Introduction:

The idea for this series came from some questions my granddaughter asked me about God and other questions about beliefs. These are not easy questions to answer. How do you explain to a nine year old that God is everywhere, that He created everything, that He is all-powerful? And how do you answer questions like “If God is good and knows everything, why does He let bad things happen?” or “Why can’t we see God?”

This is my attempt to answer these questions one at a time in a way my grandchildren (and others) can understand. It is written as if I were talking to her.

Who is God?

You asked me a question the other day, which I wasn’t prepared to answer. The question was “Who is God?” Since that day I have been trying to figure out the best way to answer it.

It isn’t an easy question to answer, even for a grandfather like me who as I have told you, grandfathers do know everything. You see, I am just learning a lot about who God is myself. When I was your age, we would go to church every week and to religious education classes, but I don’t remember much of what we learned. It wasn’t much of a priority in our family. I wish it had been different and that I had lived my life the way God tries to teach us. My life would certainly have turned out differently. But I didn’t.

But let me get back to your question: Who is God?

The easiest way to answer is to just say God is God, and that is all you need to know, but that won’t help you much. So, let me try it this way.

God is the Supreme Being

God is the Supreme Being, which means He is greater than all of us.[1]  He sees all and knows all. God is above all others, God knows everything, He is always good, and He is always with us. He knows what happened yesterday and He knows what will happen tomorrow. He knows our most secret thoughts, even things we have never told anyone.

He is almighty and he will never go away, he will be with us forever.[2]

God made the stars and the skies, night and day, the world and everything on it, including us.[3] God made us and He can destroy us if He wants to. He has done it in the past, only saving those who believed in Him and who were good and followed His teachings and He will do it sometime in the future. The good news is we can be saved, and this will be a subject for another talk.

God is a spirit

Does that answer your question? Probably not, so let me go on. We can’t see God, God is a spirit, and spirits can’t be seen.[4] A spirit has a soul and they can think, they just can’t be seen. They are not the same as ghosts, like you see in movies or on TV, you will never see Him, and He will never die. God is the greatest of all spirits; He made all the others. And even though you can’t point to something or someone and say “That is God” you can see the works of God all around, remember God made everything. The next time you see a beautiful sunset or a pretty flower, remember God made them. (IS 45:5) When you see someone do something good, you see God at work.

What about bad things? God never does bad things, but there is another spirit who does and that is Satan also called the Devil. We will talk more about him at another time, just remember that God is stronger than the Devil and will always win against him.

There is only one God, there is no other.[5] There are some people who might think that they are God, and a lot of times we will hear people call others a god, but there is only one true God. How am I doing?

God made all things from nothing

God made all things from nothing. You might wonder how He could do this, but remember God can do anything. Now when scientists look at things, like how old the earth is, and how people evolved, they can only go back so far before they can’t find out any more. This is where God comes in, at the start of everything. If it wasn’t for God, we would have no purpose in life; we would have no reason to be here. God made us to share His happiness, to be in Heaven with Him, this is something else we will talk about later. Just know that Heaven is where we want to end up and the way to get there is by listening to what God wants us to do and God always wants us to do what is good and right.

Everything has to have a beginning, God is that beginning.

Have we changed since God first made the world and everything in us? Yes we have, because of God’s goodness, we have become smarter, we have invented things to make our lives easier, we have found cures for diseases which used to kill millions of people, all because God has given us the ability to do these things. God is who gives us a purpose, who gives us a reason for living.

God can do anything.[6] Nothing is impossible with God, and if we ask God for something, through prayer, He just might give it to us. Of course He will first have to decide if what we want is good for us, if we pray for something that isn’t good for us, God will not give it to us, He won’t answer our prayers.

Does God talk to us? Yes, He does, in many ways, and all we have to do is listen which is something we don’t always do. We need to listen with our ears, our eyes, our brains and most importantly our hearts. Let me give you an example. I pray every night before I go to bed. Sometimes I ask God for things. One time I asked God why my father never gave me any kind of a message after he died on whether or not there was life after death. I had asked my father while he was on his deathbed to give me some kind of message on whether there was a heaven or a hell. Ten years later I never received a sign and I wondered why. After asking God about this through my prayers, the next day I opened my Bible to a random page, something I do when I have some spare time and I opened to Luke 16, one of the books of the Bible, called the Gospels. In this chapter is the story of Lazarus and the rich man. It’s about a rich man and a beggar who both died. The rich man wanted to warn his brothers about what happens when you sin and live a bad life, but he wasn’t allowed to, because people need to learn for themselves.[7] This was the answer to my question; God had me open my bible to that page and that story and I got my answer. This was God talking to me.

He has talked to me in other ways as well, in dreams, through what the priest talks about at Mass or just through something that will come into my mind. To hear, you only need to listen, when you ask questions, you will get answers, especially from God.[8]

Conclusion

I hope that at least starts to answer your question, at least a little bit. There is so much more to learn about God and Jesus and what they teach, it can take a lifetime to learn it all. But the important thing to remember is that God exists, and He loves us all. And when you believe in Him, good things will happen.

I will continue to write these articles and I hope you read them and learn from them. If you have any questions you would like to have answered you can email me at thewaywardcatholic@gmail.com.

©Paul Roy Jr. 2013