Let Go and Let God

“Leap, and the net will appear.”

― Julia Cameron, The Artist's Way: A Spiritual Path to Higher Creativity

At the Creativity Workshop I attended in Florence Italy, I interviewed a teacher who left her job in Wisconsin and moved to California without soliciting a position in her new state.  She said when it felt right, she followed her intuition and God always provided the right connections and opportunities.  In my experience, it considered foolish to quit a job without prospects of a new one, yet if we are really in tune with God and we are receiving direction, is it foolish?

What if we are meant to navigate our life based on the conviction that if we act without worry, the connections and opportunities will be there in God’s perfect timing?  What if we truly believe God will provide?  Think of driverless cars that perfectly navigate the roads based on satellites determining our positions with inner sensors and the satellite guiding our paths coordinating with other cars.  What if God is the satellite and our souls are the sensors?  What if we have confidence to trust the system will work and we do not have to worry? What if determining our soul’s purpose, would motivate us to work hard in order to be ready when God tells us “move” or adjust?”  What if we maximized each of our gifts, what amazing things could occur in the world?

This navigation system is different from a command and control system, which focuses on joint objectives, determines the organization structure, allocates the resources, and creates the processes. But out world is increasingly being disrupted and systems have to be flexible.  The only constants in our lives are God and change.  That is why we have to “let go and let God.”

Revelations

 “The divine or supernatural disclosure to humans of something relating to human existence or the world."

- Google Dictionary

Christians believe the primary source of revelation by God is contained within the Bible.  The Bible is the story of God as written by man but inspired by God. Since God is beyond human understanding, no words written by man fully capture him and his creation. 

Human understanding of God grows progressively in the Bible.  There are themes of the love of God and redemption all through the Bible.  But the Old Testament is reflective of the Jews believing that God directly sends storms or enemies to punish humans for unfaithfulness to God’s laws and covenants.  In the story of Jonah and the whale, Jonah believes God chases storms after him as he flees in a ship because he is disobedient to God’s direction to prophesize to Nineveh. Jonah is thrown overboard by the sailors to calm the seas and therefore God’s wrath. The Old Testament communicates we can disobey God with free will, but God imposes consequences. 

In the New Testament, we learn that God directs us to the better path of greater good because he omniscient and loving, not punishing.  Often we are distracted from God’s will, but find that God has anticipated our mistakes and through a “course correction,” put us back a path based on love.  And like Jonah, we have another chance to choose better.  It is more appropriate to say God “allows storms.”  God knows how the story ends, because he knows the nature of his creation and our souls. He is without the boundary of time and space as is humanity.

The Bible is not only revelatory in its story of God’s relationship with us; it also reveals truths to each reader.  The meaning can change with the reader and a point in time.   Often different translations based on Aramaic, Greek, Hebrew or Latin sources reveal nuances and contexts deepening our understanding.  It conveys not only deep truths, but gives us guidance on our decisions and therefore behaviors.

But God not only reveals himself through the Bible, he communicates through the Holy Spirit, each other and his creation.  The Holy Spirit fills us with love.  God provided Jesus and saints who exemplify his love as models.  His creation is awe inspiring and the more we explore it outwardly, inwardly we are filled with gratitude and humbleness at the amazing gift of our lives.

The book of Revelations in the Bible is often understood as describing the end times, but I believe it communicates that God is always in the process of revealing himself to us.  We do not know how the story will end, but we have faith that it is in God’s hands and he will reveal all in his perfect timing.

The Love Within

“Beauty is not in the face; beauty is a light in the heart.”     

- Kahlil Gibra – American Poet and Artist

 “I will praise You, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made;

Marvelous are Your works,

And that my soul knows very well.”

-     Psalm 139:14 (NKJV)

So often in today’s society we think of beauty as being aesthetics or harmony amongst different features or elements.  In humans, it is whether the features are symmetrical or meet the standards of a society.  But often we talk about inner beauty, which is to describe someone as gentle and loving with a light in the eyes. 

When someone has a light in his or her eyes, it indicates that the person feels loved.  Because we often view someone as beautiful based on external aesthetics, we affect how someone feels inside through our behaviors or the standards we expect in our society.  We all need to feel loved by others, but only the love God is unconditional and sustaining.   When we recognize God perfectly made all of us for a wonderful purpose, we cease to limit others, and ourselves igniting the love of God within.   

Free Will and the Hand of God

“There is no easy walk to freedom anywhere, and many of us will have to pass through the valley of the shadow of death again and again before we reach the mountaintop of our desires.”

-       Nelson Mandela – Nobel Peace Prize Recipient

“Evil is the absence of love in our hearts as dark is the absence of light, cold is the absence of heat.”

 -  Albert Einstein – Nobel Prize Recipient

If God is love and omnipotent and his will prevails in the end, why does God permit evil?  This question is deeply debated by philosophers who ask why God permits evil such as genocide and murder that possess no redemptive value?  Redemptive value is when our suffering is healed through the presence of God, exemplified and witnessed to us by others who have also suffered and healed through the love of God.  By suffering and healing we grow closer to God and love more fully.

God permits the absence of love including non-redemptive acts of evil as a consequence of human free will.  Free will allows us to grow and create both as individuals and as a race.  Like a good parent, God wants us to choose to love him and make loving choices on Earth consistent with his purpose instilled in our soul. But God’s power is not bound by humanity’s finite existence. While in our human form we cannot fully see the result of our actions, but God’s will, which is love, always prevails whether on Earth or in Heaven.  That is the infinite view of God.  My professor of philosophy once asked me if even souls locked in hell could be saved?  My answer is God is omnipresent; our soul always has the choice to turn towards God, who is love, even a soul in hell mired in degradation.

As humans, with free will we choose how to respond to others even when others do not love.  We can choose to look for God’s will in our lives and exemplify and witness the presence of his love.  As Nelson Mandela stated we often have to suffer to be truly free and see the mountaintop, which is our souls’s desire rooted in God’s love.