Aug 11, 2014

Pondering’s

Life, for many reasons or for no apparent reason, often throws us a curve, sometimes causing so much pain we wonder if it will ever stop. We lose a loved one; one that we trusted with our life proves false; we contract cancer or something else that is difficult to understand; we lose our job; and even combinations of these. If God is Love, how and why do bad things happen to good people?

 

That question has been asked countless times over the millennia, and there does not seem to be a good answer. No matter how we phrase it or look at it, these events seemed aimed to destroy us, cause us at best confusion, often seemly bringing despair, and pain, and then more pain, and still more pain, until we can not seem to stand it.

But life goes on. Our children need feeding, bills have to be payed or put off somehow, we need somehow to be able to at least meet the minimum needs of those who count on us. Life seemly shows no mercy, as events so often seem to pile one on top of another, and we sometimes seem to have no one to turn to during these difficult times. Our friends so often are “fair weather” friends, and run for cover during difficult times, until we only have family left if we are lucky.

Yet the process of life itself is a healing message that all is not lost, we still live, and the necessities of life keep us on a path that can lead to true healing. But that is not sufficient to move beyond the pain we feel. Yes, time does help to heal, but even time does not cover the scars that seem to hang on and hang on.

All I have talked above about is the normal path to dealing with painful events, and they do help. But how does God fit into this, especially the God, the Eternal Wisdom I have talked about, the God who is always present and holds us tenderly? Certainly God does not seem present during these events. Our world we have known is crashing around us, and God is conspicuously absent, or so it seems.

Now notice I have not called these events “trials“, but “events“. This small change is critical in looking at our life, and making sense of the whole process. Too many have told us that life is a series of “trials”, meant to test us and beat at us until we can not move in fear. But life is not a “trial”, but just a series of events; some events we call good and some events we call not so good or even evil, but they are just a series of events. It is our judgement process that makes things “good” or “bad”. These events contain more or less of the love of God on a continuous scale, and they help us, as the “experiential arm” of God, to know by experience the Love of God as differentiated by the lack of apparent God’s Love, as experienced in this event or that event. Our task is to experience these events, and learn to use these events as a means to grow more understanding of the working of God in all. Or we can let these events become “trials”, and then we will miss the wonderful warmth of God’s Love, and imagine God as a warden, giving us painful lesson after painful lesson just to watch us squirm.

God does not give us “trials”. God, the Eternal Good, the Ultimate Beauty, is only Love. Nothing but Love. We do not have trials, we have nothing to prove to God, we are always worthy of God, for we a part of God, a subset of the wondrous Bliss of God, with our soul just as God created it to be from all eternity. We can never soil or dirty our soul, and when we leave this round of physicality we will be once more joined with the eternal God, until we wish to work on the cycle once more.

But how do we move more efficiently through this life? How do we handle the pain we so often receive? How do we move beyond the pain and once more find joy? Is it possible to find Joy again in this world of physicality?

The first part of the answer is simple to say: ACCEPT the event for what it is, an event in your life. It is our judgement that makes it so painful to the heart. We may have physical pain from an injury or illness, but by dwelling on the event we only increase the physical pain, and we cause mental pain to occur, for all mental pain is the result of judgement. Only by not judging, or at least reducing the thoughts of judging as much as we can, consciously, will the mental pain be reduced and eliminated. Yes, it is possible to eliminate dwelling on the event, and concentrate on thinking of the problem as an event in your life. This will allow you to think more clearly, to move to a different place relative to the event that occurred. It will not remove the event, but by changing the thinking the event itself becomes clearer and permits you to think of the next step to be done with the event.

Then to use the power of your soul, your part that is God Itself, you have to let yourself EXPECT that God will move you to the level where the next Good will come forth. Jesus said “If you have the faith of a mustard seed, you can say to the mountain to hurl itself into the sea, and it will.” That is what Expectation is: the power of a mustard seed. But this Expectation must come from the soul, the very heart, where the power of God resides at all times for it IS the power of God. That is the key, the part that makes it real. It is the total immersion into the Wisdom of God, the acceptance that only God understands the next most wondrous thing that will occur in your life, and if you permit it, it will occur. For as you believe, it will occur. A wish is only a wish, and if you only wish, it will remain only a wish; it must be with ingrained faith and knowledge that indeed, God will give me the very best, only the very best.

I speak from 80 years of living that life, for almost half of it unconsciously, then the second half as a conscious effort on my part, and I have never seen it fail. Oh yes, I have to do my part to the very best that I can, but I do so knowing that the God within me will bring forth the good that awaits. It may take awhile, but it will occur. I am very careful to not specify in what manner it will be, but I am always sure the of the best possible outcome for my benefit.

Accept and Expect.

Those words frame the methodology that almost all spiritual paths point at. Note I say spiritual paths, for too many religions talk of trials and a vengeful God, not the loving God I speak of in this writing.

Meditation

My Loving Wisdom, I speak in deep gratitude for opening up to me the wonders of Accept and Expect. You have revealed the wonders of the Love of God to me over my life, and I know from deep within that you will fill my life with more wonders through the events of the rest of my life, no matter what they seem to the outside world. You constantly amaze me in the beauty you show me, and the wonders of the Spirit that are constantly revealed to me.