Don't be afraid

There is so much fear in the world right now. Have you noticed? It seems that there is just one threat or disaster after another. And everthing that we need in our day to day lives is getting more expensive.

First of all, it’s okay to be afraid. It’s understandable. No one is going to judge you because you are afraid. So you can relax. At least when it comes to this. But just know that you don’t have to be afraid.

We worry about the future of the planet, wars, the economy, our economy. All the way from the whole of humanity, down to us as individuals, we worry. Everything seems to be hitting us all at once.

I’m not going to say that this means one thing or the other. But doesn’t it all seem a bit odd?

Here’s a suggestion: Maybe it’s time that we who aspire to follow Christ start believing that we are taken care of? 

For me this entails that when it comes to problems of humanity that we don’t seem to be able to solve on our own, I decide to trust God instead. Trust that God will not just let the world perish. That God will never force that which is unacceptable on us in order to save the world or humanity. 

Knowing where I stand when it comes to this, will also help me draw a clear line when it comes to what political solutions I will never comply with.

If we don’t take a step back, just breathe and think about the fact that, in the end, everything is in God’s hands it’s easy to forget about joy. It’s easy to just react. Because this is what we’ve gotten used to. Make a panicked response to a stressful situation. Whether we do it as individuals or as a collective.

One major reason for this is that the default mode of our brains is to keep us safe. But that just won’t do anymore. We are on our way towards something new. Something where our egos and instincts can no longer guide us. Can you feel it? 

One thing that the Bible says, is that God has promised that in one way or another, he will take care of us. He has not said that everything is going to be easy or even that our survival, on an individual level in this physical body, is guaranteed. But he has promised that he won’t let the world go under until the end times. And even the end times may suggest a more symbolic interpretation. 

Now, those that want to control us want to keep us in a fearful state. Because it’s easier to get fearful people that are deprived of hope and meaningfulness to hand over their power.

So if you really want to stick it to the man so to speak, the only way forward is to learn not to respond in a negative, fearful manner. To stay happy, hopeful and trusting even when the world tries to bring you down is the only way out. 

Therefore, to be joyful and happy is an act of defiance. To refuse to let our chaotic world upset our balance. To choose to rely on God and on that there is a plan. Isn’t that great? The way that we fight back is by choosing happiness and embracing the positive aspects of life.

I know that it’s not always easy. Neither on a personal nor a global level. We might be struggling with one thing or the other on a personal level. And on a global level there are different things that grab hold of our attention in a way where we seem unable to stop thinking about them. Thus we worry. Thus we fall. Because we’ve learned a totally backwards way of functioning in the world. It’s not our fault. We have learned that this is the natural way of operating in the world. That it’s the only way.

Therefore, when we fall, we must realize that there is nothing wrong with us. We are not bad. We just haven’t learned that we have options.

If you don’t know where to start, I suggest that you start working on acceptance. This is a big step and I admit that, in it’s apparent simplicity and effortlessness, it’s often very difficult. Because we have a lot to unlearn and re-learn. But here’s the thing I want to stress over and over again: You are okay the way you are. You are okay the way you are. There is nothing wrong with you. You, just like me and everyone else, just lack the proper understanding. You don’t have to do anything about it. Everything is optional. You were created to love God and be loved by God. That’s it. Everything else is optional. You don’t have to do or be anything to deserve God’s love. And as long as we are ruled by our egos in any way, we are bound to make mistakes. It is what it is.

But once you can see yourself and your relationship with God, yourself, the world and the rest of humanity and everything else in a clearer light, maybe you can also start thinking of some logical steps that you want to take? Maybe you want to start prioritizing a bit? Or maybe you choose to do none of that, even though you know that you have a choice. God loves you either way though.

It’s so easy to get caught up in speculations about reality, religion and what all of this means, while ignoring the human condition. Which, ironically, is staring us straight in the face if we study what Jesus says. Sure, he mentions heaven, hell, prophecies and the likes. But all of this is open to interpretation. Many of his teachings regarding how to live and treat each other and ourselves are not however. They are often multi-faceted, but seldom difficult to understand.

