Together, We Light the Way

Click link to go to:
Together We Light the Way Index

BRINGING GOD INTO MY RESOLUTIONS

BRINGING GOD INTO MY RESOLUTIONS

Well here we are at the beginning a new year. Time to make some New Years resolutions if you have not done so already. Do you enjoy this ritual of looking back over the past year to find those places in your life that could use some improvement, and then resolve to do better? I used to enjoy making this list with items like more exercise, eating healthy food, losing weight, making more money, and so on. What I began to realize was that the list never changed. Year to year I would begin by resolving to change the same old stuff. I would begin each year with a long list of behavior modifications that I seldom thought of again until the next ?new year?. Why did I resolve to change my ways, and then fail to do so? If these changes were important enough to me to put on my list, why were they not important enough to motivate follow through?

Eventually I decided that it was just too depressing to keep looking at that same old list with all its unresolved issues. I should either do something to change things, or stop making lists. So I don?t make new years resolutions anymore.  Well, that is not entirely true. When a friend asked me if I had made my new years resolutions I said no. But then I realized that over the years there has been a change. I do make resolutions. In fact, I make them daily. I didn?t even recognize them as resolutions until I thought about it, because these resolutions are different.

My daily resolutions are different in two ways. First, I choose carefully what I would resolve to change, and second I have powerful help so, with consistent effort, I succeed (which is why I didn?t associate these resolutions with the new years variety.)  First, choosing what I want to change: No, I didn?t gain a better track record by making an easier list. If anything, I have chosen more challenging tasks. I am, however, starting to look carefully at what I want in my life and how I can achieve that change. What I see clearly is that I don?t really know what will make me happy.

I see that I will have to figure out what I really need in my life to bring me happiness. I haven?t been very good at this in the past. I have thought that happiness was being married to a certain man, weighing less, having more money, eating chocolate. I have been wrong about all of those as well as most other things I thought would make me happy. What I have been right about is listening to the Voice for God. A Course in Miracles has a passage that says: Only the Holy Spirit know your needs?.Leave then your needs to Him. So that is my starting place.

I will leave my needs to Him. I put the Holy Spirit in charge of everything, and I do this by bringing Him into all parts of my life. So, if I think I need more prosperity in my life, I ask Him to be a part of this. I ask the Holy Spirit to be my business advisor.  This requires faith because I am putting Him in charge and so I must have faith in His Love for me. In order for this to work, I must first believe that God knows more than me, and second, that God does not need sacrifice. Otherwise, I will be afraid of His answer.

The first half of that proposal sounds silly at first glance. Of course God knows more than me. I know that, don?t I? Well, now that I think about it, perhaps I have not always thought so. There have been times when I have asked God what I should do, and have provided the answer He should give me, as if I have a better answer than He. I then wait for Him to do my bidding, and when it doesn?t work out like I have demanded; I have thought that God wasn?t listening.

This is the ?vending machine? approach to God; put in your prayer, punch the appropriate button, and wait for your answer to fall in your lap. This is not really putting God in charge. It is really an effort to be in charge myself with God doing the work. Even if I get what I ask for, is it really going to be what I want? I can just hear God saying, ?This is what you have done before, and how has that worked out for you?? Oh my, I must be a constant source of wry amusement for the Universe.

If I am going to put God in charge of my prosperity, I must let Him answer the question. That means I will have to release all attachment to the answer. I have not really put him in charge if my prayer goes like this: I want to be more prosperous this year. Please send me more customers, a new job, the winning lottery ticket. I have given Him the answer because I am attached to that outcome.

I have been wrong about what I thought would make me happy so often in the past that you would think I would be relieved to turn that decision over to a Higher Power. Now that I look at it, I see that I need to turn over not only the answer, but the question as well. Here is what I mean. I have asked for more money before, and I have received more money, and that didn?t make me happy. How much is enough to make me happy? Maybe I have been asking the wrong question. This question comes with the assumption that I know what will make me happy; that more money will make me happy. So, what I am doing is loading the question so that I will get the outcome I am attached to. Do you see what I mean?

