HUMILITY...THE PEARL BEYOND PRICE

Learning to trust that God has my back has been the hardest thing for me...has been? IS!

Just this morning I was thinking of a friend who has terminal cancer and is resisting it; i.e., he is filled with anger (fear). I remembered others I've known who, in their dying days, were able to release themselves from the fear of it all and be at peace. Several ego-stoked thoughts occurred to me that I could say to him which I just knew would lift him over his fear.

And then....

And then I thought of an upcoming engagement where I'll speak for an extremely limited time...fear of death is nada compared to the fear that clutched my gut. And I didn't even know I was apprehensive about it! It's not like I haven't done this before...a lot. And there it is...my lump of coal looking to become my diamond. It begins its journey when I laugh at my reasoning mind's high-flown aid to my friend...with gut-grabbing fear sweeping through me over my 10-minutes of possible failure.

Giving ourselves permission to feel fear when we feel fear...and laughing about it...is doing it right according to me. The "doing it," the feeling whatever and laughing about it, is just part of the process of learning to trust that God has our back.

It is when we feel the fear and beat ourselves up for it that our ego has taken charge again, locking us in place, calling it "common sense."  Telling us that believing that God has our back is just magical thinking...like whistling by the cemetery, a pacifier or a panacea at best. Not truth, like fear is.

This I know from my experience...asking God to ensure that any future happening goes well is my ego still in charge. For there is no God in the future. There is no God in the past. God is here and God is now, in this instant, and that is all. Setting up conditions for God to meet and calling it prayer is me testing God.

It may be for my own personal good that my fear does come true; i.e., I speak and meet deafening silence. All I'd get is the dreaded but much prayed for dose of humility of which I am always a quart low. Which to my reasoning mind is small comfort but that's the cosmic nature of humility...it doesn't look pretty on its face, but inside, it is the pearl beyond price.

Thank you.