Dear Pastor Osteen
I am writing this on a Saturday morning when I miss your podcast the most. I listen to it daily without fail – first thing every morning. Even though I am not a Christian (I am a Hindu), I absolutely love your spiritual messages. I cannot get enough of your positive and motivational messages. And besides your powerful messages, your strong oratory skills, your positive energy, the funny jokes you tell in the beginning, the witty comments and stories throughout and your southern drawl makes your sermons more interesting. Although you influence and inspire so many of your Christian followers, I have to say you are also inspiring many who are not followers of the Christian faith. Your messages resonate because those are messages for humanity. I know that you are controversial to some. But I just want to say one thing – whatever reservations one has about you, I can honestly say your messages are very spiritual and inspirational. Period. Hats off to you and Thank You!
Pastor, I have faced several adversities in the past seven years. Thoughts of “Why Me” had hounded me a lot in the past. When data and logic were not enough in my healing, I turned to spirituality. I was desperate to heal my mind and spirit. I decided to do everything possible which would help me heal. I had been introduced to your TV sermons several years ago. And although they were great, I listened to them ad-hoc as there was no major adversity in my life then and if I can be honest was not sure if I should listen to any religious sermons as I am not that religious. I started to listen to your sermons again but regularly this time. Besides you, I also started to listen to other spiritual recordings from some religious and spiritual folks such as Eckhart Tolle and Dr Joe Dispenza in the West and Sadhguru, Sister Shivani and Jiddu Krishnamurti in the East or the best of East and West – Dr Deepak Chopra. Like you, some from this list are controversial, but I really like their spiritual messages.
And listening to you and all these recordings I learnt a couple of important lessons. Before I had the belief that you must be religious to be spiritual. But now I realized that it is the other way around. And the other thing I learnt was that you do not need to have any adversity to be spiritual. You can be spiritual both in good and bad times. By starting to embrace the spirituality path, the thoughts of “Why Me” although not completely gone, they are less frequent than before. I now wonder why spirituality is not taught in schools when we are young. They teach us akk kinds of things, many of which we will never use. I wish “spirituality”which you need for your entire life is explained and taught earlier on. But it is never too late. One can always start the spiritual journey anytime. I am living proof! If a very practical and logic-oriented person like me can try to be spiritual, anyone can. In your sermons you talk about many ways one can be spiritual, which I highly appreciate. Pastor, I am aware your sermons promote the Christian faith, but to me your messaging is highly spiritual.
You indeed make me feel at home. I have become your biggest non-Christian fan!