Some of the wisest advice ever offered was to leave the conversation of religion and politics out of social situations. How many of us have blindly pushed past that warning sign many times? If you’re a talk show host, religion is always great grist for the mill but for the rest of us it’s a pathway to poisoned communication. If you want to deepen the divide and chip away at a relationship, keep talking about religion.

I think it’s easier and more productive to talk about God. God is a word I have had trouble with in the past. Let me give you an example:

When I was in elementary school, my Aunt Janet went into the convent. She felt a calling to serve God and acted on it. She soon discovered that this wasn’t the pathway for her. She left the convent and eventually met a wonderful man whom she married and they had 5 wonderful children together. They raised their 5 children in their religion but Aunt Janet’s focus was not so much on religion but on God. When her family struggled financially, she would always say, “The Lord will provide.” I can remember as a young man rolling my eyes at that pronouncement and thinking what a Pollyanna approach to life. The interesting thing is they leapt over hurdle after hurdle when logic indicated they were doomed. Something always came along and ironed out the wrinkles in the road.

“God” can be a polarizing word because most people equate it with their religious training and so it means different things to different people. I think the common ground is that just about everyone agrees that their version of God makes the grass green and is the life force of every creature– whether we call our God “Mother Nature,” “Universal Force,” “Divinity,” “God the Father,” “Allah” or some other name. God is in everything – even the things and people we don’t like. We shy away from using the term God because of the reference it triggers in different human beings. God is not a “politically correct” term. That’s very sad.

It seems as most people get older, they start warming up to the idea of God – the common life giving force that we all share. When people are struggling, they usually look outside themselves for answers. That methodology has a dreadful rate of failure. The best answers come from within – from God.

I think the telltale sign of a major crack in the ego is when very successful people find God. Even with all their trappings, they hadn’t found the peace beyond all understanding – God. This new found revelation usually leads them into more life nurturing enterprises vs. offering us more cultural carrot sticks.

If God is not in your vocabulary, I recommend you take a giant leap of faith and pretend God exists. This is a no risk proposition. If you try it on and find it’s not working for you, you can drop the notion and move on to something else. After all, you were just pretending. But this acting as if has a high rate of conversion and leads to peaceful feelings and a calming of the mind. This mind calming, peaceful state will bring you more gifts than Martha Stewart or Donald Trump could buy for you.

Aunt Janet had it right a long time ago – The Lord Will Provide.

All the best,

John