God's will - The good news and the "bad" news

The good news is that your eternal life is going to be so much grander than eternal happiness and bliss in paradise. You are going to live in such a beautiful, loving, ecstatic, blissful connection with your creator, that the adjectives that I just used cannot even begin to describe it. 

This state is even available in this life and can be experienced longer and more intensely depending on our choices.

The “bad” news is the “depending on our choices” part. The “bad” news is that if we want to experience this, we have to do our best to stop doing what is bad for us and do more of what is good for us. We have to stop doing things that take us further away from God and do more of what brings us closer to God. Which means that we have to swallow our pride and do what God says. 

This starts on the inside. With a change of attitude. With the cultivation of humility. “Humility” is one of those words whose meaning is so important. And for me, one of those words that I hadn’t really reflected on until a couple of years ago. What does it mean to be humble? It was right in front of me. I could seriously brag about this or that without seeing that I had a problem with humility. And I can still get caught up in stubbornly wanting to have my will, even when I ought to know that it shouldn’t matter much. When I ought to know that there aren’t many things in this temporary life, in this temporary world that truly matter. Not from the perspective of eternity. Which is the perspective that will gradually remove the dust from our eyes.

Will I let the world fool me, trap me and control me while I attempt to have “my” will? Or will I freely choose God’s perfect will and allow him to set me free? The choice is easy once we see it clearly. We can either grasp for the empty pleasures that the world provides. Or we can fulfill our divine purpose. Which means enjoying the creation the way God intended for us to enjoy it. 

When infused with God’s spirit, our senses come fully alive. Everything feels, tastes, sounds, smells and looks better. The emotions associated with our sensations become stronger. Feel more real and meaningful.

You may ask: how can an omnipotent, omnipresent, infinite, eternal being be so personal that he has a will for each and everyone of us? And yet, this is exactly how it is. God wants to write us into his love story. We were made to love God and to be loved by God. This is the whole purpose of our existence. Sadly many of us don’t always live in a way that reflects this love. I don’t always live in a way that reflects this love.

We don’t just pray because it makes us feel good. Or because it puts us in a state where it's easier for us to believe in our ability to reach our goals. We pray because God listens to us. Because God wants to communicate with us. Because God is interested in us. Even if God already knows everything about us, he still wants us to turn to him consciously. To speak to him directly. And when we do, it changes us.

If we try earnestly, this is what we will eventually start feeling with all of our being. Not all of the time. In the beginning we will just have glimpses of this relationship. But these glimpses are so powerful that they will keep us going. We will want more of them. We will have more of them. In this life or the next one. And they will be more real and meaningful than anything we can ever experience without God.

God wants to give us everything. And all he wants in return is for us to seek his love, which is by far the best gift of all his gifts.

In a sense, finding out what God’s will is, is very simple. At least what to look for is very simple. 

God’s will is simply what comes natural, when we completely stop fooling ourselves. When we truly start acting in the manner that feels best in every given situation. In other words, when we get our egos out of the way, we will see that our will and God’s will are one. If God has a will and wants what’s best for us, how could it be any other way?

We can live in a natural flow or we can go against the natural flow. Resistance or non-resistance. This can be applied to anything in life. Does what I do follow the natural flow of life or does it disrupt it? This is something that we can only know for ourselves. But it is how life operates whether we like it or not. This is God’s will. And nothing that we tell ourselves can ever change that. The big mistake that has been made with regard to this throughout history is to attach morals to it. Hence, we have made something that needs to be understood on a personal level, into collective morals and dogma, that is forced upon people by the authorities. When we understand this principle, authorities become unnecessary. Because when we understand this principle, we understand that whatever action that goes against the natural flow of life, first and foremost damages the one engaging in the action. Do I want to hurt others and myself? Or do I want to heal others and myself? Do I want to get closer to, or further away from God? 

It is this simple. The difficult thing is not to understand this. The difficulty lies in letting go of our pride. It’s difficult to admit that we don’t have everything figured out. That our approach to many things comes from a need to be right and feel superior. Not from what will lead to the most happiness for everyone involved.

Furthermore, we have accumulated so much baggage, in the form the opinions and views of friends and family, that are just as- or even more confused than we are, of societal and cultural norms and expectations, habits, perceived needs and so on. Many times we haven’t really reflected on why we’ve adopted certain ideas and perspectives. It has more or less just happened. We’ve reacted to something long ago. And then we’ve used that reaction to interpret other similar experiences or information. And so it goes. Cause and effect with no real, conscious choices. 

