If you listen to the speakers at LDS General Conference, I think you’d get the impression that God is a white man who wears a suit and who operates the church much like a corporate CEO. He has angels who report to Him about all events in every person’s life. He knows everything that has ever happened, has all knowledge of all science, all history, all arts, and more. The church organization is designed perfectly according to the blueprints that God has outlined to His leaders. When policy is changed, it is only because God has foreseen that changes would be ideal at this particular point in our lives. If there are tragedies or natural disasters, God might not cause these, but He knows exactly how to make sure that all those affected by them are able to find purpose despite/because of what has happened to them.
I find this an interesting view of God. I’m not sure that it is the way that I have personally experienced God in my life, however. For one thing, I don’t feel that God’s interaction with me has always been one of a perfect organizer. I don’t mean that I don’t believe God is omniscient, but I must say, that isn’t my primary experience with God. And I guess the older I’ve gotten, the less I find that I care whether God knows all. The God I seek in my prayers is a God of love. I sometimes see God as a woman, sometimes as a man, sometimes as black, sometimes as white, because love feels differently to me in all of those forms, but God contains them in one experience.
An organized God who anticipates all and who has the capacity to deliver us from all of our pains—that also isn’t my experience with God. Again, I’m not saying it isn’t true, but it doesn’t seem to matter to me. I assume that God sees more than I do, but what I feel when I pray is a God who never suggests that I could have prayed more or been more worthy to avoid the tragedies in my life. On the contrary, the God who loves me is the God who embraces me and hold me for the moment, then lets me go back into the world without any promises—and equally without any chiding.
The Mormon church has yearly reviews of our tithing payments, as well as frequent interviews with the bishop to discuss “worthiness.” Yet this is also not my experience with God. I’ve never once had an experience in prayer where I felt that God was calling me to account about finances or even about my time. I don’t mean that God never asks me to do better or even calls me to repentance. Those both happen, sometimes with vigor. But repentance from God is a call to change my inner self, not to focus more on outer accountability like a business. What business demands of me that I love more fully, that I forgive? There is no way of measuring these things on a tally sheet.
Thinking of God as a man in a suit is both a misunderstanding and an underestimation of the experience of God. I really don’t see God as someone who has organized every action of every person on earth on some kind of grand computer system in the sky. Rather, God is a personal God, a goal of being better, a warm mother’s embrace, the wonder of a rainstorm, and the promise of the future. I wish that the outer shell of Mormonism did a better job of suggesting the other forms of God and godliness than it currently does. But maybe I am wrong.