Spiritual Abuse leads us to many false beliefs about God

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3. God is a Controlling, Judgmental Man Whose Love is Conditional. In Order to be Loved by God, I Have to Change Who I Am, Give Up My Freedom and be Who God Wants Me to Be.

When our parents’ approval and attention was conditional upon our acting the “right” way, we had to give ourselves up to be “loved” by them. Thus we learned to confuse approval with love. And, since most children project their parents’ feelings and behavior onto God, we may have formed the false belief that we have to be a certain way to be “loved” by God. Children who are raised by stern, judgmental and punishing parents tend to see God as being the same way.

In addition, many children are told that God is a judgmental old man who will punish them if they are bad. Instead of a force of love, God was a force to be reckoned with, a Supreme Being whom we must please - or else. This, of course, is just a way that parents control their children and religious institutions control their followers.

4. I Won’t Ever Be Good Enough to Please God

Many people grew up with parents who were never pleased with them, no matter how well they did. If they got a B in school, it should have been an A. If they received an A it should have been an A+. Their flaws were constantly pointed out. Attention was always on what they didn’t do rather than on what they did do. It’s no wonder so many of us grew up feeling inadequate.

If you projected your parents’ negative feelings onto God, you may believe there is nothing you can ever do that will please God. You may believe that God sees you as inherently flawed, “born into sin,” and there is nothing you can do to change this. You might believe that no matter how hard you try, in the end you will be punished for sin: God will never forgive you for being human. But if you are “created in the image of God,” meaning that you have the same love within you that is God, then it is not possible for you to be inherently flawed. That would mean you were created imperfect. And God doesn’t do substandard work. Nor is God unforgiving. Unconditional love is, by definition, forgiving.

5. God Uses Me to Help Others, but Does Not Come to Me Just for Me

When we do believe in God but feel ourselves unlovable and unworthy, we may believe that we can be instruments of God’s love for others but not for ourselves. Sometimes children are taught that they are nothing, that their only worth is in helping others. Their goal becomes to give God’s love to others so others will give love to them. This belief system fosters the giving-to-get behavior of codependent relationships. This is rampant in the helping professions. Over and over I encounter therapists and healers who tell me that they feel totally connected when helping and loving others but not when it comes to loving themselves. They can access profound truth and compassion for others but none for themselves.

6. God Has Favorite People and Showers Them with Blessings

If you grew up deprived of love and you see others who were given love as children, you may conclude that God has chosen certain people who deserve to be blessed, while ignoring others, who do not deserve it. This conclusion, as with many of the other false beliefs about God, comes from seeing God as an unloving, judgmental, vengeful person rather than as an unconditionally loving Spirit or Supreme Being. People have favorite people. God doesn’t. People think some people are more deserving than others. God doesn’t. But when you believe God is a judgmental person, you may project your beliefs and experiences of people onto God.

7. God Made Me Come Here

I often hear people say “I didn’t ask to be born,” or “I didn’t ask to be in this family with these parents.” When you believe that God is a person or that God is demanding, controlling and judgmental, then you may believe that God made you come here and put you into an unloving or abusive family either as punishment (because you are inherently bad) or because God doesn’t love you. This false belief relieves you of the responsibility of choosing to heal, regardless of how difficult your past, in order to evolve your soul. When you remember that you came here to evolve in lovingness, you will no longer say, “I didn't ask to be here,” or ask “Why wasn't I born into a happy family?” Then you understand that being alive is truly a sacred opportunity, a sacred privilege.