“And God Said...”

I have read or heard the phrase “And God said...” probably thousands of times in my life, but only this morning, for the first time, did I actually think about what it means. Who is this God that talks to people, and how does he talk? All through the Bible, stories are told of people who heard God’s voice and responded to it, and only just this morning did I get a glimpse of what it might mean. I realized, first of all, (or recalled) that this God is not a person, but a force – not some powerful but ultimately limited superman or woman, but the infinite power of the Universe. His voice is not the voice of an individual person but rather the voice of the grand intelligence that created, and keeps creating, the universe. And I also understood, if only dimly, that the voice of God comes in the form of thoughts. They are the thoughts that occur to me clearly and forcefully 57,000 times each day – not “my” thoughts (as I usually think of them) but truly God’s, or the Universe’s, thoughts. There is no separate “I” that makes “my” thoughts, as I have blindly believed for 66 years. (That is an utter impossibility, for where is this separate “I”?) The thoughts that occur, or arise, or unfold, are the voice of God that speaks continually and powerfully. The people in the Bible listened carefully, and so should I.