Who is God? Good question. Who really knows? I believe God to be overall consciousness.

Would love to hear your thoughts on this.

Anna

http://law-of-attraction-thoughts.blogspot.com/

I appreciate your emphasis on trusting God. Thanks for that word. It leads to a crucial question: who is God? If you understand God to be something or someone such that “we are part of God,” this is not a Biblical understanding of God at all. The Biblical understanding is that God is both completely other than his creation (including us) and yet completely involved, especially with humans. We are not a part of God, though, any more than the Mona Lisa was a part of Leonardo.

This may be something worth discussing in some depth–but before I dive into it, I’d like to hear your response to that much. Thanks.

I know that God is within us all and that we are part of God….to trust God, we have to first trust ourselves….for many peole that is difficult because they are full of doubt….they doubt themselves, they doubt God.

Also, it’s difficult to trust other people when they don’t trust themselves which means they don’t trust God….

-Anna

http://law-of-attraction-thoughts.blogspot.com/

I only have second-hand familiarity with Joel Osteen. Based on that, though, I would say that Cloud would agree with Osteen a lot more than he does with Byrne, but he would still have some significant differences with him. Cloud’s theology is clearly in line with historic Christianity, and from what I’ve heard, Osteen’s is not so much that way.

That’s a vague answer but the best I can do with what I know.

What I do need is an explanation for it and, in my opinion, nothing does a better job than the Christian explanation, which also happens to be the Jewish and Islamic explanation if you restrict ‘explanation’ to God created humans with this ability.

I also need to know what, if anything, I ought to focus my thoughts on so that certain outcomes are likely to occur. Here again, the Christian message resonates with the collective human experience - pursue moral good and shun moral evil so that a particular outcome is acheived - even though we may argue about the details.

It’s a broadly documented position that how we think affects outcomes. We have research in performance, as in the sales industry, that Optimistic vs. Pessimistic thinking styles really make a difference.

Interesting. I haven’t paid any attention to “The Secret,” but it seems that what Dr. Cloud is saying also provides some validation for much (not all) of what Joel Osteen teaches. Not that this is the whole truth, or the Gospel; however, Paul gives similar advice in Phil. 4:8. Now, I know I will probably get flamed for even mentioning him, but I thought I’d ask what you think Cloud would say about Osteen?