He Got Most of it Right

The brash display at the front of the bookstore announced Conversations with God—the first of three volumes in which God tells all … to somebody else!  I thought I was the one anointed to carry God’s message.  What’s going on here?

Before my own experience, I would not have thought for a minute that the author, Neale Donald Walsch, actually heard from God.  But, if God spoke to me, He could surely speak to someone else.  In fact, He had told me that He communicates with people all the time.  Walsch also reports God as saying, “I talk to everyone.  All the time.  The question is not to whom do I talk, but who listens.”  Just what I had been told.

Has God appointed two messengers?  With different messages?  Or is this guy not on the up and up?  I have to admit I was skeptical.  My own prayers were herky-jerky and the voice I heard spoke in my own casual vernacular.  Walsch’s conversations are reported in polished prose.  That looked rigged.

Nor was I impressed with what Walsch reports having been told.  It sounded like pop Buddhism—feel-good stuff that sells books but is unlikely to be God’s authentic word.  Wasn’t Walsch just a charlatan?

When I asked, I didn’t like the answer.

The book of prayers [Conversations with God] is nice enough, but it will be dismissed by most as an oddity, not a revelation—even though he got most of it right—but I couldn’t write the blurb!

 

 

 

 

Every revelation is limited in this way.

I was praying about Neale Donald Walsch’s Conversations with God.  Walsch quotes God as having told him, “You’ve the power and the ability right now to end world hunger this minute, to cure diseases this instant.”

Not right.

Walsch asks why God doesn’t put an end to suffering and reports being told, “I have put an end to it.  You simply refuse to use the tools I have given you with which to realize that.  You see, suffering has nothing to do with events, but with one’s reaction to them.”

No.

He asks, “why not eliminate the events?” and reports being told, “Unfortunately, I have no control over them.”

Overstated.

He reports God as explaining:  “Events are occurrences in time and space which you produce out of choice—and I will never interfere with choices.”

Too simple.

According to Walsch’s report, “Some events you produce willfully, and some events you draw to you—more or less unconsciously.  Some events—major natural disasters are among those you toss into this category—are written off to ‘fate.’  Yet even ‘fate’ can be an acronym for ‘from all thoughts everywhere.’  In other words, the consciousness of the planet.”

No.

I prayed about other things Walsch attributes to God.  For example, “Thoughts are put into action.  If enough people everywhere believe something must be done to help the environment, you will save the Earth.”

Yes.

And “So much damage (to the environment) has already been done, for so long.  This will take a major attitudinal shift.”

No.

And “There is not one among you who has not made a headache disappear, or a visit to the dentist less painful, through your decision about it.  A Master simply makes the same decision about larger things.”

Yes, sort of.

“Lord, you have corrected several of Walsch’s reports.  Is this an example of how prayers and revelation generally can go wrong?  Is that part of the lesson here?”

Yes, the listener always has concepts and beliefs through which the message must be funneled.  Every revelation is limited in this way.  That is one reason new revelations are always needed.

I didn’t pray about Walsch after that.  Whatever God was or wasn’t doing with him was between him and God.