I tell myself that I want something because of one reason. But really, my reason is another. Or at least, I’m not telling myself or others the whole truth. One example that I ran into a while back, was that I tried to stay fit because of health reasons. This was partially true. But the reason was also vanity. If it wasn’t, I would have worked out differently. This realization led to the choice of changing my workouts. Which I did. I started working out in a way that focused on improving my body instead of growing muscles and shedding fat. Which led me to having more pleasurable workouts. It also led me to the realization that I was basing a far from negligible part of my self-worth on how I looked, rather than who I was. Which also has prompted me to examine other areas where I base my self-worth on things that don’t really matter.

I’ve had a taste of what is possible when I let go of my ego’s petty wants and wishes. When I, for example, let go of my pride and need to be right. When I try to meet every person, regardless of the circumstances, with love and respect. Or when I just accept what is, instead of wishing for things to be different. Or when I stop needing that other people see me a certain way. And so on. There is such a light sense of freedom in this. And yet, when I try to let go of old patterns, I’m shaken by anxiety. And even though it feels like crap, I feel such a strong pull from these habits, that I often give in to them. Even though I know that I get absolutely nothing from giving in and even though I know that the anxiety has no basis in reality. 

In the end, God’s will is to live in harmony and not in disharmony. Harmony is what comes easy and natural. When we just can let go and trust, we won’t need anything else. We can put our lives fully in God’s hands. But until we are ready to do this, we will have to learn more about ourselves, struggle with ourselves and feel the pain of failure. Before we are ready to hear the voice of God on the inside all the time, we will need external sources to guide us. But remember this, even if we cannot se it from our current perspective, God and his Holy Spirit are always closer than anyone or anything in the world. The Holy Spirit will always work in our lives to the degree that we let go of our ego’s petty wishes and desires.

Freedom in God or slavery to the world?

Do you want to be completely free to make your own choices, with no one ruling over you? I’m sorry to be the one to break it to you, but that option is not available. You may think that it is. It most probably seems that way. But it isn’t. At least this is what I believe and I believe that I have good reasons for my belief. 

Here is the conclusion that this blog post is about written in as plain language as I’m capable of: As far as I can tell, the only options we have are to either choose God’s will freely or being enslaved by the world. 

How could it be otherwise? If God is infinitely more wise than we are, always wants what’s best for us. And we, on the other hand, are capable of infinite depths of self-deception. This capacity for self-deception is part of what it means to live in a fallen state.

As with so many things, I was blind to what was in front of me for most of my life. For most of my life I’ve lived in a very confused state. To a certain degree, one that is far from negligible, I still do. But the more I let God’s will guide my life, the clearer things seem to become.

When I finally started to see the state that I was in, I had ran into one dead end after another without even realizing it. I was thoroughly convinced of my ability to make it on my own and live according to “my” will. “I make my own rules” and all that crap. So much so that I became blind to everything that didn’t work in my life. To all of the dead ends that I kept running into. I thought that I was in control, but the chaos in my life told a different story.

I’m giving you a somewhat simplified version of what happened here. If you go back far enough in my life, you will find a person who completely let his animal side rule over him. At that time, I didn’t reflect much upon my behavior at all. I had to at least care about living a good life, to realize how hard it is to do so while having no firm guidelines. And while still trying to pursue my ego’s wants, wishes, goals and desires. Let alone starting to discern what comes from the ego and what comes from that which is true inside of me. In other words what comes from the guidance of the Holy Spirit. 

I would say that what got the ball rolling was that I found a certain peace in the Bible and Christianity. I honestly don’t remember exactly where I felt it first, but it was a few years ago. Back then I didn’t know really what Christianity was. So the most I had to go on was a feeling. I had read the Bible and some of the mystics. But the message had not sunk in in a way that made the faith really come alive on a personal level. In my day to day life. And quite frankly, other types of spirituality seemed more exciting. So after a while I started drifting.

Here I feel the need to interject that if Christianity doesn’t excite you, you need to go deeper into it. Invite the Holy Spirit in. Once you’ve been touched by the Holy Spirit you will have all the excitement that you need.

Anyway… At some point, probably a few years after the initial encounter with God’s peace I started noticing that Christianity and the Bible seemed to bring some distance between me and the financial hardships that me and my wife were facing. They didn’t seem to matter as much when I really felt that I had God and Jesus to lean on. I also experienced more of the peace that I just mentioned. 

At the place where I am right now, I’ve found an intellectual understanding of why, which was something that I lacked when this journey started. This intellectual understanding is growing every day.

