FREE WILL RETURNED FOR GOD'S WILL

[The following is a reprint of a blog of mine from September 24, 2008.]

It is a comfort to me to know that the God of my understanding gifted me with free will to use as I choose. It is in returning my free will to God in exchange for His will that I’ve found my challenge.

I made my life’s goal the search for still more spiritual growth when I read that all my problems can be solved with spiritual principles.

I’ve had to start small, as in learning to deny myself my petty wants. For instance, it was a breakthrough for me when I realized that I got better “within” results when I chose to give over to another when I felt that the other had stepped on my toes, so to speak. 

The learning starts with my thoughts. Learning to live an attitude of gratitude…to discipline my thoughts so the first thing that comes to mind is “Thank You.”  No matter what occurs and without the same-old-same-old: why should I think ”thank you?” It wasn’t my fault. I’m innocent, s/he’s guilty.

I sometimes feel like I’m arm wrestling with God when I know, I know, I know what I need do…smile and step back…not give in to the almost irresistible urge to shoot a dirty look, saying nothing, just letting the offender know that s/he was wrong and I know it.

The pearl beyond price is the realization that it is only by returning my free will to God, for Him to use as He chooses, that He can and will use His will through me in my behalf…to go before me to make my crooked places straight. 

Thank You.

GOD'S WILL ALWAYS PREVAILS...IN TIME

When our free will counters God's will, our free will always wins...but God's will always prevails in time.

Since God's will is going to prevail, why not accept it first thing? Probably because the ego, where our free will lives, always needs something to go up against...to get over on.

That's the bottom line reason for discipline, discipline, and still more discipline. Why we consciously try to put the other person first, why we try to admit our errors asap, why we want to want God's will, rather than our own will, to be done in our life.

We have learned that our will is not our friend, that God's will is. We rein in our ego wants so that God can "go before us to make the crooked places straight."

We have to start somewhere, and we will seldom start when we're faced with a real ego-reducing crisis.

Thank You.

WAIT FOR IT

From an old note of mine: My inability to handle an intimate and equal relationship is my own state of consciousness unfolding...resist it not...neither dress it up to call it pretty...know it, name it, detach any judgment from it...and thank God.

I read that this morning just before I then read Goldsmith's, "All that is needed is the sincere desire to let today be your day of conscious oneness with God...," and I understood. Once we get that conscious oneness, we are peace attracting peace...love attracting love...joy attracting joy. That is how we show forth happy, joyous and free.

We do not see this and be free forever. That's a reasoning mind self-determined objective. This is our coming-back-to point...our turn-our-thoughts-around point. Turn from our current distraction to a sincere desire for conscious oneness with God here and now. 

Then wait for it.

Thank You.

GOD IS SO GOOD TO ME

Running on empty keeps chasing through my soul...or my liver, I'm never sure. I got the plug uglies. And there is nothing wrong...everything's going in the right direction, the weather is wonderful, Ruckus is well and so am I.

A childhood friend has passed. Not even a friend, but the older sister of a friend...who wasn't even a close friend. A kinda pain if I remember correctly...a know-it-all (as, of course, was I), and we went from first to twelfth grade together. Never getting any closer than we were in the first grade, and I must say I was then, am now, just as happy with that (as, no doubt, is she). 

Geez. I feel like that ding-dong who had an affair with the one-time presidential candidate while his wife was dying and has just written a book calling the now dead wife a witch.

At least I'm not snarking the one who died, who was a good person...I can say that since I barely knew her...three years difference in school is a whole 'nother lifetime. She got married two weeks after her graduation from high school, and I split town...actually, I split the state. But I do remember her as a quiet, kind person.

I think I'm feeling...nostalgic? no, homesick is how it feels...at any rate, I'm feeling that way because of all the names attached to the sympathy notes on line in my hometown newspaper. Wow, the memories. Almost all good ones...no really bad ones...just the names of people who were so important to me, and I to them, in my high school years.

I'm guessing this is why time has such a bad rep. All those cartwheels in our hearts, all those football Friday nights, Snowflake balls, hand-holding hayrides...we thought they'd never end.

That's viewing it all through my memory's eyes. Looking at me today, I live with cartwheels in my heart...just for different reasons now...one of which is no more of those dim-dam football Friday nights. Two minutes in football is at least an hour in real (my) time.

God is so good to me. If it weren't for God, I'd never change my mind, my attitude, my opinion...because of God, I know if I'm not feeling loving toward something, I'm going down that wrong road again.

Ruckus just came up and sat down on my feet...looking for love. Did I not just this minute write that God is so good to me? I only love it.

Thank You.

I WONDER....

[The following is reworked from a reprint of a blog of mine from July 31, 2010.]

Who was I before I was hurt?

How do I become that whole me again?

How do I shuck my shields?

Why can't I shuck my shields at will?...or can I?

Is it a matter of will?...or of grace? Is it my choice?...or am I chosen?

If one is chosen, aren’t we all chosen?

If Truth, to be true, must be proved, and cannot be proved by sheer will, how does one prove Truth without an act of will?

Is it as simple as making the decision?

Thank You.

MY EGO'S HOLY TRINITY

This morning's blinding flash of the obvious:

Me, myself and I are my ego's holy trinity.

My victim self lives in me, myself and I, flowing through to be used whenever I choose. I will so choose every time I forget I would rather have God's will done in my life than my will done in my life, no matter how pretty I dress up my will.

My victim cannot hurt me, harm me, make me sick or afraid...fear her not for God lives in every corner, crack and cranny in which she lives and has incalculably more power than she does...or than does any living person, place or thing or any imaginary power, masquerading as self-power in my thoughts. 

It is my good pleasure to release my victim with love into God's grace within me/without me and without resistance to her. 

Thank You.

GOD'S LAUGHTER

I have come to understand that anyone who treats me unkindly is my angel in disguise.

There was a person in my office in the early 90s who was a misogynist, and he treated me less than wonderfully. In a note in "God Calling" dated back then, I wrote, "Only I can pardon my persecutors. Only I can set them free." I knew I could do nothing to effect a change...that I needed to turn within, and I could.

Here's the tricky part, however. It took action on my part...the better part of the action was letting go of my fear of losing my job if I took affirmative action for myself. Long/short: I let go, faced the person and, without anger or malice, stated my "Enough," got an apology, and the harassment never happened again.

That was one of those seemingly terrible times that turned out to be the pearl beyond price on so many levels. It taught me first to ponder long and hard until I came to the gut-bucket realization that God had my back at any and all times. That even if by my taking action I got fired, God had that covered to, and I did not need to know how. Then I had to come to understand that I was trying to accept the wrong thing...I was trying to accept being treated poorly just to hold on to my job. Finally, I realized that I could and that I needed to take action for myself in the midst of my fear, knowing that God had my back, then go Nike...just do it.

In Eknath Easwaran's daily reader today: "...returning kindness for unkindness is not simply being kind to that particular person. You're being kinder to yourself, because you are undoing a compulsion, taking one more step towards being free."

Paradoxically, this is harder for me to do when it's just Sylvia Schloppenhoffer snubbing me or my job is not on the line. I  just need to not be as nasty as I want to be. Another one of God's jokes.

Thank You.