I'm curious about how others approach their Gods and Goddesses. Coming from atheism (with a mildly spiritual background) and considering I'm new to my path and spirituality in general I sometimes struggle to understand how to interact with the Gods, what they expect of me and what I should expect of them. I've begun to develop a more comfortable relationship with the Goddess I perceive to be my matron, and she has been wonderfully patient with me, but I know I have much to learn and always strive for a comfortable relationship with the Gods I work with unless I perceive that to be inappropriate for specific individuals. I guess my major questions are:
- Is your relationship with the Gods casual, familial, formal? Does this differ between Gods, or even for your patron or matron?
- what is appropriate to ask of the Gods? I understand most people will only call upon the Gods for deep, serious stuff, and otherwise fix stuff for themselves if they can. But would you call out to the God, the Goddess or a specific deity if frightened or feeling threatened, or if entering a possibly dangerous place? If so, how would you go about that?
- Lastly, this one is a little difficult to explain (sorry, I'll try my best). I guess the easiest way to say it is: do the Gods care for us? I've seen many discussions on why the Gods need us and our devotion/offerings/prayers, and many people will say that the Gods have their own motives that won't always benefit the worshipper or seek to do good by the humans involved necessarily. So, do they really care about us, and why? I think my biggest doubt is that we mean little to the Gods on an emotional level, and maybe I'm approaching this with too cinical and doubtful mindset. I may also be applying human logic to greater entities, but I can't help but wonder about our importance to the Gods when it comes to the relationships we build, considering how many relationship those Gods must have with humans and how easily some of those might break down (when you look at the sheer amount of worshippers they might have).
I'm aware that not every God is the same and that naturally each experience of the Gods will be different. We might get on fine with one God, and struggle to communicate with civility when it comes to another. I would be immensely grateful for simply your beliefs or experiences in this area. I'm sorry if I've come across as a little demanding or ignorant, I've just had very limited experience with God and Goddess figures, and so I am very much ignorant as to how these relationships work. I want to be able to understand the Gods more from the worshipper perspective, and I'm still building up my understand of how to approach the Gods. Please do forgive me if I sound ignorant or rude (or if I made a typo) I'm just very curious and unsure on how to interact with deities.
Thanks to any and all replies made :)
All the love, and blessed be.