My blogging has helped me to gain more clarity, even though I wasn’t completely blind to my situation when I started. A funny thing is that God more or less told me to start this blog. And even though I haven’t had much success with it, writing down my experiences and thoughts about them have been a huge help for me. What priorly was an incoherent mess started to become ordered. Patterns emerged. And from these patterns followed insights. Some insights have been personal. Others have seemed more universal. 

Why can’t I have things simply “my” way? Because when I say “my” way I really mean “my ego’s way”. And my ego is inevitably and undeniably slave to my lower nature. To my animal instincts. And the animal instincts are ruled by cause and effect. The world provides a stimulus and I react. Just like animals do. And so I fall victim to temptation over and over again. And today the world produces so much stimulus.

The more I live according to my own rules, the more frustrated and helpless I feel. The more I surrendered to God, Jesus and the Holy Spirit, the more happy, light and free I feel. 

In light of what I just said, telling myself that I’m free while living in the sorry state of “my” will, is the worst kind of self-deception possible. “My” will will always have me chasing after the wind. My ego tells me that I want empty gratification of the senses, admiration, success, be looked upon as smart, insightful etcetera. This while I really know that the only road to joy and peace is to live close to God and focus on what God says is important.

The Bible is pretty clear on what will give me happiness, peace, joy etcetera: Loving God. Loving my neighbor such as myself. Non-judgment. Stay faithful to my wife and loved-ones. Not worrying so much about the troubles of this world, but instead keeping my eye on the eternal. Being humble and letting go of pride. And so on.

Learning to live this way takes time though. Especially if you, like me, have a lot of baggage.

The thing with the Bible is that the more you study it and see your life through it, the more it starts to make sense. The more I study the Bible, the more the line “For the wisdom of this world is foolishness with God” (1 Corinthians 3:19) makes sense.

By looking inwardly I’ve learned a few things. I have several wills inside of me that compete with each other. Sometimes I decide on one thing. But then I talk myself into justifying the opposite. Not because of some new information. But because I argue myself into believing something else. Most of the time something that is in line with my lower nature and more instant gratification. And then I realize that I suffer because of it - or make other people suffer sometimes - and so I’m back to my original intent.

And so it goes. Even though I know this, I keep falling into the same traps over and over again.

No matter what school of psychology you look at it from, whether it’s psychoanalysis, neurology, cognitive psychology or behaviorism, you arrive at the same conclusion. We are not in control of ourselves. We usually don’t know exactly what we want or why we want it. And if we do, the reasons are probably not what we tell ourselves. And our emotions, habits, irrational desires and all of the things in the world that prey on them cause us to act in all kinds of strange manners. Manners that we explain away afterwards, because of some strange need for things to make sense when they really don’t. 

It may take a while if you haven’t understood this yet. But if you search and study these things with an open mind, you can not fail to realize that there is a God, and that this is a personal God. You will also realize that there is some sort of spiritual reality and that there is a divine order to things, ordained by God. 

In light of the above, we have a choice to make. Do we want to continue following our own wills and ge trapped by the world? Or do we freely want to submit our wills to God’s will? The God who loves us, always wants what’s best for us and is infinitely wise and powerful. 

If we realize that this might be something worth doing, we do it, once we’ve found God, by reading God’s word and works by those that try to help us understand it. And last, but certainly not least, we do it by asking God, Jesus and the Holy Spirit to guide us. 

Photo by Rafael De Nadai on Unsplash

The psychology of the FALL FROM EDEN

The more I observe myself and other people, the more I find that something seems fundamentally broken. And at the same time, there seems to be something divine about us underneath all the dirt. For this reason, I believe that the fall, whether you interpret it literally or not (I’m leaning towards that I don’t, but nowadays I’m sure of almost nothing) has something significant to say about our condition. The Bible says that we were made in the image of God, but we are in a fallen state. And this seems to be a pretty accurate description. 

Almost all of us lie to ourselves and others. Many cheat and steal. Even more either consciously or unconsciously manipulate others. We have no idea why we do many of the things that we do and we engage in behaviors that are hurtful towards ourselves and others. We often assume that we know who we are, but after doing a little bit of thinking, we discover that we don’t even know what the question of who we are entails. We might start saying things like our job title, hobbies or even possessions. We act in ways that are inauthentic and agree with things that we don’t truly agree with just to please others. Meanwhile we ignore making the changes that really count, with regards to how we treat other people. We often prefer what is easy over that which we know to be right. We are cowardly, ashamed and vulnerable and since we know that others share our condition, we exploit this fact in our dealings with others. All of us don’t. Few do all of these things. But many do at least some of them and many would never admit this to themselves. It can take the form of anything from brutal violence for the sake of nothing but satisfying sadistic urges, to pretending that something that we are selling is a little better than we in fact know that it is, to little stings disguised as jokes that we dish out to our loved ones.