We’ve been given a very complex machine to operate. A machine called the human body and brain.

Like any complex machine, the human brain and body have very specific ways of functioning. They have specific ways of interacting with their environment. Teaching how to do this is part of what I’m trying to do with my and my wife’s YouTube channel.

I furthermore suggest that you ask yourself the following question. What do we really know? I honestly don’t know the severity of the state of the world. I just know that I make the choice of trusting God rather than worldly authorities. And I make that choice every moment of every day. 

So, if you have a hard time not believing that we are not heading for a horrible, dystopian nightmare unless certain measures are taken, how much do you really know? Have you taken a careful look at the available data? Have you listened to those with an informed opinion that disagree with the views that are being presented in the mass media? Do journalists and politicians really deserve your trust? If you had someone that was continuously lying and manipulating you in your life, would you continue trusting that person? So why do that when it comes to politicians? What if it’s not out there in the world, but inside ourselves that the solutions lie? What if each and everyone of us will know what to do once we start looking in the right place?

The truth is that we might have to go through some hard times. But what’s in the future is very far from as certain as the doomsayers claim. And until we can work on cultivating a joyous spirit. The hard times will be easier then. 

Let go and trust God

What if it was possible to relax and let go? I’ve had glimpses of this kind of state. Now let me tell you about it.

I’ve reached sort of a turning point in my life. I’m not over the top yet, but something has seriously began to shift inside of me. Something that I know is the destiny for everyone.

There are still parts of me that are resisting. That want to make things hard. That do not want to follow the natural flow of life. That still want to think my way through everything. Even though I’m more and more seeing how absolutely limited and deceptive my thoughts are. I’m not the little silly voice inside my head. I know this. 

I know that it’s time for us to stop being afraid. God is in control. He’s always been. And he’ll act through us if we just let him. He could force his will on us. He has that power. But he never will. We have to let go and allow. And here I’m going to discuss how we do this. 

In the end, this cannot be conveyed in its fullness through words. It’s so simple and easy, and yet so difficult. And it’s right in front of us. In fact, it’s closer to us than we are to ourselves.

If we want to hand our lives over to God, we need to practice present moment awareness or mindfulness. If someone says that mindfulness is bad because it didn’t originate in Christianity, please don’t listen to them. They are stuck in their silly little thoughts. Their egos. Their thoughts are telling them that what their thoughts are telling them must be right. But one single experience of real truth will prove the limitation of such thinking beyond any doubt.

Mindfulness, in essence, is just about bringing awareness to the present moment. And when we do that something begins to shift. Just be here now! When we start doing this in the beginning, we will notice that our attention starts to drift. This is because we have learned this throughout our lives. We have learned to be caught up in our thoughts. 

But mindfulness is not what this post is about.

What I want to talk about here is handing our lives over to God. In every given moment. In every moment we can choose to trust or live in fear. If we want to resist or let go. 

Jesus was the ideal that we should always strive for. He came here to show us the way. And in one way or another, he’s promised that he will return. But when Jesus came here 2000 years ago, he came in a way that basically no one expected. What if it’s the same when he returns? 

Jesus told us that his will and the will of the father are one. In fact, he told us that he and the father are one (Joh 10:30). 

This doesn’t have to be hard. Circumstances might make things hard at times. But following Jesus should make it easier to handle whatever circumstances come our way. Jesus came her to set us free. For real. So if we feel that what Jesus taught is not making us free, we are not reading his message correctly. If you treat the Bible like a stale rulebook, where you constantly limit yourself from anything that might offend God, even if it’s not clearly spelled out in the Bible, you are reading it all wrong. I think that the example of Christian rock and metal is such a telling one. If someone says that it’s wrong, I just stop listening immediately, because I know that the words come from a mind that is caught up in thoughts. When you realize that it’s possible to argue for just about anything and make it sound plausible, you are one step closer to breaking free from the prison of your thoughts.

