At one time or another, nearly everyone has wondered: How may I find God? Who and what is God? Although we may not be able to fully understand God, we do have available to us a source for discerning something of the nature of God. The Bible tells us that we are made in the image and likeness of God and that “God is spirit” (Jn. 4:24). This means that we, too, are spirit; we are spiritual and Godlike. If we wish to find God, we only need to look within ourselves to discover God’s likeness.

When Jesus was asked, “Teacher, which commandment in the law is the greatest?” (Mt. 22:36), His reply was: “ ‘You shall love the Lord your God .…’ This is the greatest and first commandment. And a second is like it: ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself’ ” (Mt. 22:37-39).

But do we love ourselves? If we ask this question with honesty, casting aside all false modesty, our answer should be yes. That which we love about ourselves is really our inborn goodness, our Godlikeness. The knowledge of this simple fact can set us free.

Our good characteristics are an index of our Godlikeness and our real selves. When we express love, we are very much like God, for God is love. All our lovableness, all our loving kindness is God working through us. Do we consider ourselves as sincere, tolerant, peaceable, generous, noble, joyful, helpful? This is God being expressed through our humanity. These qualities are the gifts that Spirit gives us to use all the time.

We have always known that we need God, but we may not have realized that God needs us. Without this creation—what we call life, nature, men, women, children, all living things—we would not see God. All creation is God’s expressed identity.

When we begin to recognize God in this way, we become aware of the positive traits we demonstrate each day.

For example, when we meet a friend, what God qualities do we express?
“Good morning,” we might say, expressing friendliness and cheerfulness.
“Isn’t it a beautiful day?” Our attitude is positive and uplifting.
“You look overloaded with all those packages.” We are observant and understanding.
“Here, let me help you.” We are striving to be helpful, generous, and caring.
“I’m glad we saw each other.” We express joy, warmth, and gratitude.

In an exchange of only a few short minutes, we are able to express many good qualities. By practicing the awareness of God’s presence in this simple way, we find that each day is a bright and enlightening experience. Every day becomes an adventure in self-discovery and God-discovery.

Our adventure is heightened as we learn to look for the divine qualities in each individual we meet. Each is our “neighbor”—the person standing next to us in line, sitting next to us on the bus, waiting on us at the counter. Every human being is a child of God and has good qualities for us to discover and love.

People are like music, in a way. In our system of music, there are relatively few distinct tones, but these tones may be arranged and rearranged in a multitude of ways, and each arrangement sounds different. We may find many people around us who express themselves in the same way that we do, and it is easy for us to agree with these individuals and to like them. Other people have personality traits that seem strange to us because, like the notes of a musical composition, they have a tempo, accent, and dominance not like our own. But if we can recognize that we, too, possess these qualities—perhaps in a different degree—we can bless those who make us aware of them. By learning to utilize these attributes in a right manner, we become more Godlike in our expression. And as we become more sensitive to the words and actions of others, we learn to recognize and love each person’s own unique expression of God.

How wonderful it is to know that no matter where we walk, no matter whom we walk with, we are really walking with God!


Back to top

Back to articles