If I don?t seem to have enough money, it seems pretty obvious that I need more. It seems obvious that having enough money to buy new shoes when the old pair wears out would make me happy; having enough money to pay my rent on time would make me happy. Some of these needs feel pretty compelling. So it would seem that the proper question would have something to do with greater prosperity, and certainly God knows that while we live in this world we need certain things. But, what if I could be happy while I wait for the manifestation of what I need? What if I didn?t have to go through the anxiety while not knowing what was coming (or not coming)? What if I could be joyful regardless of what seemed to be happening to me? This would be real happiness. Not having my peace dependent on what is happening in my life would be real happiness.

So, I need a new question as well as a new answer. Instead of resolving to work harder, win bigger, or whatever I think will increase my prosperity; instead of asking for more money with the assumption that this will make me happier, I am going to make a whole new resolution. This is my resolution for the New Year. I choose to put God completely in charge of my happiness. I resolve to make no decisions about what would make me happy, and I choose to give up all attachment to the outcome. In my new resolution I say, ?God, give me your Joy, in whatever form You know I need it. I have absolute faith in Your judgment. I know You love me because I am Your child. I know You want me to be happy. I will not tell You what Your answer should be.?

Wow! That sends shivers up my arms! Are they shivers of excitement, or shivers of fear? I don?t know, maybe a little of both. It will take some practice on my part to leave all this stuff in God?s Hands. When I become fearful, I will want to take it back. Now is that a good definition of a control freak? ?Here God, I don?t think I can trust you with this thing in my life. Give it back, and I?ll worry it into submission.?

How about my resolution to eat better? What does this really mean to me? What am I asking for? I think that what I am asking for is a diet that contains plenty of chocolate cake, and that will make me skinny and very healthy. Amen. Even if I can get past what I want the answer to be, I need to re-think the question. When I ask for guidance, I hear the Holy Spirit saying, ?How can you use this issue to bring a clearer awareness of yourself in God??  That is the real question, because that will lead to my happiness. The answer I got to that question was to ask the Holy Spirit to be with me in this situation. I ask Him to eat all my meals with me. In learning to bring God into every part of my life, I am learning to make myself happy.

When I give the question to the Holy Spirit, He reminds me that Jesus said it does not matter what goes into the mouth, but rather what comes out of it. The Holy Spirit tells me that it is not my eating that needs His correction; it is my thoughts that need correction. He also reminds me that it doesn?t matter what form correction takes. This issue will be as good a vehicle to strengthen my spiritual growth as any other.

So, if I were putting this on a list of new years resolutions, I would change the list from ?I need to lose some weight and eat healthier,? to ?I will ask the Holy Spirit to correct my thoughts about food and eating, and I will do this by inviting Him to join me every time I eat.?  I am bringing God into the problem. This is now a problem that comes with a built in solution. I know what I want to accomplish and I know how to do it.

I?m starting to see a pattern here. I am first recognizing that I don?t have the answer to my own problem. I recognize that God knows what the solution is, and that His solution will always work, and will always lead to my happiness. I recognize that the first step in any solution will be to bring God into the problem. I recognize that my part is to keep Him there by not trying to take the problem back, and by not telling God what the answer should be; and, in fact, by not trying to define the question to predispose the answer.

Like all other forms of spiritual growth, this is going to take some consistent practice on my part. I have spent most of my life trying and not succeeding. I have done it one way and when that didn?t work, I did it the same way again. I might change the form a little, but the content has remained the same. I would decide what the problem was, I would decide what the answer was, I would give the package to God for prompt delivery.  I would rail at God for not coming across as requested, and then berate myself for being unworthy. Well, I?d given that process a fair chance to work; in fact I?d given it over 50 years of chances. I began to suspect that I might need to try something different.

