Have you ever thought of yourself as God?

[WayneB]

Oh man. This is something that is deep. I don't talk about it.

[ayin jade]

Have we ever held someone's lives or livelihood in our hands?

That I can relate to. In the medical profession, my actions affect lives. Usually I live with the knowledge that I cant make a mistake. Errors are not tolerated. An error can kill. During a code though, I literally hold a life in my hands. Sometimes they are saved, sometimes not. That all depends on the will of God. Yet, as I am a part of those who fight to bring them back to life (in my case, with a prayer as I hand the meds to the doc), there is a sense of 'power'. A sense that my knowledge can help bring this person back to life. At the same time, I feel awe in it. Then it becomes a battle, my will against death. I guess, like Big Steve, it is hard to express, and a bit more complicated than simply feeling god-like.

(Wonders if I even made any sense.)

[WayneB]

You made perfect sense Jade. Great example!

[ted]

Oh man. This is something that is deep. I don't talk about it. I don't want this to be mis-interpreted, so I hope I word this right.

First of all, NO, I have never thought of myself as the one true GOD. EVER.

However, I have been in a situation that brought the very thought to mind of being god-like. I''ll try to explain what I mean.

I think I mentioned in my introduction, that I was in the Marine Corps. 4 years as a Machinegunner. I was also in Desert Shield/Desert Storm for about 8.5 months. Obviously, this put me in combat situations.

I'm not going to detail my experiences. But let me just say that, when you have another human being in the sights of your weapon, you get a tremendous feeling of awe, responsibility, and, in some cases, power. In that moment of time, that split second, you make a decision if that person lives or dies. Keep in mind, in some cases, he is making the same decision about you, at that very same instant. So, you have to make this enormous decision, in a millisecond. You learn that hesitation is costly, deadly. So, you learn not to hesitate. Other times, the person never knows the decision is being made about his life at that moment. That is when you have time to think, and as terrible as this sounds, the thought of being god-like crosses your mind, because you have the power of life in your hands.

Now let me put a little "disclaimer" on this. When you are put in a combat situation, you do things, and think things, that you would never do or think, in a normal situation. I hope you all can understand that. If a person has these thoughts in regular everyday life, then I would say they have a serious problem.

I seriously don't want anyone to think I'm a mental case or something.  I just wanted to share this, as extreme circumstances can bring about an entirely different level of thought processes.

Amen, Big Steve.

I can relate with what you are saying exactly.

I've been sent to three of Uncle Sam's parties. so far and the feeling you describe is pretty much the way it is. The feeling of knowing that someone is going to expire the moment you pull the trigger is almost overwhelming.

I kept thinking, y'know, that there has got to be another way, but there wasn't. Not at the moment.

Anyway, PM me if you want to talk more about this.

Maybe a public forum is not the place to go deeper??

In Him,

t.