A very intriguing conversation I have had with several different people over the last few days has been about God’s Will! Intriguing conversation, cause it’s actually the spiritual faculty which is the topic for August. This is such a huge concept and has been the focus a number of Christian dominations which has caused them to fracture into a variety of different beliefs. What is God’s Will, for the World, for mankind and for you? Some dominations believe that since God created the world and everything in it, that He must have had a purpose in mind! However, since mankind doesn’t want to go along with God’s Will, violating different codes of ethics all the time, that God decided to punish us with Covid, devastating weather conditions and continual wars, trying to make us comply! We have broken God’s Will and now we got to pay the price. Isn’t that one of those parenting techniques that has never worked, yet we keep doing it!
I loved the movie, Contact, which we showed this past Sunday! So inspiring! The most disturbing part of the movie for me was when Ellie Arroway, the character Jodie Foster played, is sitting on the steps of her house at 10 years of age, mourning the death of her father. She is just crying and crying and a so-called minister trying to console her, tells her it must have been God’s Will! How can anyone tell a 10-year-old that it must have been God’s Will that her father died! Her father death left her all alone since her mother had died a few years earlier! She and her father had an ideal relationship, doing things together they both loved to do, studying the stars, talking to people on the radio on the other side of the country. Wow, how amazing, and now it’s God’s Will that it all be taken away! I just wanted to punch that minister in the nose!
When I think of God’s Will for mankind, I think of how God was wandering around the Garden Eden and all of its wonder and realized he needed someone to care for this marvelous creation we now call Earth! So, God scooped up some dust (apparently some Star Dust) and took great care in forming the man called Adam, then breathed into him the breath of life and the man became a living being. God then escorted him around the garden to show him all of Its wonder and delight! Based on this story, what would you think God’s Will for Adam might be? Well, I would think that God’s Will for Adam and each of us would be to experience the wonders and delights of the Garden!
In trying to achieve this goal God has struggled with humankinds’ need to bit into the fruits of the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil (what I call fruits of Judgement). God would later create Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, (the three Patriarchs of Judaism)and individually made them three huge promises. Then centuries later when the descendants failed to hold up their end of the deal, he makes another huge promise to Jeremiah, that the Divine One would write the message of Love on their heart and we will all know Infinite One because Its Love will be within our hearts. Then 500 years later, this guy called Jesus shows and tries to get people to listen to the message God has placed within them. What did people have to do to experience the 4 promises that the Infinite One made? What was God’s Will for them? That they would turn to the Infinite Oneness and seek to know It, to realize the sacred breath of life beating within their heart and seek to know and allow this Breath of Life to flow through and out into the world all around them, and if the experienced a challenge seek Its wisdom! If they could do this their heart’s desire would just be there. As Jesus starts his ministry, he says. “The time is now the Kingdom is within your grasp, turn to it and believe in the Good News (Mark 1:15), “Heaven is in your Midst" (Luke 17:21). When the Prodigal returned how did that father welcome his wayward son home! Yes, God’s Will for you is to know the wonders of life flowing through you and all around you, to experience the truth of who you are, (The I Am of you) and when you struggle in life, to turn to the Infinite Oneness and It’s Light, not the darkness.
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Namaste RevDoc Patrick
