This meaningful episode of God: An Autobiography, The Podcast, explores the intimate intersection of spirituality and personal experience. The central focus is a heartfelt letter from a listener named Shelly, detailing her journey with faith, prayers, and the challenges she faced as a single mother. Shelly's narrative unfolds as she recounts pivotal moments of seeking solace in a little church from her childhood, desperately praying for her children's well-being. She shares the poignant whispers of divine reassurance and the sweet fragrance of God's presence during pivotal life events. Shelly wonders- why can't she hear God anymore?
Dr. Jerry L. Martin responds with compassion, reassuring Shelly, and emphasizing the enduring significance of God's assurance. The hosts engage in a thoughtful discussion, exploring the broader theme of responding to others' suffering and mirroring God's loving presence. As the hosts reflect on the delicate balance between identity with the divine and the inherent tension in seeking the divine, they draw parallels to the universal human experience.
Listeners are invited to contemplate the power of shared stories, the importance of empathy in times of suffering, and the realization of God's presence, even in the midst of life's challenges.
Throughout the episode, themes of spirituality, faith, and the intricate dance between humanity and the divine are explored with depth and sensitivity. Listeners are left with a profound invitation to consider their own spiritual journeys, fostering a sense of connection and understanding in the shared stories of human experience.
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Hashtags: #whatsonyourmind #godanautobiography #experiencegod
Would you like to be featured on the show or have questions about spirituality or divine communication? Share your story or experience with God! We'd love to hear from you! 🎙️
Share Your Story | Site | Facebook | Instagram | Twitter | YouTube |
This meaningful episode of God: An Autobiography, The Podcast, explores the intimate intersection of spirituality and personal experience. The central focus is a heartfelt letter from a listener named Shelly, detailing her journey with faith, prayers, and the challenges she faced as a single mother. Shelly's narrative unfolds as she recounts pivotal moments of seeking solace in a little church from her childhood, desperately praying for her children's well-being. She shares the poignant whispers of divine reassurance and the sweet fragrance of God's presence during pivotal life events. Shelly wonders- why can't she hear God anymore?
Dr. Jerry L. Martin responds with compassion, reassuring Shelly, and emphasizing the enduring significance of God's assurance. The hosts engage in a thoughtful discussion, exploring the broader theme of responding to others' suffering and mirroring God's loving presence. As the hosts reflect on the delicate balance between identity with the divine and the inherent tension in seeking the divine, they draw parallels to the universal human experience.
Listeners are invited to contemplate the power of shared stories, the importance of empathy in times of suffering, and the realization of God's presence, even in the midst of life's challenges.
Throughout the episode, themes of spirituality, faith, and the intricate dance between humanity and the divine are explored with depth and sensitivity. Listeners are left with a profound invitation to consider their own spiritual journeys, fostering a sense of connection and understanding in the shared stories of human experience.
Other Series:
Resources:
Hashtags: #whatsonyourmind #godanautobiography #experiencegod
Would you like to be featured on the show or have questions about spirituality or divine communication? Share your story or experience with God! We'd love to hear from you! 🎙️
Share Your Story | Site | Facebook | Instagram | Twitter | YouTube |
Scott Langdon [00:00:17] This is God: An Autobiography, The Podcast. A dramatic adaptation and continuing discussion of the book God: An Autobiography, As Told To A Philosopher by Jerry L. Martin. He was a lifelong agnostic, but one day he had an occasion to pray. To his vast surprise, God answered- in words. Being a philosopher, he had a lot of questions, and God had a lot to tell him. Episode 156.
Scott Langdon [00:01:10] Welcome to God: An Autobiography, The Podcast. I'm Scott Langdon. On this week's episode, Jerry and I dip into the email bag for another edition of What's On Your Mind, to bring you a letter written to us by Shelly. Shelly's heartfelt email is a beautiful story about reconnecting with God and at the same time a poignant reminder of the many ways in which suffering can make God seem very far away and even disconnected from us. We're so grateful to Shelly for sharing her story of God with us and hope our sharing It will be as much a blessing to you as it has been for us. If you'd like to ask a question or share your story of God, please drop us an email at to questions@godanautobiography.com. We love hearing from you. Here now is my reading of Shelly's email to us, followed immediately by Jerry reading his response at the time. I hope you enjoy the episode.
