Why it is so important to understand God is not a Narcissist

It really is important to me. I am begining to realize that this is what the Church teaches, and I am in a process of detox yet again to bias and perspectives that have held on to my heart and mind like the enamel on my teeth...

This is what I am coming to:

1. God did not create us to glorify Himself.

I have come to realize this more and more. I have been taught this. I have probably added my own parts to it to overcomecertain insecurities in myself.

God created us in order to express Himself, and enjoy us. Children are an expression, a fruit of intimacy, a place to focus your love and your affections and your wonder. When they become ways for a parent to glorify themselves, it is an ugly and abusive situation.

I believe that if I as an earthly man am able to at any point simply enjoy and love my children for who they are, and enjoy the giggles and the expression and the joy of their life without projecting myself into it, truly loving them, then I am experiencing God.

2. God is not in heaven looking for someone to glorify Him.

HE DOESNT NEED IT. He doesnt need your praise, affirmation or your worship. I believe this. I doubt He even wants it. In fact, I dont even like those words, and I think they have lost their real meaning.

Even in the Bible, the sacrifices were there to communicate the Holiness of God, and to reveal the need for atonment and reconnection. God even says He didnt delight in the blood of bulls and such. He wanted obedience. Why? Not because He is a control freak. Because He is a Dad who knows the best things for His Kids. He HATES seeing us go through crap. And because He is what Holiness is, it ends up making us very scared and shame ridden, and therefore He cannot enjoy us enjoying Him.

God is Glory. He doesnt need someone appeasing Him, or magnifying Him (as if an eternal and infinite being could be magnified), or playing to His ego. It is simply a response to who He is. That is what separates our God from others. He doesnt need those things. He is not some super-man. He is not an angel, or anything else. He is already Him, all the way, wothout need for our acknolwedgement or input. But He wants to share that with us, and for us to enjoy Him, and for Him to enjoy us.

3. I do not beleive God wants to run every little aspect of our lives.

I do believe we want Him to. It would be easier. If we could continue to strive to get Him into every little facet of our life, then we would be perfect, and we could continue to blame God's Will and the enemy for every bad thing we dont like or understand. We could blameshift everything. If people reject us, it must be because they dont really "want God", or it is "the enemy" etc...

If I somehow figured out how to "surrender" every little part of my life to God, then it is all His fault whatever happenns.

I dont know how to explain this part too well, but I think I am beginning to see it. I dont want to dictate every part of my daughters lives. I want them to begin to transition into their own expression, their own thoughts and choices. Even suffer a little for them. Not to distance myself, but to let them experience the joy of their own life. The results of willful choices to the good and the bad.

I find this in hyper-charismatic groups. They are constantly on the way to tis. I do it all the time. We try and do everything we can to have God just oozing out of every pore of life. I do beleive there are seasons of visitation. I LOVE THEM. There are times of the significance of everything just becoming evident (although I find it disturbingly similar to coming on to LSD)
when the air itself is breathing with Gods purpose. That is awesome. But if that was supposed to be day to day life, we would crumble under the strain and the imbalance of it. That is heaven. This is earth.

I am not saying I am against it, just simply stating the fact that I dont want my s living in the clouds all the time. I want them day dreaming, and loving the kid next to them at school. I want them filled with awe, and reaching into their pockets for money to hand to a homeless person.

The idea that God created us knowing the world would be broken, and then asking us to constantly aspire to super spiritual living in a physical realm is bizzare. He created matter, and He lived in it. He loves my skin as much as my spirit. Love is one of His cheif attributes, not prophetic revelation. Justice and Righteousness are foundations of His throne, not metaphyical experience.

I am simply wrestling with the concept that God wants me to aspire to be some hyper-spiritualized person, in a constant mind ripping experience of Him, without the deeper and more profound aspects of who HE is coming into everyday experience. He wants me to be human. He made me that way. They are not mutually exclusive.

There are lots more things. Like how much choices are a part of life. How little God is actually in the events we experiences, and yet He is in everything we do about it. How life has enough trouble of its own without God adding it or bringing people and things into it to "teach" us something.

Basically we hear Him like we hear ourselves.
Although isnt it fun when it all mixes together????