There is no “person” there making human-like decisions. God is unfathomably bigger, broader, more complex than any person could ever be.
While personifying God can help me forge a relationship with What Is, thinking of God as a person - even a divine person - and using pronouns like “Him” or “Her” can get me into trouble. When I start to think about God’s works in terms of human behavior it can throw me off. ...and leave me frustrated, confused and angry.
Particularly around the idea of making decisions. Why did God do that? Why does God let that happen? This frame of reference sets me up for unnecessary suffering. The problem is in thinking of God as a person. People make decisions. They see what’s going on around them, experience dilemmas, react emotionally, consider the data, do cost-benefit analysis, and then choose preferences. God does not do these things.
God simply IS.
God does not just “see” what’s going on around you and me, God IS what’s going on around you and me and everyone.
God does not face dilemmas. God is both sides.
God does not react emotionally. God IS emotion. All emotion simultaneously, and over all, love.
God does not look at data. God IS the data, the truth in everything.
God does not do cost-benefit analysis. God IS the entire result before I arbitrarily name some facets “costs” and others “benefits.”
God does not have preferences because God IS the wholeness of everything.
When I think of God as a person, I inevitably judge God based on human standards of behavior, which makes God seem crazy and cruel because no good person would ever act that way.
But God is not a good person. Because God is not a person.
It’s the same problem a teenager has with a responsible parent: When a teenager judges a responsible parent based on teenage standards of behavior the parent seems crazy and cruel because no good teenager would ever act that way.
But the parent is not a good teenager. Because the parent is not a teenager.
A responsible parent is more (and less) than the teenager can fathom from their teenage perspective. The parent sees differently, understands things differently, has a broader, more experienced, more complex conception of “what is.” When a responsible parent is working on the teenager’s behalf, the teenager will often not see it that way - because they can’t.
God is at least as complex and unfathomable as a responsible parent is to a teenager and, like a responsible parent, “what is” is always working on our behalf always. Because, before we our confuse ourselves with stories of separation, we are what is.
My story, which is always written from a severely limited perspective, will not - cannot - always match the benevolent truth of what is. Sometimes it will line up and sometimes it won’t. Sometimes I won’t see it immediately but will come to see it in time. Some things perhaps I will never see.
But, in faith, I’ve come to accept that I live in a universe I will never fully understand and move forward trusting in its benevolence anyway.
And I do it (when I do it) not because I “should,” but because the result - weirdly - is always exactly what I’m looking for in the end.