13. I Ask God Hard Questions About Ego And Suffering | Dramatic Adaptation Of God: An Autobiography, As Told To A Philosopher [Part 13]

“A proper appreciation of yourself opens your heart, binds you to me, to those you love.”  

Welcome to 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.

Read God: An Autobiography, As Told To A Philosopher.

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Transcript

GOD: AN AUTOBIOGRAPHY - THE PODCAST

JLM -       Narrator (Jerry L. Martin) - voiced by Scott Langdon
Jerry -     Jerry Martin - voiced by Scott Langdon
GOD -    The Voice of God - voiced by Jerry L. Martin, who heard the voice

EPISODE THIRTEEN: Where God and I talk about ego, suffering, and other hard questions of life.
_____

JLM

When I was still in Washington, D.C., a matter came up about which I needed the assistance of an eminent intellectual with whom I had a limited acquaintance. He was completely forthcoming, and I felt flattered by his response. 

JERRY

Lord, how should I take this? Is it wrong for me to feel flattered? 

GOD

No, it's not. This is joy, the joy of being yourself, which is proper to and appropriate for human beings. I want you to be happy, to feel the fullness of your own being, its bounty. I blessed you with certain gifts. Of course, you recognize them as gifts, as benefits, as talents. That is okay. It is not the same as ego. 

Ego is destructive, separatist, defiant of my will, self-satisfied and self-lustful. A proper appreciation of yourself opens your heart, binds you to me, to those you love. Remember that I love you--I love all human beings--without reservation. Ideally, you would love yourself as I love you, as I loved Jesus. But that is not normally possible for human beings, because there are so many obstacles. 

JERRY

But it is possible for a few?

GOD

For some, yes. I have blessed them with the ability to transcend those limitations. They can love themselves fully, and this permits them to love others. 

JLM

One week I testified before a U.S. Senate committee. It did not go well, and my ego limped out of the hearing room. 

GOD

Get your ego out of it. Stand back and look at it from a distance. 

JERRY

A *God's-eye* view? 

GOD

No, just objectively, as if it were someone else.

JLM

That helped. If it were someone else, I would know that, even on a good day, a Senate hearing is unpredictable. But there was still an ego wound. 

JERRY

Lord, what can I do about that?

GOD

Look, you are encased in a body and a personality, and it requires ego strength and self-respect. When I say, "Get the ego out," I mean the second-order attachment ego. The ego, like desires, is a fact, a necessary fact. Like the body, it gets bruised. You just nurture it and let it heal. Don't deny it, but don't dwell on it either. Accept it and don't attach it to blame. That your ego has been embarrassed is not the same as "doing something wrong." Don't blame yourself. That is an example of the wrong kind of attachment. 

JERRY

Then I should just say, "I wish it had gone better," and leave it at that?

GOD

Correct.

JLM

I had now accepted the assignment, but God wanted more. 

GOD

You need purification. Transformation is a good word. It is obedience, which at its fullest is transformation. 

JERRY

What does that involve, Lord?

GOD

Putting me first rather than last. Living every moment, making every decision, in response to my call. 

JERRY

How do I go about doing that?

GOD

You know this--start every day with prayer and let prayer guide you through the day. And always listen to your body--it is also my voice.

JLM

I have not found it easy to live my life fully in tandem with God. Every day there are items on my personal radar, and I usually attend to them first and fit God in when I have a chance. 

JERRY

Lord, I know I should try to live each day in response to your purposes.

GOD

That is right. Not just do it mechanically, like a soldier following orders, but to do it as an organic flow, wishing to be in touch with me and to live in accord with my will, my love. 

JERRY

Yes, I always think of you *pushing* me, rather than my being *drawn* to you. I respond to orders rather than seeking union. 

GOD

That is good. The shallow seeking of union with me is a delusion. The goal is to be *in tune* with me. The work will flow from that. This is not just a matter of doing your duty. It is coming into alignment with me--like two singers doing a harmony. 

JLM

Any person who believes in God has to confront the problem of human suffering. Why does God permit it? 

JERRY

Lord, does suffering have any purpose or meaning?

GOD

Of course, suffering is what makes life serious. Imagine a world in which actions never resulted in suffering. Imagine a world without the pain of regret, without feeling bad about doing something wrong or shameful. 

JERRY

But disease serves no moral purpose.

GOD

Now you are fencing with me on "the problem of pain." Just listen. You will never learn from fencing. 

Disease, disaster, aging, death are essential aspects of suffering. We live in a physically vulnerable world. That is the essential condition that makes life serious. 

JERRY

All that's rather abstract. What exactly does disease do for us? 

GOD

Suffering is the test of your humanity. There is no greater test than pain--how one copes with it. It is easy to be nice, faithful, and such, when things are great, but very hard under adversity. 

JERRY

But that just seems perverse--or cruel.

GOD

No, that's not so. Think about your own times of physical suffering--in the hospital, for example. Those were full of growth. 

*

JLM

A couple of years before these prayers began, I suffered a mild heart attack and was rushed to the intensive care unit. They took blood tests, day and night. There are a limited number of places from which blood can be drawn, and the same spot cannot be used again right away.

The wrists are ideal, but mine are sensitive and a needle there smarts. One does not have much power as a patient, but safeguarding my wrists became my prime imperative. One after another blood drawer would come, and I would plead, argue, wheedle, and insist they find some other place to puncture me. Each resisted, then managed to find a spot. 

I was transferred to another hospital for the surgical procedure. I was met by a technician who said his name and stuck out his hand--while looking the other way and standing on my oxygen tube. When it was time to go into the operating room, he snatched away my blanket with so violent a jerk it would have ripped out the intravenous insertion if I had not by now been on high alert.

The procedure went smoothly. I watched the monitor as the surgeon snaked a catheter through an incision in my groin up to a major coronary artery where a stent had to be placed.

Opening an artery is a very serious matter. Bleeding can be life-threatening. The patient has to lie flat and immobile for twenty-four hours. Nurses in my first hospital had been angels in white, but here I was attended by Nurse Ratched's less charming twin. She seemed to resent patients needing her help. 

My body was recovering nicely, but the whole experience--starting with *indigestion* in the night (I didn't know that was a heart symptom), calling the office the next morning to find out what nearby doctor was covered by my health plan, driving myself (fool that I was) to the doctor's office, filling out forms and waiting for some time before going up and telling the receptionist, "I may be having a heart attack," the quick examination and discovery that I was at that very moment in the throes of an incipient heart attack, an emergency medical team rushed to my side to head it off, being shoveled into an ambulance, the sirens, intensive care, the surgery, the whole ordeal--left me feeling fragile, as if I were made of spun glass. A sharp tap and I would shatter. 

GOD

These moments were not empty suffering; they even had to do with leading you to me. 

JERRY

How so, Lord?

GOD

They focused your attention on your mortality, which led you to open your heart freely to Abigail because you realized how precious this love was. And it led to your prayer to serve God.

(The End)