Which Way God? (Outside us or In?)

Looking at all the scriptures for the past few weeks in the Lectionary, particularly the old testament lessons, I notice how so much has been about whether God is angry and will punish, or will He stay his hand and be patient with His disobedient followers.  But, it's written, and I have always read it, as directed toward an external God that decides independently of his children how to reward or punish their actions.  An independent actor on the stage of life.

This distant God out there somewhere does not any longer represent my concept or experience of God.  In fact,  everything that I personally know of faith and spirituality involves a God that we are part of, that is in us, who works through us, out of whom we are created and to whom we return.  If this is true God, is there another way to read the message of these passages?  [Or at least, a better way to read these Old Testament stories (and some of the New Testament ones as well) with a modern spiritual sensibility?]

In Matthew 16:19, Jesus says to his disciples, "I will give you the keys of the kingdom of heaven; whatever you bind on earth will be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth will be loosed in heaven."  Might he be saying that our actions and our decisions are the actions of God in this world?  We ask God to "let your anger depart from us." "Will you not give us life again?" "Show us your mercy and grant us your salvation."  Are we directing this cry outwards? Or perhaps inwards to ourselves and to our fellow believers?  We hold the keys to God's wrath and God's mercy in our own hands, attitudes, actions.  Such a reading would turn impotent railing against God or pleading with God into something more like giving ourselves a "good talking to" about getting our minds, hearts and actions in line with what we profess to believe and value.  Instead of groveling and pleading in our unworthiness, almost bribing God with our flattery, might it instead be the case that we are struggling between our true selves -- our best nature and our connection to the eternal light and love -- and the ways we continually disappoint and embarrass ourselves as we come short of that best self in all our illusions and blindness. 

This same type of thinking gives a different turn to the gospel lessons of the last few weeks as well--in  particular, the teaching about prayer and asking in persistence: knocking, seeking, searching.  Who are we asking and being demanding of except, again, our true selves?  So, it's not some God out there who will supply, but we receive out of our own persistence in demanding of ourselves all that we can bring to light of our true selves, getting beyond the illusions that hold us back, insisting of life fully lived.  If we want it, it is there but at the price of asking, seeking, searching, knocking, and persisting.

--Not a complete thought today, but what's been tumbling around in my mind this week.  Responsibility for being God, incarnated in me -- in you.  Something to think about...