I could go on and if you sit down and honestly think about it, you can probably find plenty of examples of your own, both from your own life and from others’, both from your past and from your current situation. 

With the prior discussion in mind, I want to propose that question of whether biblical creation myth is literally true or not, takes the focus off of what is truly important about it. Namely its psychological significance when it comes to the state that we are in today. This belief also has the support of one of my favorite thinkers, Jordan Peterson.

I will go through it in the right order: In the beginning of the Old Testament Adam walked with God. Should we look at this literally, as if God was walking with Adam as a physical person? Or maybe there is some symbolism here? I would like to propose that the these walks that God does with Adam in the Garden of Eden are meant to symbolize the close connection with God that we are meant to have. Even that it is one that we can have right now if we open up to it. 

When it comes to the fall, there may or may not have been some event that triggered it, that is symbolized by the eating of the forbidden fruit. Maybe there was even an eating of an actual fruit that was off limits. Since I believe that most of the things that we think that we know about history probably to a large degree is false, I cannot completely discount this possibility. But I don't know. And since it’s so clear that the biblical stories have huge symbolical meanings, it’s therefore here that their true value lies.

There is a lot to unpack here and what’s interesting about the Bible, is that you can find so many connections between different parts in it. A perspective that I find interesting, is to look at the Hebrew Bible / Old Testament as the display of an original event and all of its consequences laid out over time. Seen from this perspective, these stories show us flawed individuals with good wills, trying to find their ways through a fallen world, encountering all that has gone wrong with humanity along the way. 

What I’ve come to believe is that the fall represents the birth of the ego. And the main characteristic of the ego is pride. Pride was also why what got Satan cast out of heaven. And remember that we are talking symbolism here. I’m not talking about Satan as an actual being, even if I don’t rule out his existence completely either. But regardless of Satan’s actual existence or not, there is a symbolism here that has something fundamental to say about our being in the world. As a side note, it can be interesting to think about the fact that one of the core ideas of modern satanism, is one’s embrace and strengthening of the ego which, at least officially, Satan is seen as just a symbol of.

Adam and Even ate of the fruit because they wanted to be like God (Laveyan satanists consider themselves their own gods by the way). At this point they were still innocent though, even though a seed has been sown even before the eating of the fruit, because of the discontent that the snake has put into their minds. Discontentment with what is, is in other words the absolute starting point of everything else that is broken with our being in the world. Adam and Eve lived in absolute love and harmony with God, each other and the world. And yet, a little voice whispered that there might be something more. Something better. 

Adam and Eve didn’t know what they were doing. It is how they acted after their eyes were opened that got them cast out of Eden. How they acted when they lost their innocence and learned about good and evil. When they learned about good and evil they chose evil. 

Instead of being honest and upfront about what they had done, Adam and Eve tried to hide. And when God found them, instead of owning up to his mistake, Adam blamed Eve and God. And Eve in turn blamed the snake and God. Here we see two of the evils of the world: the impulse to try and hide our mistakes and to blame our mistakes on others. 

When they ate from the fruit they discovered that they were vulnerable. They had always been vulnerable. But now they saw their vulnerability. And not only did they see it. They wanted to hide it. Why do you hide your vulnerability, besides because you are afraid that it is going to be exploited? Because you don’t want to look vulnerable. Most of us want to look better than we actually are and so we hide that which we consider shameful about ourselves. Most of us need to be so broken that it becomes futile to hide our vulnerability, before we own up to it. We are afraid that if we show our true selves we will be rejected. And since we’re not in control of ourselves, this fear often cause us to act in ways that cause actual rejection.

In the next generation discontent and the knowledge that we are vulnerable causes Cain to murder abel. And soon this knowledge, coupled with ego, discontent and pride caused power struggles, betrayal, wars, weapons of war and so on. 

As stated earlier, the Hebrew Bible shows one people’s honest attempts to find something right and true in this broken world, which culminated in the birth of Jesus, the first person that lived a life completely untainted by the world.

Or maybe I’m just reading too much into a fictional story about a garden, two people, a talking snake and an old man on a cloud. I don’t think so. But maybe I’m wrong. But if I’m not wrong and if these stories really are saying something fundamental about our being in the world, the natural questions become: How do they relate to you? And what are you going to do about it?

