We're often, too often, told that we must stand up for ourselves, take our own part, be responsible for our own self. Being a doormat will get you stepped on...leading to resentments, and that is all.
But learning to love is, I'm told, learning to bear with people. I'm guessing that's why learning to love is called a lifetime job.
If we are to know peace, we must unite within our self those two seemingly opposing concepts; i.e., that we must stand up for ourselves, that we must learn to bear with people.
The first concrete step toward that end is the gut-bucket acceptance that responsibility for our self is reliance on a power greater than ourselves. We begin to get a glimmer of the idea that God has our back. It is that pinpoint of light that leads away from the belief that only we can protect our self and moves us into the realization that God can and will intervene in our lives in our behalf.
In other words, all we need do is change our mind...again, a lifetime job. But it's the same lifetime job! Learning to bear with people is learning to change our mind is learning to love. And that's true in whatever order we choose to go... learning to love is learning to bear with people is learning to change our mind.
All of that requires that we make just one decision...to trust that God has our back. Because that one decision is proof of our desire to get over our own self. We're half way home with that...the rest of our lives being the final half.
God is not only within but also without for God is formless...cannot be held to a form...is within and without fitting the form of you and of me and the birds and bees and lilies of the valley and branches of the tree, the ocean waves, the air we breathe...God is formed in thought, to be set free. Thank you.
Thank you.
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