What Jesus offers is real freedom. This while life lived according to our own wills is not real freedom. This kind of life is a prison of our lower natures. For some it’s a dirty prison full of stench. One that has bars of rusty iron. For others, it’s a shiny, clean prison with bars of gold and all the comforts you could ask for. But it’s still a prison.

But we don’t have to fear the prison either. The prison is an illusion. You can look at the Bible as a type of instruction manual for life on the earth. But not an instruction manual that is a rulebook that you have to decipher. The really important stuff is pretty straight forward: Don’t judge. Cultivate love. Be honest and respectful. Examine your own behavior instead of pointing out the faults of others. That sort of stuff. 

If you don’t follow the instruction manual, all that happens is that life doesn’t work properly. And so you’re caught up in the illusory prison.

Again, what we need to do is to choose God and to trust God in every given moment. There is no other way forward. We need to choose trust in our personal lives. And we need to choose trust when it comes to the events that unfold in the world. It’s not easy when we witness all of the chaos that is taking place. But whatever the circumstance, all is ultimately in God’s hands. The worst that can happen on a personal level is that we die. And the worst that can happen on a global level is that the world ends. If this happens, it’s the will of God. Instead of resisting, forcing and being afraid, why not just try to figure out what God wants, do that and leave the rest to God?

Being both okay and not okay at the same time

I’ve been thinking about this idea that we have to learn to love ourselves lately. And I want to make some sense of it. Because in one sense we need to be friends with ourselves. We need to face where we are with as much acceptance as possible. If we just keep castigating ourselves over past mistakes the commentator inside our heads will become an enemy and a tyrant. And we don’t need more of those.

But it’s not good to ignore our flaws either. We in all likelihood need to be a bit harsh with ourselves. Because we have in all likelihood become too comfortable. The modern world does that to most of us. Unless we make conscious choices to not allow it. And the situation in the world today demands that we are everything that we can be. 

I believe that the love that we have for ourselves is the only one that, rightly, cannot be unconditional. This may sound a bit harsh, but I think that it’s only logical. At least if we talk about self-love in the true sense, and not the kind of narcissistic self-love that is often promoted in society today. This is because even though we have an endless capacity for self-deception, we still have potential access to everything inside of us. Everything that motivates our actions. And somewhere we know, even if that knowing never reaches the surface of our consciousness. We know when we are lazy. We know when we avoid confronting our problems. We know when we are selfish. We know when we are trying to manipulate others and the world, so that we get what we want without having to work for it. We know when we are making excuses and rationalization. And we know damned well that we, eventually, are the ones that are going to have to pay for it.

Most of us are not victims of circumstances. For the vast majority of us, the situations that we are in are direct consequences of our choices and actions. And our choices and actions are consequences of how we have take care of our inner lives. And our inner lives are greatly affected by our experiences, even though we have quite a lot of room when it comes to how we respond to our experiences. And our experiences are to a large degree determined by our choices and actions and the situations that they put us in. And so it goes. Around and around. And the wheel either takes us up or down. But it will always keep spinning. Less so if we’re in a stabile situation and don’t feel the need for much change. But even then it spins slowly. Because time always makes it spin no matter what. And even then something may happen that changes its direction and/or causes it to spin faster.

Then we have the situation in the world. It is causing many wheels to spin faster. And will do so even more in the future. 

This doesn’t necessarily have to move us downhill. Because when we’re pushed into a corner we have a choice of either lay down and let whatever is pushing us into the corner eat us. Or we can use every ounce of muscle and intelligence that we’ve got to fight. Thus we either perish or become stronger.

Here is where I am right now. I know where my choices have gotten me. I know that a storm is coming, even if I don’t know exactly when or what it will look like.

I also know that God will love me all the way through the storm. That he will love me when I am unable to. And I know that whatever pain comes in my way, it’s nothing compared to eternity with God. But that is not something that I’m likely to remember when tragedy strikes. 