Everything unwanted stays till we learn

In many ways we can forget about the world that can be analyzed through the five senses and laws of physics. When we start to observe our lives and the patterns in them, we notice that there are so many things happening beneath the surface. A saying in spiritual circles is “whatever you resist persists”. While I believe that this is true in one sense, I also believe that it’s a simplification. Because what does it mean to resist something? Or what does the opposite mean: to let go and/or accept? Can we truly let go and accept something while ignoring the lesson it’s trying to teach us?

I’ve several times talked about how life is a constant interaction with God. I’ve also asked the question: How could it be otherwise, if God is omnipotent, omnipresent and deeply personal? 

I know that a clarification is needed, in a discussion such as this one. I’m talking about my experience and probably the experiences of many other people. But I also know that there are many people in the world whose circumstances are completely out of their control and that seem to bring them nothing but suffering. Therefore this first and foremost applies to those that are born in relatively affluent countries. Though I believe that the world is ruled in an unjust way, by throughly ruthless people, those of us that are born where no one has to starve, are for the most part responsible for our circumstances, even if this should not be equated with blame. Because most of us also have been brought up in an education system that does not teach us true self-reliance. But we do have the ability to listen to what God is trying to teach us and make the decision to take charge or our lives and learn what we need to learn to function in this world. I believe that almost all people in relatively affluent countries have the ability to do so. Everyone in the world isn’t able to. But for most of us, it is our own choices that have gotten us where we are, even though we probably weren’t aware that we were making a choice, when we chose things that led to unwanted results.

So, if the less desirable situations in our lives, are really God trying to teach us something, maybe the best things to do is to listen and make the necessary changes?

One example from my own life is my job. It’s not my dream job. And I felt tons of resistance towards getting it. But now that I’ve been there for over a year, I’ve learned to make the best of a less than ideal situation. For example, now that I can do most of the tasks on auto-pilot, I can listen to audiobooks more or less during the whole workdays. I’ve learned to trust myself and become much more confident. And having a steady income has given me some breathing space, allowing me to more freely explore those things that I really want to do, in spite of having less time on my hands.

I’ve learned to be much more present in what I do and to think about the things that I’m engaged in. I’ve most definitely learned that I’m not the only person in the world that screws up sometimes. That it’s okay to do so as long as I take responsibility for it. I’ve learned to appreciate people that have chosen to live very different lives from my own. And lastly, I’ve learned to have a good work ethic that goes far beyond what is expected of me. To consciously choose to work hard and focused not just because I want to keep my job, but because of a sense of duty and because I believe that it ultimately will make me a better person.

It’s not where I want to work forever, but I know that I have a few lessons left to learn. Lessons relating to trusting myself, fully accepting where I am, living in the now and not rely on external circumstances for my happiness. And I know that when I can quit and go do what I really want to do, there are lots of things that I’m going to miss about my job. 

What I’m talking about here seems to be a fundamental part of the structure of reality. I know that you could argue back and forth about what seems to be and what actually is. When I look a little deeper at the unwanted in my life, there always seems to be lessons in it. But maybe it’s just because we always can find something to learn from our experiences. If so, that's fine. It shows how important perspective is. 

Then again, people and circumstances don’t seem to have come into my life at random. Even if I wanted to, I could not write off everything that happens in my life as mere coincidences. Me and my wife have had experiences that definitely fall under the category “supernatural”. And as the years have passed, I've become thoroughly convinced us of the existence of God. With these things in mind, I think that there is a pretty good case to be made for the idea that the meaning that I’m talking about, isn’t just in my head. If you wish to delve a little deeper into this, you could check out what is known as “synchronicities”, which was something that for example Carl Jung observed. 

If I’m going to try to explain how I think that this actually work, I believe that everything is divinely orchestrated somehow. I believe that God’s hand is present in everything, so that what we need in order to grow is brought into our lives somehow. As I said in the second paragraph, it’s probably not the same for everyone. I believe that in a sense, I’m the main character in my show, but that you also are the main character in yours. In someone else’s show, I might be anything from a second lead, to just one of thousands of small extras that flash by briefly. And God is the grand director of everything.

The stage is of course a metaphor for something that words cannot fully describe. But hopefully it can give you some idea of how I see it and how our learning experiences fit into all of this. Because, as you may know, in basically every good work of fiction, the main character transforms as the story progresses.

What happens with the lessons after we die I don’t know. But I believe that they are among the few things that we take with us to the afterlife, in one form or another, whether it’s one afterlife or the next in a series of afterlives. 

