.:| The Mr. Renaissance Bi-weekly Newsletter |:. archives | discuss | subscribe | print page
September 26, 2007
Hello everyone,
Sometimes it seems like we find ourselves relearning old lessons the hard way on our spiritual journeys. In my own case, typically I derail little by little until the result is an absolute train wreck, emotionally, spiritually, often even physically. Unfortunately, that has been where this past week has found me and everything I have attempted to write in terms of a newsletter ended up falling flat. It was then that I realized I was to turn my own inglorious week into a short meditation sent along with the strength and encouragement I gleaned from Sadhu Sundar Singh’s “Darshana: The Divine Presence.”
In particular, I often have lofty dreams and expectations and grow dissatisfied with the hum-drum affairs of daily reality. I begin wishing to spread my wings and fly to far and distant places, doing exceptional things and having meaningful encounters, and am confronted by the rut that is my life, a rut that seems at times to lead nowhere and accomplish nothing. My dissatisfaction continues to grow, my actions increasingly desparate and rebellious, until finally my life becomes so unlivable I simply have to stop, sit down, clear my head, and by grace start all over again. For deep inside I do know that grace comes day by day; deep inside I know that if we will but embrace the day in all its apparent trivialities, for that day we will find our meaning in life.
Each day has its own worries and its own cares and we only compound them by refusing to live in the moment, by refusing to embody what the day holds for us. By contrast, when we begin to learn to accept each day as it comes with all its apparent banalities, we then begin to discover that it is here we are most happy and our lives have their greatest meaning. However, we fail to live in the day so often, becoming impatient, frustrated, and angry with God, with ourselves, or both, because what we do not yet have and believe we must possess always tends to look more tantalizing and tempting that what we currently have. For myself, at least, there is so much misplaced and misdirected anger at times simply because I refuse to accept each day as it comes, believing its offerings paltry and feeling I deserve more. How difficult it can be at times to accept what appears to be the mediocrity of my life and to embrace it, making of it something extraordinary. As I remembered the words of Emmet Fox, I was again drawn up short:
Instead of understanding that it is his essential nature to express God, to be ever about his Father’s business, [man] tries to set up upon his own account. All our troubles arise from just this folly. We abuse our free will, trying to work apart from God; and the very natural result is all the sickness, poverty, sin, trouble, and death that we find on the physical plane. We must never for a moment try to live for ourselves, or make plans or arrangements without reference to God, or suppose that we can be either happy or successful if we are seeking any other end than to do His Will. Whatever our desire may be, whether it be something concerning our daily work, or our duty at home, our relations with our fellowman, or private plans for the employment of our own time, if we seek to serve self instead of God, we are ordering trouble, disappointment, and unhappiness, notwithstanding what the evidence to the contrary may seem to be. Whereas, if we choose what, through prayer, we know to be His Will, then we are ensuring for ourselves ultimate success, freedom, and joy, however much self-sacrifice and self-discipline it may involve at the moment. (The Lord’s Prayer)
In short, it is altogether too easy to make our will God’s will and then grow upset with him when he fails to deliver. In fact, nothing makes us more angry, unhappy, or unlovable than falling into this kind of trap. The only thing that we can do is to stop, regroup, and again set about to embrace the day as it comes, striving to be patient, striving to live fully in the will of God, striving not to get ahead of his plans for our lives however excruciatingly slow they seem to us. If our desire meets again and again with frustration, chances are rather good that we are working apart from God’s timing. Either the door is closed and will remain closed, perhaps for reasons we will never fully understand, or else we are trying to open a door that is not yet ready to be opened, or else we are trying to open the wrong door when another entrance awaits us if we will but be patient. One feels like such a fool after beating a bloody fist against a closed door, but eventually one learns to pause and reflect and to recognize that apart from God, nothing has any real meaning any way.
We ultimately know that God has our best interests in mind, as well as those of everyone else. We know that we are happiest when we trust him and least happy when we are awash in doubt. There have been times we have tasted the pain of our choices and we know that his ways are wisest, even if they make us feel alone and lonely for the time, even when it appears for all the world that God is holding out on us, not giving us the things for which we most long. Soon enough we learn from chasing empty dreams that we were not as securely anchored in him as we had thought and repentance is the only proper course of action.