This is actually quite interesting when you think about it. On the one hand, we have God, that loves us unconditionally and whose love we can never earn. And on the other we have ourselves, whose love we must earn. Both are closer to us than any other person or creature. And in between, we have all kinds of relationships with all kinds of conditionality attached to them. God is closer to us than we are to ourselves. And knows us better than we know ourselves. The second closest person in our lives is ourselves. And this is the person that never can love us unconditionally. Not in a true, healthy sense.

So here is what I’ve figured. As with most things in life, we need to take a step back and bring some consciousness into our self-perception. Most of us are not all that we could be. And we have to be cautious when it comes to the impulse to earn salvation. I mean this both in a literal and metaphorical sense. Our self-worth should never be contingent upon our accomplishments and failures. But we must also never sweep our shortcomings under the rug. If we don’t like everything about ourselves there’s probably a reason for it. If this is the case, it’s healthy to remind ourselves that we are worthy just by being part of the crown of God’s creation. But we also need to take a look at the parts that we don’t like about ourselves. 

Two very important questions to ask ourselves in this context, is: Is it my own standards that I don’t live up to? Or is it other people’s, the world’s or God’s?

We need to be as honest about this as possible and realize that these are huge and deep questions. The answers are, for the most part, far from obvious. We need to think deeply about why the standards matter to us.

Ultimately it’s God’s standards that we need to aim for. In other words, our standards should, as far as possible, be the same as God’s. But these are impossible standards and we are not expected to live up to them.

If, on the other hand, our standards are the world’s or other people’s, we can be more or less certain that they will lead us astray. It’s always a good thing to listen to the perspectives of people that have something valuable to teach us. But we should always do this with God’s will and not theirs in mind. 

So, we need to cultivate a healthy, mature and honest relationship with ourselves. If this is something that we find worthwhile, there are two crucial questions that we need to ask ourselves: Are we doing our best to live up to God’s standards? Can we accept and forgive ourselves when we inevitably fail to do so?

Why Christianity?

Should we put our faith in God and put our lives in his hands? Or should we learn about the conditions that we live under to the best of our ability. Learn so that we can defend ourselves against those that want to hurt us through their knowledge about our psyches and how the world functions? 

I believe that this choice is an illusion. I believe that if we choose one and neglect the other, we will risk getting swept away by the storm that is coming. Because a storm is coming. And we’ve just felt the first tiny winds the past few years. But I believe that it’s a storm that brings with it lots of reasons to be hopeful. And hopefulness is really what this post is about. Because we can rest assured that God will carry us through whatever comes our way, in one way or another. It will probably not be the way we expect it. And for most of us, it will most certainly not be without hardships. But we are carried and when this life ends, we will be welcomed back into our heavenly father’s loving arms. 

At the same time, some of us feel called to learn more about ourselves, the world and how we are being manipulated by those that want to control us for their own selfish aims. I believe that the best foundation, if we want to stand strong, is to be found in the Bible. I know that many feel an instinctive resistance towards this idea. If you do, I want you to ask yourself why. Maybe Christianity conjures up images of dry, narrow-minded people that have left their intellects behind to “just believe”. This is the caricature that we are being fed. These types of people are the ones that we for the most part see in movies, on TV and in general everywhere mainstream. 

Before moving forward, I wish to interject that I think that there is much that we have yet to learn about Christianity. I think that Jesus taught many esoteric things and that understood correctly, Christianity is the most exciting spiritual belief out there. If you want an example, you can ponder the meaning of the following statement by Jesus: “The light of the body is the eye: if therefore thine eye be single, thy whole body shall be full of light” (Matthew 6:22, King James version).

Here is the thing: we are being fed a certain worldview through the mainstream, whether is’s through Hollywood, the music industry or the papers that we read. We are being taught to believe certain things. And the smarter we think that we are, the more susceptible we are to this. Because fundamentally we are not rational beings. Our minds don’t work the way we think that they do. Unless we consciously take a step back and question the information that is being presented to us, we tend to believe it unless it conflicts too much with our current beliefs. So if the shift takes place gradually towards a new belief, we won’t notice it. This is what a normalization process looks like. Things that would have been considered unthinkable a a few decades ago pass by unnoticed today. 

