God wants You to Know is an application on FaceBook that a couple of my friends use.
Under the picture Message from God, is a brief intro to the site that says…
"Hear God talk directly to you through daily messages. Messages to bring you back to love, to strength, to happiness. And in times of need, ask for a prayer, and be supported by the caring prayers of friends around the world you never knew you had."
This is a classic example of twisted misinformation. The article starts out with the statement… "Hear God talk directly to you…." The insertion of the word DIRECTLY is misleading with the rest of the paragraph as the word directly means.. "Without anyone or anything intervening," meaning that you don’t need to belong to a group or have anyone assist you.
In the second sentence, there is the phrase, "ask for a prayer." That phrase is another misleading statement as one doesn't ask God for a prayer, but rather one prays (or talks) to God.
Lastly it states, "and be supported by the caring prayers of friends around the world you never knew you had."
So what started out with implying that you have a direct dialogue with God, it then suggests that you ask God for a prayer to have others pray and support you. This confusing rhetoric presents itself as loving and supportive, yet with all the twists and turns, it is anything but loving.
There are almost 2,000,000 users of this FaceBook application that eagerly devour this tripe that they think is loving and which inspires them to share it with others. One such example of their twisted messages is the following….
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On this day, God wants you to know…
… that the way you treat others is the way you treat yourself. True respect for another comes from self respect. True love for another comes from self love. True forgiveness for another comes from self forgiveness.
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While the message appears to be a loving statement with deep understanding, it has a twisted and mixed message that is meant to confuse and befuddle those struggling to be loved. The last three statements are loving and valid, but the first is what is twisted, as it is reversed, as it puts others first, ahead of self, and is therefore unloving. Instead of following the pattern of the latter statements, where the self is put first, and then extended to others, this opening statement plays on the old “Golden Rule” of “Do unto others as you would have others do unto you” which has the deliberate undercurrent invoking self sacrifice, and therefore is not loving to the self.
If you could treat yourself first, with the same compassion, understanding, patience, and give yourself the benefit of the doubt that you extend to others, then you would have the beginnings of self love. Of course that doesn't happen as we are told that the opposite is what we need to do. Of course if you gave yourself love first, others would not consider you loving, as you would appear to be in opposition to them as you are not giving them what they want…
The intent and wording is what is confusing, just like in this store sign where the misleading key word is…"All".
I've shared my point-of-view with my friends and now I'm sharing it with you, to also give you some food for thought.
JR
Saysame (Says-a-me) 