Therefore I believe that one of the main reasons for us to be here, is so that we can learn and grow. We’re probably here for a lot of other things as well, but this is definitely one of them. And we can kick and scream and become angry at life for not giving us a smooth ride. I’ve done my fair share of this and I still do sometimes. But life and the world has never even once changed because I’ve become angry at them. Not once. And yet, it’s hard to not feel offended when we have to face one thing after another that we don’t want to deal with. But I believe that the sooner we can adopt a perspective where we see our hardships as part of the learning experience and as part of the adventure, the sooner we can learn the lessons and move on to more of that which we do want in our lives.

Photo by Joe Zlomek on Unsplash

I want to be dependent upon God PART 4

This series turned into something that I had not at all expected. But now I think it’s time to wrap it up. And I think that from the darkness and philosophical speculation that I’ve talked about, I will turn back to the light and to something rather simple.

When I went to the university, I talked to a rather smart girl that later went on to become a doctor. Once she told me, pretty straight forward, in those words, that she had a rather childish belief in God, where she more or less looked at God as an old man sitting on a cloud. It was obvious that she had given her faith quite a lot of thought and ended up in this place. 

For me, I think I want both. I want the ecstatic, mystical experiences. I want the philosophy and the difficult questions (even if I don’t want the pride that pops into my head from time to time as I engage in such thinking). But in the end, I want to put my life in God’s hands in the simplest manner possible. I want to just trust and feel like a little child, embraced and held by my heavenly father. Held by this being, whose love and wisdom I cannot even begin to fathom. 

I want a balance between the crazy and the simple. Between the extraordinary and the mundane. And in the end, I never want to stray too far. I’m an adult now and I want to interact with other people as an adult. But in my relationship with God, I still want to be a child. Does this make any sense? I don’t know how to explain it in any other way. There is an innocence here that somehow permeates life and existence itself, behind all of the darkness and complexity. An innocence that was never lost. Something that can be felt in such simple experiences as petting a cat. Or listening to the right song at the right time. Such as the song that got me thinking of this series. That’s fun to think about, ending this on sort of a philosophical note: A simple song and my emotional reaction to it was what started this whole stream of thoughts. It’s something to think about when we decide what to fill our lives with.

Photo by William Bout on Unsplash

I want to be dependent upon God PART 3

This little series is turning into some rather free speculations. Which has been interesting. But I think that I’ll go ahead and pick up the thread of undeserved grace. For me, this grace that has been bestowed upon me, would be more understandable if I had committed some truly atrocious acts. It would somehow seem more fitting to make an example of underserved grace if I was a person that for example was spending life in prison for murder. 

I do have a past that I’m not proud of. But I haven’t committed any really serious offenses. Maybe it’s my thoughts? I don’t know. I don’t have access to other people’s thoughts. But for most of my life, I’ve allowed my thoughts to wander freely into places that are not pretty. On the other hand, from what I can tell, many people do. From what I’ve read, many just have very little knowledge about what is really going on inside their heads. 

Maybe there is some kind of clue here. You see, even though I’ve embraced much of my darkness throughout the years, I can still sometimes be shocked by what I find out about myself. So I can only imagine what would happen to someone that regarded themselves as basically good, but that had allowed their thoughts to roam free without paying much attention to them. And this is something that both intrigues me and scares me. Namely that even though I’ve done some quite serious introspection and observed my actions and behaviors, I’m still to a large degree a stranger to myself. A stranger that is to a large degree oblivious to my behavior. 

A few years back, I made the mistake (or apparent mistake) of reading and watching some rather vile books and movies. And since for example the writings of Marquis de Sade must be representative of what was going on inside his head, I don’t think that my thoughts are the worst in the world either. And nowadays I’m doing my best to clean them up and not allow them to drift too far into things that could be deemed “ungodly”, whether it’s my own fantasies or something that I’ve read or watched. 

Photo by Kenny Eliason on Unsplash

I want to be dependent upon God PART 2

It’s true what many say, that God does not force himself on us. God might give us a tap on the shoulder sometimes. As God did with me almost twenty years ago, when I was a stubborn atheist that looked upon religion and spirituality as self-deception. I was full of pride and arrogance at the time. Stains, by the way, that have been hard to wash away and that sometimes still make their presence known. So I don’t understand why God chose to give me definite proof of God’s existence. I know that I’m not the only one that has had this type of experience. But I can think of so many that haven’t, that would deserve it better, if you see it from the perspective of their actions and their overall effects on people’s lives.

I’m of course familiar with the concept of undeserved grace. And that in some sense we all fall short of what God intended us to be. Whatever that means. Was our fall into something lesser an accident? If so, did God make a mistake? I guess that in the concept of almightiness, there must be room for creating creatures that can make choices that are out of the almighty being’s control. If God was forced to be in control of everything, and/or know everything, God wouldn’t really be almighty. 