A Letter from Shelly [00:02:13] Hello, I hope I can put this in words the correct way. When I was single with two little girls. I was at the end; the father was taking me to court over and over. I had run out of money. I had nowhere to turn, I went to a little church that I went to as a child. And prayed, pleaded, cried out to God in the parking lot- please, God don’t let them take my children. That night as I was sleeping a voice came to me. This was a voice in my ear not in my head. It said nothing but whispered, "I hear you." It was the sound of rushing waters in a voice. I never understood until I read the Bible about the voice of rushing waters. It made me smile. God took care of this. Later in my life, I came to God again in times of troubled hardship. I had just gotten out of a bad relationship. I prayed again, “Please God forgive me please. I want to hear you.” That night while I was sleeping a sweet smell– such a sweet smell came into my room. Later I got married to a wonderful man. We went to a small little church. I started to hear God even more. I would get this feeling from within and I would pray about things that needed to be prayed about. Later we moved. The cares of the world got me. I started not to hear God. I started to wonder what I was doing wrong. I wanted to be back where I was at with God. Later my mother got sick. I prayed, believing God would heal. I feel as if I let her down. What did I do wrong? Did I not pray right, not enough faith, what did I do wrong? It’s like He didn’t hear me. I still don’t feel like I was hearing Him. I haven’t gone back to church, I don’t know how I can handle hearing about answered prayers. I miss hearing God. But I’m also so hurt. I miss my mother also. Why don’t I hear God anymore? Your friend, Shelly.
Dr. Jerry L. Martin [00:04:47] Dear Shelly, you did not fail. Your mother’s death was not your fault, in any way, shape, or form. I know we sometimes imagine that, if we just pray hard enough, God will surely come through. But it doesn’t work like that. People are born, and people die. That is the way of things. Remember what God told you — “I hear you.” You don’t have to hear Him, He hears you. That’s what matters. The cherished assurance you received that night was not for one moment or one day or one week; it was for you to remember for the rest of your life and sing thanks.
A Letter from Shelly [00:05:40] Thank you so much. -Shelly.
Scott Langdon [00:05:49] Welcome back, everybody, to another edition of What's On Your Mind. That was an email that we received from Shelly struggling with where is God? She feels she has heard from God. She and God have known each other, been close. And now she doesn't feel that she hears God anymore at all. And so she wonders, where are you, God? She is crying out in many of the same ways that we often do, especially in times in the world like our happening right now around the world where it seems like where is God? What's God doing? Why do I feel alone in all of this? Jerry, this was a really special email. I'm glad we received it.
Dr. Jerry L. Martin [00:06:32] You know, I so much appreciate the people who really share their stories candidly. You know, this is not dressed up. It's not written to impress anyone or to find agreement with any particular audience, you know, like a congregation. She's not pitching a particular group. This is an honest, candid, full statement and full of anguish, as we understand. And so Shelly is blessing us with being able to share her anguish and then to ponder what is the spiritual meaning of what she has been through, hearing God, not hearing God, feeling-- God says, "I hear you." Then she feels God isn't listening and wonders, as you put it. Scott, where is God?
Scott Langdon [00:07:25] When I read this email, as we were preparing for this episode, I was thinking about how Shelly sat down and took the time to write this out. You know, really wanting to be understood, wanting to be heard. So in one sense, she's feeling that, you know, that she's crying out to God and God's not hearing her. So, I'm going to write an email about it and send it out, you know, in a way it's perhaps, we in some sense, are meant to hear that call, that cry and talk about it and bring it, you know, to this episode so that other people can, as you say, feel that same feeling. We all understand this to a certain degree. To a certain level, I feel.
Dr. Jerry L. Martin [00:08:17] Yes. Yes. I haven't quite thought of it that way, Scott. But, you know, I think they are blessing us with their stories and thoughts and experiences. But I guess we are providing a kind of blessing as listeners because you need to tell your story to somebody and she can go tell her minister, but the minister is going to hear it within a certain framework, maybe, you know, do a little preaching and be a bit judgmental. Oh, Shelly, you're doing this or that wrong. You should get with the program or something or you shouldn't have those feelings. No! We're wide open here, you know, you and me, Scott. We're and I think our listeners, we're wide open to hearing what people's stories are and then to try to ponder them in their own terms, not condense them into lesson plans or something according to a certain religious program. But what does this mean humanly? Because we all go through some version or other of what Shelly has gone through.