So, why the Bible? Because it tells us the truth about us and our relationship with God and the world. It tells us that God is a loving, personal God that cares for- and has a will for us. It gives us an ideal to follow in Jesus. Someone that both in his words and actions shows us who we should strive to be. It tells us who the Holy Spirit is, so that we can seek his guidance, which is an indispensable help when we try to find our way through this difficult life. He is also a really good friend. One that is always by our side, never lets us down and gives us a window into how it would feel to fully walk with God.

The Bible also clearly tells us about all of the traps that we can fall into and how to avoid them. Because the traps are the same today as 2000 years ago. Even though they are amplified and packaged differently. Nothing new under the sun.

Knowledge about these traps is in other words more needed than ever. Because the world is telling us that in order to be free, we need lots of sensory gratification. And it’s telling us this like never before. 

We need partying, things, sex and tasty food. We are free when we indulge in these things. We are shown that those that are happy, fun and joyful are those that follow their impulses. Those are the heroes of movies today. And those that don't are presented as boring and inhibited by outdated values.

Everywhere we are bombarded with calls to do just that. To give in and follow our impulses. Music and movies that a few decades ago would have been considered too extreme for anyone but a few, are today considered mainstream and is even consumed by children. And if you truly think that these things have no effect on us whatsoever, I don’t think that you have examined it carefully enough. We’ve been conditioned gradually to accept more and more things as normal.

To put it bluntly, the truly exciting things are happening on a spiritual plane. In our relationship with God. On the inside. And in the meeting with other people that are also on a spiritual/religious path. In the conversations we have and what we discover together. So we may abstain from partying and certain types of entertainment. But on the inside, a whole new world might be opening up instead. It is for me. And I know or know of many others that are experiencing the same thing. If friends leave us because we don’t want to take part in their self-destruction anymore, we’re probably better off without them. 

I would say that the bare minimum for making it through life, especially in these troubled times, is a belief in a personal God and an understanding of the basic morals of the Bible. If we have this, we have a solid foundation to stand on. Whatever else we decide to learn besides this will differ from person to person. It’s between us and God. 

I myself have chosen to try and learn as much as possible about religion, spirituality and human psychology. Because I want to be free from the invisible prison of the world. And I want to help others to free themselves. But no matter what I do when it comes to this, I know that I never have to stand alone. That whatever happens, everything is in God’s hands.

To me the leap of faith that I will conclude this post with, came as a necessary consequence of believing what the Bible teaches me about myself and the world. As I hope that I’ve shown, I’m not talking about the historical claims. I’m talking about the impossibility that the Bible could have come about as a result of the efforts of human minds alone.

For me, accepting Jesus as my lord and savior and to actually believe that he died on the cross to atone for my sins is the necessary consequence that I’m talking about. It has neither been proven to me, nor experienced on a personal level. At least not directly, even though you could say that I’ve received what could be called inner confirmations. Confirmations through sensations and shifts on the inside. But not until after I took the leap of faith. 

The leap of faith, as I’ve already stated, came as a result of seeing that what the Bible tells me about myself and how the world operates is absolutely true. And for it to be so, in this way, the hand of God must have been involved. And the more I’ve studied the Bible, the more I’ve seen this hand of God. Seen it through how everything fits together, in spite of so many writers. Seen it through how the symbolism works on so many levels. How prophecies have come true throughout the time span that the Bible was written. And how prophecies are coming true today one after another. How the prophecies fit together. And how they all fit into a greater narrative. Just to name a few things

The life, death and resurrection of Jesus stands at the centre of everything. Without this, everything else falls apart. I’ve been convinced about the truth of everything that I find relevant about the Bible. In such a way that I believe that God must have inspired it. And therefore I find no other choice than to also accept that Jesus Christ is exactly who he said that he is. And that he did exactly what the Bible says that he did.