Finding Daily Inspirations: fear

Showing posts with label fear. Show all posts

Sunday, June 13, 2010

Questions Can Bring Daily Inspirations

Questions from a young friend who is preparing for the ministry …… part of an ongoing “conversation”:
1. What has the power over life and death?
2. What ultimately controls this thing?
3. What can we do to safe guard against using this power in the wrong way?

1. Life and death are illusions created by the illusion of “sin” or the perception of separation from God. We are not disconnected from God – we are just holding our breaths. If we just “breathe” They will be all through us.
2. The illusion of sin separation breeds and feeds on control of outcomes. Only surrender within God’s Presence releases its hold. Only God’s Presence empowers and enables surrender – the end of our instinctive compulsion to control. In God’s Presence there is no control – all is as it is meant to be.
3. We – of our selves – are unable to safeguard against using this illusion of need, and dependency on outcomes -- power. When we are intimately connected to God, we simply don’t try to use it. All is experienced as well – “now and in the hereafter”.

There is the thought and myth of “Jesus” or God, and there is the experience of and intimacy with “Jesus” or God. The Bible speaks of people "crying Lord, Lord", and He would not respond because their “hearts” were far from Him. They were thinking and talking Jesus, but not loving and intimately interacting with and experiencing Jesus’ Presence. And they were doing the best that they could do. They were not consciously feeling their pain and separation, so their thoughts – religion – was working for them…… The blessed feel fear, and sadness, and anger -- the absence of deepest peace -- consciously, and turn to the Person, the Presence that is “Jesus” or God. (Look at the Beautitudes: Matthew 5)……
The rest can only mentally "cry Lord,Lord" and stumble blindly about in the darkness of their brains’ madness.

Addendum:
The overwhelming fear that I have experienced, and seen in others is the excruciating terror that we are alone – abandoned – never to be loved or good enough – shame….. My experience in spiritual inner healing is that we can find the “truth” about our selves by finding and improving our conscious intimate contact with a Presence greater than our selves. There is no magic wand or secret button – it starts by being fully human – experiencing our powerless. And then listening to our God’s Presence in the content of others’ words, in spiritual literature, and in the events that occur in our lives. Spiritual connection begins with content – words, events, things – and by listening from deep inside our selves, we begin to absorb our God’s higher Presence from within the content. Maybe it is like the metaphor of”panning for gold”.

We are not alone. And we must learn to replace thought with God’s Presence, so we experience how special and wonderful They perceive us to be – and we will begin to see our selves the same.

Saturday, May 1, 2010

Fear Opens Our Hearts to Spiritual Enlightenment

Anxiety is the natural result when our hopes are centered in anything short of God and his will for us.
Billy Graham

I struggled the greater part of my life, trying to determine what God’s will was for me. I didn’t realize until the last fifteen years that I was wanting to know the terms of the contractual relationship that God was seemingly offering everyone. If I could determine “His” will and do it, God had to give me what I wanted – primarily to be loved and cared about.

To know and fulfil God’s will had become my will, and it was failing miserably – no matter how much I tried to sacrifice and martyr myself to please “Him”.

Anxiety was a given. I was not measuring up to my expectations of how I believed I should please God, and I knew – from religion – to expect my impending judgement and my imminent destruction.

Over the past twenty years, I have begun to learn and experience certain “truths” – at least for me.

First of all my God, as I experience Him -- and Her -- has no rules by which They judge and punish me. Their love is unconditional and constant --irregardless of my actions and thoughts. My problem is my judgement and punishment of myself based on the rules that I have been programmed to believe they have for me.

Second, God’s will is exactly what I would want, if I knew myself, and what I wanted as They do. In the purest sense, God’s will and what I really want are the same.

Third, God’s will is a natural result of living in intimate closeness and love with Them. Their intent is for me to know and experience my truest selves, and with their loving support, to live increasing complete in that spiritual enlightenment.

Anxiety is the beginning of spiritual enlightenment, because it reminds us that we are still not yet completely connected to our God’s higher Presence and love. It is the beginning of a “faith” beyond thought, and hope beyond understanding – not the opposite. To conscious feel anxious is to become present and available for their love to flow into our hearts and being.

The maintenance of spiritual presence and spiritual enlightenment requires the following: experience our feelings – especially anxiety; increasingly connect ourselves to Their loving Presence through daily inspirations and precious moments of experience and hope; and consistently take the action necessary to stay intimately connected to their loving care.