The seventh smart way to think about God is that GOD IS REAL. Is our personal God just a hallucination? A phantasm? Is God merely an invention by some highly imaginative creator?

Maybe we all should have stayed sun worshippers and given up an idea as cumbersome as monotheism. Idol worship is easier.

Yet if God is only personal, there is nothing that separates Him from the visions of witch doctors or madmen. If God is only personal, there could be a different God for everyone. Our God would degenerate into a pantheon of demigods, all competing for cosmic supremacy.   Welcome back to ancient Canaan!

But our God must be the One God. He cannot just be personal. He must be universal. The God of our inner world and our outer world. God cannot just be a subjective experience, or He is an illusion. God must exist objectively, or He has no substance; He can never be considered real.

Though our personalization’s may   differ, God must have attributes people can agree upon, as readily as they agree that a chair exists, or emotions. The experience of God must be able to be shared, or it cannot be credible.

God must have definite qualities that can be experienced and reexperienced.

Remarkably, throughout the ages, there has been little debate about the reality of God. Most of the conflict between people, between religions, has been over rituals, political differences, and nuances of theology. People problems, not God problems.

Many religions have forgotten that their personal picture of God is just a way to feel closer to something that is impossible to picture. They mistake their image of God for God Himself and then insist that “their” God is the only God.

It would seem that if we were to attempt to define the characteristics of God, we would have to say that God cannot be a being Who is ungracious, impatient, uncompassionate and unforgiving. God, must be a being Who is first and foremost loving. Otherwise God would be a monster. For if cruelty, unkindness,     hatefulness, intolerance and arrogance were the traits of this being, what kind of God would this God be.

While saying this, one has to admit that humans have very often made God in their image and likeness. The God of some people is intolerant of people who do not follow a certain path or think in a certain way. If God is anything other than loving and accepting then that God is the creation of humans.

What kind of God do you believe in and serve?