Does anyone really have it “figured out”? As I am going to therapy, soul searching, reading the bible, listening to Oprah’s soul sessions… I’m realizing that there is no such thing as having it all “figured out.” This is hard to take because I’ve always striven for the right answers. As an analytical spirit, I find that I’m always searching for the “right way” the “right answers” and researching until I’m blue in the face. Maybe the key to living a wonderful life is really simple. Maybe it’s simply coming to terms and accepting that you will never “figure it out” and that there is “no right way.”
What is right for one person, will never be right for another. What makes you happy may not work for me. Letting go and realizing that there is no way… is the way to freedom. Paradoxical… just as Jesus always spoke… and pretty ironic… The way is NO WAY. I could crack up right now in laughter at this concept and the simplicity of this paradox. Like the universal law of if you want to receive, give. Somehow, when I try to acknowledge this, there is this slight glimmer of reckoning that feels good, but this also feels somewhat disappointing because I think we all search for “the answer” in one way or another and we drive ourselves crazy seeking to be or do or speak the right way. However, as I’ve been starting to be more aware of nature, I am noticing that often nature doesn’t seem to be striving for anything or worrying and fretting about good/bad or right/wrong. It just is. It accepts its place and itself and it just is. It trusts that what it was created to be is perfect just as it is and it displays it’s glory and grows in its own way.
Today, my therapist quoted one of my favorite passages in the bible:
For crying out loud the bible spells it out here. This is not about clothing or having material goods, this is about God having dressed our being… having dressed our spirits with everything we were meant to be. Trusting that God has provided everything we need, not just in terms of possessions, but in terms of who we are as people. We all serve our purpose, His purpose, regardless of what it is we are doing here. We all have certain qualities, thoughts, and emotions that lead us exactly where we are meant to be at any given time if we would only trust those things and lean in.
All we need to do is lean into God to know how he created us and better understand ourselves. When we seek God, we know that God is in control and that our worry and judgment of any situation is truly unnecessary. When we believe that God is good and has our best interest in mind, we can let go of thought, worry, right, wrong, judgment, etc. and ride the waves of our lives. Life/He is the dancer and we are the dance. Our place is to let the divine live through us and express our souls freely without restraint. Our creator wants to see his creation in all of it’s splendor, all of it’s color, and all of its features beautifully enacted. The full work of art in all of it’s glory…
Another passage that is absolutely incredible and speaks to the power of your mind and your perception is:
As I read this, I receive affirmation of how important the work I am currently doing is. Once we can understand and recreate our perceptions and our thoughts to see ourselves as brilliantly made by our creator, we change our whole world. Having a healthy perspective is so critical to the type of life you lead. When we have a faulty perception of who we are… unworthy, undeserving, not good enough, bad, wrong, stupid, etc. it destroys our entire life. These perceptions lead us to death… or to hell on earth. When the Bible speaks of “thy will be done on Earth as it is in heaven” I think about God’s will. From what I’ve learned God’s will is for us to love ourselves and others. This makes sense… if I created something, I would seek for it to be valued… to be honored… to be loved. I am not God, but I can see that… at a core level it is easily understandable. So why is it that we don’t do this?
Why is it that we don’t love everything about ourselves? Why have we labeled certain traits good or bad / nice or mean / pretty or ugly? Why have we desecrated God in judging all of his creations in dishonorable ways? Why can’t we take it all in and just see how amazing it all is? Why can’t we appreciate that you are this way and I am that way and see all of God’s splendor and diversity for what it is… beautiful, diverse, lovely, unique, and divine?
I may be going down the rabbit hole here, but we are nature poisoned with pride. We are a small part of nature that often believes it is better than all other nature. We like to label and name and try to make sense of everything instead of just “being” part of the bigger picture of nature. Hence the Bible’s story of Adam and Eve with the tree of knowledge.
When I read this, I can now clearly see that what we received… was judgment. We took on the incorrect roles of becoming judges. We started judging everything that God had created in terms of good and evil, which caused divisive behaviors to occur in the world. Rather than being as we were and allowing nature to be as it was and others to be as they are, we took on the role of judgment, which was never ours to have. That is God’s role… not ours. We stole something in that moment that we did not know how to effectively use and it may’ve created a lot of discontent within and divisiveness without.
Judgment led Cain to kill Abel… he judged his brother as being more “righteous” than he was and therefore envy was born. When I think about David, I think about how David judged himself after sleeping with Bathsheeba because she’d belonged to Uriah the Hittite. Because of his judgment toward himself and fear of judgment from others he’d sent Uriah to the front lines of battle to be killed. I think about Job and the way his “friends” judged him as he suffered through life although he seemingly did nothing to deserve the suffering. Job understands as seen in the passage below, but his “friends” are insistent on judging the situation and almost accusing him for the misfortune that has befallen him not understanding that it is God’s plan as part of nature and that Job has done nothing to “deserve it.”
I think about God coming down in that moment basically laying down the law and explaining that humans know nothing… we think we have it all figured out, yet we’ve judged situations incorrectly for we do not have the capacity to fully understand God in all of His glory.
I’ll have to continue with this concept and researching more in ancient texts… such as the Bible… I am starting to feel strongly that the main theme in the Bible is judgment… Jesus’ message is about acceptance… about forgiveness, loving, giving, and serving… which seems to be a natural result of losing judgment.
It breaks down to this: I accept you for who you are, you accept me for who I am… Because I feel good about me and you accept me, I want to help and love. Because you feel good about you and I accept you… you naturally want to help and love.
Another thought… judgment breeds fear… If I feel like there is a good v. bad, then I fear the bad and strive toward the good. I fear being judged for who I am and what I do. With judgment I can look and see that some have more and others less, which causes me to fear there isn’t enough for me a.k.a. scarcity mindset. The good old quote “ignorance is bliss” may not be so farfetched…
Ethics lead to a perfectionist ideal… that may be impossible to meet. Rather than build each other up and raise each other higher as they were intended, lofty ideals then lead to judgment and condemnation of ourselves and others when we “fail to achieve the target” (sin).