Author: Randy Doster M. Msc. D.D.

Publisher: Christian Faith Publishing, Inc.

Published: 2022-08-01

Total Pages: 34

ISBN-13: 1098019512

"Our Father, which art in heaven . . ." begins one of the great lessons taught by Jesus. When we hear the words "Our Father," we are often impressed with an image of a great man with white hair watching over us from heaven above, steering our lives. As humans, we seek a parental authority to tell us when we are straying from optimal behavior. It is a primal need. In that light, the Bible provides us with instructions dictated by a personified God to the masters of the past whose stories are forever preserved in scripture. But who is God? The first of those biblical stories gives us a clue that we are created in the image of God. In those words, we infer that since we are human beings, we must have been created in the image of an omnipotent humanlike being. But is that God? Is God a man at all? In this book, Randy Doster explores these questions and shows us how, since ancient times, humanity has recognized both masculine and feminine aspects of Creation. In male-dominated cultures, the masculine, creative aspect of God has become the dominant image, but even in the Lord's Prayer, we call on the feminine, nurturing aspects of God to "give us our daily bread." Ancient cultures and philosophies recognized the presence of both masculine and feminine aspects of Creation, not necessarily as people but as the creative and nurturing forces of nature that pervade everything which survive in some faith traditions today. Some refer to Mother-Father God to honor those aspects of Creation that thrive within and around us. As we explore these ideas, we discover that we are creative and nurturing beings created in the image of a creative and nurturing lifeforce we lovingly refer to as God. These pages take you on a journey which reveals new ways of looking at the truth that has always existed. They reveal a different way of expressing God""not a man in the clouds but a force of life that pervades within us, just as it pervades everything around us. As we explore our inner truth, we find that there is naught else but God, serving our highest good. What we perceive as good and bad are not judgments of a humanlike deity but our own human perceptions of human life, human morals, and human judgment. All is God. All is Good. All is.