This is also another reason why free will truly deserves attention. Because it is by necessity so central to religious life. And I know nothing that comes with so many difficult questions. Such as the one just mentioned. Or the fact that when we start looking at what seems to be free choices, these are really reactions to stimuli, driven by unconscious emotions, desires and a number of other factors that we are not consciously aware of. And yet, free will seems to be what characterizes being human. Animals don’t seem to make free choices, as far as we know. And without free will, we cannot be accountable for anything and the idea of consequences for our actions just seems cruel, since no one could do anything but what they in fact do. On the other hand, the consequences happen by necessity as well, no matter what they are, since they, by necessity, must have emerged through the actions of individuals that are only acting under the illusion of free choice. And so on. 

Photo by Stephanie LeBlanc on Unsplash

I want to be dependent upon God PART 1

I’ve know for quite some time that we are not nearly as in control of our lives as we often like to think. So thinking of our lives as dependent on God is not as disempowering as some would think. In fact, it’s the opposite, I would argue.

The other day I listened to some music by Rebecca st. James (a rather huge leap from the industrial and black metal music that I usually listened to before and it feels great to, nowadays, have zero identity tied to the music that I listen to) at my job. I think that it was the song You are Loved that got me thinking of the fact that I like being dependent on God. To know that my life is in God’s hands. That God loves and cares for me.

Does this mean that I stop making my own efforts? No. Honestly I don’t know exactly what it means. Just not that. I’m not really sure what the proper relationship is here. At what point do I let go and allow God to take over? 

I think it has something to do with recognizing that my life is in the hands of a being that is so infinitely more powerful and wise than I am. A being that loves me more than I could ever imagine, as the song says. To really put this understanding in its proper perspective and allow myself to be humbled by it. And to allow God’s loving presence to be felt throughout my days, in good times and in bad times. Sometimes, when I can really feel this presence, feel what it truly means to me, I can get this overwhelming feeling of joy and my eyes tear up. The feeling can be triggered by such a simple thing as hearing the right song at the right time. 

Photo by Greg Rakozy on Unsplash

3 crucial pillars of following Jesus

Willingness, knowledge and ability. These are the three pillars of following Jesus that I’m going to talk about today.

It’s a given that you need to be willing to follow Jesus if we are going to do so, so this one doesn’t need much explanation. We have to think that there is no better ideal to aspire to and, with all our brokenness and flaws, do our best to do so. It’s an ideal that we can never live up to, but we nonetheless succeed if we do our best to follow it. I myself am far from perfect when it comes to this. I have loads of baggage that makes its presence known daily and taints my commitments. 

Next we need to know how. What it means to follow Jesus. We need to know something about what it means to do so. What did he stand for? What example did he set through the life that he lived? What did he teach? And what did his teachings mean? This last question does not always have obvious answers. What does it for example mean to turn the other cheek or to remove the plank from one’s own eye, before trying to remove the one in one’s brother’s eye. It’s easy to turn such teachings into no more than beautiful words devoid of any true meaning, if we don’t ponder their significance for our lives.

Can I badmouth other people and follow Jesus? What about judging them? What about being hateful? Whining and complaining about trivial things?

It might surprise you that I say “yes” to all of these things. It’s when we do them intentionally that we fail to follow Jesus. Before we make a firm decision to change, we unconsciously adopt lots of behavioral patterns. This means that we may unconsciously badmouth other people or judge them. And we often let our emotions get the best of us and make us do and say things that are not in line with following Jesus. If we do these things, we fail to live up to the ideal set by Jesus, but we don’t fail to follow him. We can be the worst person in the world and still follow Jesus, if we do our best to do so. We probably wouldn’t be. In all likelihood, the more we strive to emulate Jesus, the more we grow in our ability to emulate him. But if, for one reason or another, it doesn’t happen, we still haven’t failed as long as we can truly and honestly say to ourselves that we have done our best, with all that it entails.

This leads us to the third pillar: ability. How do we turn ourselves into the kind of person that is most capable of following Jesus? Here, I believe, comes the real difficulty. And I know that we are living hectic lives and that all of us don’t have the time or energy for self-examination and self-improvement. So we have to work with what we’ve got and trust that if, again, we do our best, this will be enough. I think that one crucial thing, which I talk about a lot, that we can develop, is present moment awareness. In other words, being conscious and present in the now, so that we know what is going on both on the inside outside. In this context, what this will lead to is that we become more aware of our own thoughts, words and behaviors. So that we notice when we for example judge or badmouth others. Or when we want to flee responsibility for our actions or the situation that we are in. 