This is where I am now. The last few years I have been learning a different way to make changes in my life. This new way is working a lot better. I am not doing it perfectly; it is an evolving process. The more I practice my faith, the stronger it gets. The more often I invite God into my life, the more clearly I hear His Voice. Hearing the Holy Spirit is a natural thing for us to do because God gave us His Voice to guide us back to Him, but if we fall out of the habit of listening, it takes some little effort to get back into the habit. The Holy Spirit is patient though, and works with us where we are. He will get the message to us if we want to hear it.

If you are making a list of New Year?s resolutions, I invite you to form the happy habit of inviting God into this effort. This year could very well be your most exciting year ever. Just make your first resolution that you will invite God into each area of your life. Do you have a relationship issue? Invite God into that relationship. Ask Him what He wants for you in this relationship. Do you have unresolved issues with people or circumstances? Invite God in. Ask Him for a solution-His solution. Tell Him you are willing to set aside your own solutions, and accept His. Do you have health problems? Invite God into this place in your life. Ask Him to heal the thoughts that support ill health. Ask Him where He wants you to go with this. Every problem has a gift to offer. Ask Him for the gift He offers you so you can move past this. Resolve this year, that you will seek for the joy that life brings when you invite God in.

© 2005, Pathways of Light. https://www.pathwaysoflight.org
You may freely share copies of this with your friends, provided this notice is included.

Tell a friend about this article.

Printable Page

We Live in God

WE LIVE IN GOD

In God, we live and move and have our being.” Acts 17:28.  That is the reason all things are possible in God. All things are possible because we are in God. Why is that so hard to believe? If we are in God, why do we seem to be so unhappy much of the time? Why do we experience pain and fear and guilt? Why does there seem to be so many miserable people leading sad lives? The circumstances of our lives seem to argue against God, or argue for an insane God.

The answer is simple. We dream in God. Genesis tells us that Adam (who is representative of all God?s children) went to sleep. Nowhere does it say that he awoke. We still sleep, and we dream. We dream that we left God, that we turned our back on Him and walked away. We dream that we recreated ourselves and instead of one we became many, separating ourselves into man and woman, into different colors, different personalities. We kept dreaming separation dreams until the differences became endless. We splintered our one holy self until it seemed impossible to even discern the child that God created, much less put it back together.

And in our dream of abandoning God and our true nature by walking out of paradise, we experienced the crushing fear and guilt of turning our back on our Creator. We became afraid of our loving Father, and afraid to wake up. So we chose to forget that we went to sleep and dreamed.

But God, Whose love for us is all encompassing and endless, put His Voice in us as a gentle reminder of our true reality. We call the Voice for God the Holy Spirit. This Voice is always available to us and will lead us back to God when we are ready to listen; when we are ready to wake up.

So, wake up! Wake up to the joy of who you are. Wake up and know the peace of God which passes all understanding. Wake up and know your oneness with your Creator and with each other. Do you feel lost? Do you feel so distant from God that you cannot imagine that you are in God? Do you sometimes feel so crushed by a life time of disappointments that you cannot imagine living a life of pure joy? Have you made mistakes? Does the weight of those mistakes seem awful, so smothering that you can?t see yourself lifting the weight of that guilt from your shoulders?

Well, take heart!  All you need to do is wake up. And God placed within us the means to wake gently and surely from this nightmare. The Holy Spirit speaks to us of our Father and the home He has prepared for us. He tells us of our Father?s endless and unwavering love for us. He gently reassures us, like the spiritual children that we are. He reminds us that we don?t have to remain in this bad dream any longer than we want to-that our Father waits patiently for our return. God doesn?t condemn us. He doesn?t believe in our ?sins?. He is the loving Father, joyfully awaiting the return of His prodigal children.