The element of “All” has to be first embraced on an individual level. We stand accountable person to person before God. I have to greet the challenges of each day as they arise—my own personal day with the petty ins and outs of teaching and taking classes and dealing with my hopes and dreams and desires in Godly or unGodly ways—and I accordingly either stand or fall. Generally, the greatest challenges I face are not the actions of other people at all, but my own responses to the everyday affairs of life. And, to my shame, I do not always stand, but at least I am generally smart enough to see my folly eventually and turn back again in repentance. My heart is generally miserable until I walk authentically in the way set before me, fully embracing God’s will for my life. That can be challenge enough for several lifetimes.
Within the affairs of each day, I will find my—indeed, we will find our—ultimate happiness and purpose. It does not always appear that way: our days are often uneventful, monotonously ordinary, or sad and lonely, not at all what we would seek for ourselves. Yet if we learn to embrace the day and to see in it what God has for us to see, it may well nigh amaze us the transformation that takes place, first in us, then in the day, and then in the pattern of our life as a whole. To live in the center of God’s will is to live in peace and harmony and to achieve contentment: it is natural and organic when we operate according to the divine plan. But when our focus settles again on what we feel we lack and our dissatisfaction grows, peace and harmony are increasingly fleeting and discontent reigns: we have neither what we want nor God’s peace and of all creatures we are most miserable. It is in our ability to embrace each day as it comes and to learn from it whatever lessons are to be learned that we will find our greatest peace. I am reminded of a prayer I encountered some time ago that helps us turn even the most ordinary events of our lives into spiritual fodder:
“Holy Spirit, give me the insight to detect your Divine Presence as I slowly review the past day, letting the parade of events of the day move over the screen of my mind as I relax in your presence. I am listening attentively to you, Lord, so that you may show me where you are meeting me, challenging me, and subtly revealing your caring presence and love.” I review my attitudes and actions in light of Christ’s, focusing on feelings of fear, anger, pain, turmoil, anxiety, joy, love, exultation, courage etc. I try to discover why my attitudes draw me toward God or toward self; why they are like or unlike Christ’s. “Christ, my Friend, grant that by this awareness I may discover where you found me and where I did not recognize you. Reveal to me the part of my life, especially the area of greatest weakness, in which you, Lord, are drawing me to a deeper conversion.” (The Practice of Awareness Meditation)
I am reminded of the so-called “new” version of the classic “Footprints in the Sand” in which the single set of footprints not only indicate that God has carried us during difficult passages, but in which the patterns of footprints at times entwine strangely, suggesting that together we and the Lord have danced. If we are to dance with the Lord, we first have to face our own misery, find its source—which is most generally a seeking of our own will apart from God’s—and once again lock step with our Lord. And we will find in him a master who is infinitely patient with us; he takes no delight in our folly but is always waiting to accept us in open arms. Even when we do not love ourselves, yet his love for us remains and in that love we will find our redemption. These are things we know already—we know that our worth and purpose is found only with him at the center of all else—that our sense of peace and purpose is not going to be found apart from him no matter how much at the moment things might look to the contrary. Even during those times we do not love ourselves, we can find in him the reason to gaze into the mirror without flinching, for he sees worth in us even when we see none in ourselves.
The battle of the wills is not waged between ourselves and God; the battle of the wills is raged within our own being as we struggle with ourselves, striving to surrender our will to the perfect will of the Father. While the battle is not between ourselves and God, in his mercy he will help us to surrender if we enlist his help: if we but ask him to help us to lay our burdens down. He takes no delight in our pain and our sorrow and he is as eager to see our relief as we are to experience it. The simple fact is, we must first surrender if we are to abide in that peace: there is no other way to lasting peace. And now we will let Sadhu Sundar Singh speak in his simple and clear way about finding peace, particurlarly in our modern world in which the mere act of believing often comes with its own share of challenges.
God bless,
Eric
Table of Contents | Home | About | Newsletter | Forum | Misc. | Contact | Search | Links | Random Page
.:| get up to date: newsletter :. 1&1 .: discussion forum: participate |:.