In general, I believe that the ability to follow Jesus increases as our character develops. How often do you think about your character? I know that I didn’t think one bit of it for most of my life. Which has turned many aspects of my life into an uphill battle. At the core of this lies the simple but oh so difficult abilities to say no to ourselves and to make ourselves to things that we find uncomfortable. In other words, the ability to make ourselves live and act in a way that is in line with Jesus’ life and teachings. 

These are a few examples of what I believe that we can all work on and become better at. There are many others. It can be boiled down to, just like Jesus was in every way, strive to become the best version of ourselves that we can be. 

Guided by God or guided by the ego?

Everything should come natural to us. But we need to be deprogrammed from the world’s programming. We can live with an absolute, intuitive knowing of what to do and how to act.

What I’ve realized through putting myself through a rather harsh self-analysis, is that it is extremely difficult to know what I actually want in many situation. And to do just that. Or what I really think about this or that thing. 

I’ve gotten so used to consider all kinds of irrelevant factors when making decisions rather than my true will, such as what is socially acceptable or in general what other people think. I have also become rather good at hiding this fact, even from myself.

I have gotten so used to believing that the real me won’t be accepted, that I’ve gotten lost in my persona, the social mask that we all put on. But I believe that this is true for most people. Most just don’t realize it. And in my past it might have been more severe in my case than for most people. Because at some point I unconsciously decided to adopt an image. Put on a show. Become a character. Something like that. I wanted to separate myself from other people and show the world that I wasn’t like the rest. And what instead ended up happening, was that instead of becoming more of a unique individual, I became less like myself.

I think that something similar might be happening to many people that try to “express their uniqueness” by attaching all kinds of labels to their identities nowadays. You know what I’m talking about without me having to be too specific. I’m talking about the kind of self-expression that is encouraged by society and our cultural norms. The kind that is often shared on social media.

If you have the kind of attitude that I used to have it’s going to shape you. And in my case not in a good way. At least not directly. But indirectly I believe that it allowed me to see these things more clearly. Come to think of it, it has been like this with many “errors” that I’ve made in my life. They have allowed me to see aspects of the human experience and our being in the world more clearly than I would have without them. 

What I want to get at, is that since I started to become more present and get more into contact with myself and my true feelings, I have also started to more and more clearly discern the still voice inside, that others talk about. It comes in the form of an inner knowing about what to do and what is right or wrong. It’s still very much drowned out by the world. But it is getting stronger as I am being more honest with myself and don’t lie to myself about what it is saying.

Could God be both personal and impersonal?

And could this be so without one aspect being higher than the other?

Among many Eastern mystics, it seems as for many of them, the personal relationship with God is used as a stepping stone on our way towards an impersonal union, where everything is just love. But what if both are equally important? As far as I can tell, the Christian mystics seem to agree on this. If you look at for example John of the Cross, it is pretty clear that he talks about ecstatic experiences of love that transcend words. But it is equally clear that he sees his relationship with God as an intimately personal one. 

This is also what my own experiences tell me. I’ve had one experience which only lasted for a couple of seconds, of absolute, wordless love. But in prayer, I’ve also had a few, in some sense equally significant experiences, when I have had a knowing that far surpassed an intellectual one, that God listened to- and cared for what I said. These experiences have been equally filled with love, awe and tears. Sadly it was a while since I felt this in prayer and I miss it. But I keep on praying anyway.

And then I have the feeling that God is with me and communicates with me through my experiences throughout the day. These are by far my most common experiences. I might see and hear something that seems to not be just a coincidence. Maybe a thought pops up in my head and then I see or hear something that relates to that thought a moment later. Sometimes this is accompanied by the feeling that something shifts. Now that I think of it, the feeling reminds me a bit of when someone turns towards me, speaks to me with all his attention focused on me. 

As said in the beginning, when you read many Eastern mystics, it seems as if this personal relationship is less than this impersonal one. That it, in some sense, isn’t really real. But what if these are two sides of the same coin. One intimate, particular and personal and one limitless and universal. There seems to be an infinite aspect to both these types of relationship. In both, God is in a sense infinitely close to us, but in oposite ways. Maybe this can actually be seen in relation to the microcosmos and the macrocosmos. The universe is, at least according to many scientist, bot infinitely big and infinitely dividable. 

One common interpretation of the phrase: “as above, so below”, supposedly coined by the mystic Hermes Trismegistus, is that everything is connected with everything else, in the sense that you can learn the nature of all by studying the nature of one thing. And that two opposite poles share an intimate connection with each other.