Could this be true? Could it be that simple? Is there truly hope? If so, how do we awake? How do we come out of this dream? In my guilt and fear I have worked hard to block out the Voice for God. Perhaps the same is true for you as well. Rest assured, God would not have given us His Voice if He did not mean for us to hear It. He made it easily assessable to us. The first step to returning to our natural state, which is Heaven, is to recognize that the world has nothing to offer. This is also the hardest step. I experienced a huge resistance to this, and still experience resistance, though the resistance is never as strong as it used to be.

I argued against the idea that the world has nothing to offer me because it seemed to me that, with all the bad, there is a lot of good as well. I asked the Holy Spirit about love. What about falling in love and wanting to spend the rest of your life with that person? This is the knowing I received from the Holy Spirit. Love as the world offers it is conditional and temporary.  It is uncertain and fragile. Like everything the world offers, it is like a beautifully wrapped box with a bomb inside. No matter how lovely it is at first, it has the potential to blow up in my face. So even while things are going great, somewhere deep in my subconscious, I am plagued with dread of losing it. What kind of gift is that? Is this happiness?

So, does this mean that love is not a good thing, and that I should not seek it? No, because there is a way to love even in this dream that is of God. If I choose God instead of the world, love comes without conditions, and it is eternal. In fact, when I choose God and only God, love is all there is. Call it special love, and holy love. Special love is of the world. It is for some people and not for others. It is different depending on circumstances. There are many conditions which must be met before it can enter, and it can easily be lost.

Holy love is from God rather than from the world. It knows no bounds. It doesn?t love one person more than another, nor differently. There are no conditions on its presence.  How a person acts doesn?t change the love. It has no limits and is steadfast. It never changes nor can it be lost. Love from God is the very fabric of life. It is the raw material from which all else flows. We can block God?s Love from our awareness of it, but we cannot change or destroy it. Can we love each other with the love of God? Yes! We certainly can, and in fact, that is what we are created for.

All things the world has to offer are temporary at best and are always dual in nature, there being a good side and a bad side. All things in the world lead to loss. The most beautiful sunset ends. The lushest forest dies away or is destroyed. Even while it exists in all its beautiful magnificence, it contains the potential for loss and so the pleasure one feels at its beauty is tinged with the certain knowledge that it will end.

In our creation we had total peace, complete joy and love such as we can no longer even imagine. We traded it for dreams of elusive and uncertain pleasures. We could have the peace of God, and instead we choose our little dramas. We could have absolute joy, and instead we choose illness, pain and fear. We could have unlimited and unchanging love, and instead we choose a pale imitation. And we call this life and revel in the next emotional high, all the while waiting in dread for the inevitable plunge into darkness. This is not life. This is death by degrees.

All we need to break free of this vicious cycle is a little willingness. We don?t even need complete willingness, just a little willingness. We can say, ?God, I am willing to entertain the thought that I want your gifts, instead of what I have given myself. I am willing to consider that there might be a better way; that life doesn?t have to so closely resemble hell. When I have done this, I have opened the door of my mind just a crack. I have peeked through that crack and invited God in. He will take full advantage of even that small bit of willingness on my part. His radiant Light will begin to flow in through that small opening, lightening the dark places in my mind. His angels will slip through to support my every small effort with their strength. His Voice will become more distinct in my mind. The change in my life that results from this small effort on my part will motivate me to open that door wider.

Once I have decided to turn my back on the world with its pathetic offerings, and have decided to place my faith in God?s gifts, it is only a matter of staying vigilant for God. The world will continue to tempt me, offering unlimited distractions to regain my attention and my allegiance. Jesus experienced this, too, in His forty days of temptations.  The world and all its ?glories? were laid at his feet, and all he had to do was accept them. Jesus saw them for the pale imitations they were, and turned his back on them.

And so must we, if we seek a spiritual awakening. God did not leave us alone to find our way home. We have the Holy Spirit to turn to when we are unsure how to respond to anything the world offers. Some of its gifts seem good and some of them seem bad, but they are all the same if they do not come from our Father. If what you are being offered does not bring love and joy and peace into your life, the Holy Spirit will judge it to be unworthy of a child of God.

