob boss.

They prefer the wrathful and vengeful God for one reason and one reason only: it gives them a reason to be Petty. With a capital P. Angry. Mean. Vengeful. To target those who “go against them” and punish them. It gives them a reason to be awful. Cruel. Conniving. To laugh at people because it’s funny rather than extend a helping hand and ask if they’re okay when they stumble in front of others. That is the God they grew up worshipping. That is the God they feel entitled to follow and embody.

You might throw your hands up and say “that’s not my God!” Ok…but can the world tell that about you in the way you’re behaving? Or are you kind? Not kind*, with an asterisk attached to it. Kind.

The thing is, nobody wants that version of God in this world, really. The God that doesn’t love humanity. It actually sounds like something that hates us. Which is why I can’t figure out why people are so proud to act that way. Or why they look for a God to follow who would allow that.

If my church was full of people who acted that way, I would leave. Immediately. I would create a ton of space between them and I, because nothing good can come from worshipping a God that laughs at humanity and punishes us through shame, humiliation, and demeaning behavior. Especially if there is no path to redeem ourselves in the eyes of someone who truly, genuinely cares about our wellbeing. Not a path that requires you to get down on your knees in front of a priest. What kind of sick, twisted human beings wants to see another person down on their knees in front of them, groveling for forgiveness? Unless you did something truly terrible? That sounds more like a war lord trying to instill fear in you so you defer to them as your leader, rather than an actual God or Goddess to me. Again, unless there was an actual insult and you need to beg to be forgiven for your ignorance and disrespect, why would someone seek to put you on your knees in front of them?

What the world is truly seeking to remember is a God and Goddess who hold the potential for us to be the greatest version of ourselves. Without cruelty. Without fear. Without anger, or vengeance, or any of the other nasty things that humans impose on one another. When you break it all down, doesn’t it sound like parents telling their children stories about the boogeyman or monsters under their bed in order to keep them in one place after they turn out the lights for the evening?

At what age does it start to dawn on you that maybe the stories you hear in church serve a purpose other than protecting you from an actual wrath of God, but instead are teaching you that cruelty exists and forcing you on your knees to worship it so it doesn’t come get you too?

God doesn’t do that to us. That’s not God. Does that really sound like God to you? Or is it just what you’re used to?

In a Hermetic lineage, we get to learn that God is everything beautiful and good.

I know it’s hard to trust in an idea of God like that. I often find myself wondering “if God isn’t punitive and full of wrath, what guardrails do I have to know I’m staying in line?”

That’s kind of the problem, isn’t it? That’s been my whole point for a while now. Without punishent, we don’t really know how to operate. That’s a huge issue!

If we had the foundation and understanding, every single human could be free to operate fully in alignment with all that is Good and Godly WITHOUT needing to face punishment in order to figure out which way is right. Punishment wouldn’t be used as a teaching tool, it would simply be akin to touching an electric fence. Instead, today, humans weild it at every opportunity imaginable. To the point where we become immune to the consequences because in reality, there isn’t much else that we get to experience.

If you were being hit with an electric whip every day, wouldn’t it stop hurting eventually? Wouldn’t you get used to it? How long would it have to go on before you started seeking it out voluntarily because at least it was familiar?

I like the idea that God is actually Good in every way. It’s comforting. It’s a relief. And it reinforces my decision to leave Christian dogma behind for Good. For better and best.