Scott Langdon [00:09:20] Right, Right, right. What I was getting at, I think, is that when Shelly, instead of keeping this in her head her story by writing it out and sharing it anywhere but sharing it with us specifically, let's say, gives us the opportunity to, at least me, when I was reading it I was thinking, I am very much like this. I've had these feelings, I've had something very similar, which is interesting because obviously I haven't had Shelle y's experience. Shelly has had Shelly's experience. I've only had Scott Langdon's experience. And yet there is this thing where when Shelly shares her story and I take it in, I go, "Yeah, we're-- I can feel that. I can-- I meet that." And there's a connection there that I think that's God. I think that is us, you know, that love back and forth. The definition we talked about of theology, faith seeking understanding. The seeking understanding part in relationships comes about when we hear and tell each other's stories, I think.
Dr. Jerry L. Martin [00:10:23] Yes, that's exactly right. In a way, we do share each other's stories. Stories are not lived alone, you know, in isolation. They often feel that way at desperate moments. But in fact, we're all, you might say, living a story together. And certainly in God: An Autobiography, the story of God is a story of God and human beings living a kind of drama together and sharing that, and sharing the ups and the downs with each other. And that's the depth of life, is that we share not just the nice moments or the platitudes and nice thoughts, but we share the miseries and anguishes and suffering, which is all part of it, and then help each other. One of the things we owe each other in the process of understanding is not just a passive listening and sympathy, but to try to respond helpfully if we have something to say. You know, help someone figure out their spiritual situation to help them see how does it look to someone else who understands the feelings but isn't engaged in them and maybe has a little perspective on them?
Scott Langdon [00:11:37] I'm thinking about some folks on Facebook, let's say, that are friends of mine. I'm thinking about someone in particular who I knew in college, but we haven't kept in touch in all of these years, and yet through Facebook and social media. And this individual is struggling with cancer and has a page that where she keeps updates on how she's doing. And you know, I joined that page and I thought, this person doesn't really, really know me. I don't know what I could really do. And every time a sort of an update comes up and I think, "Oh, I don't really want to read this, I'll be right down." But then I thought, "Why this particular person? Why is this sort of nudging me? What can I do?" Well, what I've decided to do is when that pops up, whenever it pops up that she gives an update, I pause on it. I take a second to read it, and I just I don't say anything because that's another thing I'd like- well, what do I say? I don't know what I'm going to say. What am I going to do? I just hit the little, you know, care emoji. And so she'll know that I saw it and I care. And I'm like, that's all I can do. But that's me saying that- that's all I can do. I don't know what effect it's having, but what I do know is that there's a moment of connection between her and me when I stop and instead of brushing it aside, listen to that voice. As you say, "Listen, even when I whisper." Well, what is the reason that this person is popping into your consciousness? Just a thought of her is enough.
Dr. Jerry L. Martin [00:13:18] You know, often we can't do much, but we can offer our loving presence. And loving presence is actually rather powerful compared to the opposite of no presence, no love, but just loving presence. That moment that just as a matter of 2 or 3 seconds in your story, Scott, means all the difference. And an awful lot of what God does for us is not sending the rescue helicopter in. I was told in prayer, "I am not a rescue helicopter." That is not God's role. A lot of what God does for us is loving presence, that you are not alone in your suffering. I mean, this cancer who knows what the outcome of that is, it's probably, you know, those things are touch and go and have sometimes good results and people come through it and sometimes don't. Who knows? But God is right there with her and mainly in the mode not of a medical assistant, you know, or a rescue procedure, but as a loving presence. And we can do that, too, because no one should suffer alone.
Scott Langdon [00:15:03] When I read this email the first time, I saw the words on the page, but what I felt was a real connection to somebody who is going through, was going through some very, very difficult personal struggle. Starts right off at the top. She says she was a single mother with two little girls. The father was taking her to court. She had nowhere to turn. She decided to go back to this little church that she went to as a child, and she pleaded to God. So she knew she was at her end. And when you get to your end, you say, what else is there? And you realize it's not my end because I have two little girls. If it were my end, maybe it would just be the end. But there are others who depend on me. And if that is the way it's all set up, then, I must not be at my end. But I don't know what to do. I don't know where to go. There must be something more than me. This instinct to cry out. I find that really interesting and compelling. To cry out to something beyond ourselves. Where do we go? Back to our childhood knowing of that.