We live in the world and so we need things, but there is a way of having them that will not hurt us. A course I took put it like this: ?When we ask for things of the world on our own, we are asking for hell whether we realize it or not. When we let the Holy Spirit guide the prayer of our heart we are returned to our natural place in Heaven.?

It is not hard to learn to bring all thoughts to the Holy Spirit for his interpretation. It only requires practice, and life provides plenty of practice opportunities. I had a chance to practice this quite recently. My daughter, Sheryl had surgery that became infected and she had to go in for more surgery. During this ordeal, the world offered me great drama. I could feel perfectly justified in spending my days and nights in fear. After all, who wouldn?t under the circumstances, considering the pain my daughter was suffering, and the potential danger.

I could tell the story of my fear for my daughter as I worried and fretted. People would express their concern and try to console me. I could spend my time busily doing unnecessary tasks, looking worried and fearful, and so reassuring myself that I am a good and caring mom. I could experience the temporary highs when things seemed to be going well- and then the awful fear and dread when events seemed uncertain. I could tell myself that these roller coaster emotions mean that I live. This drama is a gift of the world.

In fact, that is exactly what I chose, at least at first. I recognized from my loss of peace that I had chosen against God. I gave myself some quiet time, and I brought all of this stuff to the Holy Spirit. I told Him how hard it is to put my fears aside, but that I was willing to do so. I told Him that it was hard for me to imagine feeling any differently in the circumstances, but I was willing to see this in another way. I gave the Holy Spirit what willingness I had, and asked Him to heal my unwillingness. It seemed, at first, that it was just too hard to release my fears to God, but that is the miracle. I only need to be willing to do so. I don?t have to heal my thoughts. That is the Holy Spirit?s job.  He heals my mind and gives me another way to see.

The Holy Spirit gave me a new vision. He showed me the whole and perfect child of God behind the weak and vulnerable person I had been seeing. He reminded me that I have a purpose and that purpose is to keep God?s Vision of Sheryl. What we focus on grows and becomes stronger. The longer I held God?s Vision of Sheryl, the more real it became for me. Soon, the fear and anxiety began to melt away as their cause faded from my mind. I began to have dreams of healing rather than dreams of death.

I contacted friends and asked them to hold this vision with me, and also to see me as strong in my purpose. As we join in God?s work, we become stronger. Remember what Jesus said about when two or more are gathered in His name. And so, in His name I gathered strength.

When my eyes were drawn to the picture the world was offering me, I returned my thoughts to the Holy Spirit and asked Him to renew God?s Vision for me. When I thought, ?But what if she gets really sick?? the Holy Spirit reminded me that no matter what seems to happen in the world, Sheryl rests in God. God is her strength and her safety.

As I chose God over the world, all the fears and anxieties continued to dissolve, and were replaced with certainty, and love, and peace. Each time I was tempted to look at what the world seemed to offer, I repeated the process. Each time I accepted God?s gifts instead of the worlds, I became stronger in my commitment, and it became easier to do.

Probably we have all experienced turmoil and chaos in our lives. Some of us have experienced grief. There may have been moments when you have felt abandoned and wondered where God had gone. Well, know this: God has not gone anywhere and neither have you. You are in God where He placed you, and nothing can change that. You need only awaken to His love and His care to bring this awareness back into your life.

© 2005, Pathways of Light. https://www.pathwaysoflight.org
You may freely share copies of this with your friends, provided this notice is included.

Tell a friend about this article.

Printable Page

<< Back to main page of Together, We Light the Way

Has this page been helpful to you?
Your contribution to support this site is greatly appreciated. To make a tax deductible contribution with a credit/debit card, click here.
Click here to donate from your PayPal account.
Or send a check to Pathways of Light, 12530 Lions Chase Court, Huntley, IL 60142.