Dr. Jerry L. Martin [00:16:16] Yes. Yes. Yes. This is very striking to me, Scott. Often people do not cry out to God until they do reach some kind of bitter end where they don't know themselves what to do. When times are wonderful and we're in the lap of luxury and everything is- our prospects are wonderful. Then it's natural for us to think this is our doing. We have brought all this about and that we are, you might say, self-sufficient. Because we're meeting all of our needs right now, and we, and the people who we're lucky to have come to love us are meeting our needs. And but then things go bad and you start realizing, well, A, we're not self-sufficient. B, we're not the whole story. And C, well, maybe there is a God. And that God is watching all of this and maybe even wants a relationship with us, wants us to be paying attention to that divine presence. It is not only that God is present, God wants us to realize that God is present.
Scott Langdon [00:17:30] Hmm. I think our longing for God is in so many ways God's love for us. It has been set up that as we are here as human beings, it's been set up that we will long for God. That is God's ever present connection to us. This deep, deep longing for God. Which seems to be-- it's interesting to me because when I looked at it in my own life about how when I felt God was most away from me, what was the reality and what was my story about that? And it seems as if my story was God was going farther and farther and farther away. The reality was I was covering up more and more and more and more God working on the inside of me. Because for me, and it seems like in a sense for Shelly as well, God was out there somewhere and came into here when things are good, but when things go south or bad, God goes away. And it's a perception thing, isn't it? I feel like as soon as I shifted my perception of what that was, my relationship with God changed.
Dr. Jerry L. Martin [00:18:51] Yes. Well, I think in all different philosophies and theologies, God is everywhere. Because how could God not be everywhere, you know, and in God: An Autobiography, God is both same as us and other than us. So, we have both a kind of identity with the divine that permeates the universe. Not just us, but the trees and flowers have divinity in them. At the same time, God is sufficiently, you might say, differentiates God's self enough that we can be in a relationship and that love is possible. The flower, can't, you might say, love the flower. You know, if God is the flower, then God, then that loving relationship is not quite possible. But the message of God: An Autobiography is you have to hold both of these seemingly incompatible thoughts together. Religions tend to divide one way or the other on are we the same as the divine or are we different from the divine? And I'm always aware of the benefit of the loving relationship, and I often think of the analogy of me and my wife. I do not want to be identical with my wife. I want to be in love with my wife and have her love me. On the other hand, the downside, you might say, over emphasizing that relationship with God as having an element of separate GodSelf, that relationship sounds like something fragile that can be broken, that God could go away- the way my wife could go away. You know, we could fall apart and who knows what horrible thing could happen, and that's one of the stresses, you might say, of relationship. The Hindus expressed this with the divine Krishna. And Krishna as a boy is very attractive, as one might expect of a sort of God figure, growing up very attractive. And all the girls who are sheepherders, they're called Gopis, they are out in the fields and then he goes out into the fields. Well, they all chase after him. Every girl, you know, wants-- Krishna is the heartthrob of every girl. And they seem to get him. Just as they get him and are about to reach their arms around him, well, he goes up the tree or something, you know, he always slips. And one philosopher, Eric Voegelin, calls this the tension toward the divine that, you know, we so much want the divine in our lives, and yet we can't put-- get a lock on the divine. We can't put the divine in our pocket or in our bank account or, you know, vault someplace secure. We can't even adequately conceptualize or verbalize the divine. So, there's always that tension between the part that you might say is secure, that you're emphasizing with the identity God. There's nowhere for God to go. How could, you might say, there be anything outside God? God is enveloping and is everything. On the other hand, this relational side of God sounds like something at risk. Well, it's not really at risk, but it has this tension that you can't actually lock it down. You know, kind of, as I say, put it in your vault.
Scott Langdon [00:22:56] Thank you for listening to God: An Autobiography, The Podcast. Subscribe for free today wherever you listen to your podcasts and hear a new episode every week. You can hear the complete dramatic adaptation of God: An Autobiography, As Told To A Philosopher by Jerry L. Martin by beginning with episode one of our podcast and listening through its conclusion with Episode 44. You can read the original true story in the book from which this podcast is adapted, God: An Autobiography, As Told to a Philosopher, available now at amazon.com, and always at godanautobiography.com. Pick up your own copy today. If you have any questions about this or any other episode, please email us at questions@godanautobiography.com, and experience the world from God's perspective as it was told to a philosopher. This is Scott Langdon. I'll see you next time.