Sorting out spiritual priorities part 2

Now, if I keep my focus on God, God’s love and God’s will, can I trust that life will take me where God wants me to be? I think that this is a fairly important question, so I suggest that you read it again. Go ahead! If you do, you can skip the last four sentences of this paragraph and skip to the next one. It will only take a couple of seconds. And you’ve already wasted a couple of seconds reading my nagging about the opening sentence. So why not waste a few more? And unlike these last four sentences, which are just a bunch of nonsense, the first sentence actually communicates something that at least I deem important.

So, why is this question important? Because many people seem to answer it with a big “no”. And because it has to do with our ability to trust God.

Maybe in the end it all comes down to what I out my time and energy into. 

All of this is so difficult. There are so many questions. For example: What beliefs do I hold for other reasons than because those are the ones that I have the best reasons to hold? What beliefs do I hold because they are part of a self-image that I don’t want to let go of? What beliefs do I hold because they are safe? How far can I trust my own experiences? My own memory of my experiences? How much, in general, do my fears and wishes govern my beliefs?

Just now, I realised that maybe I just haven’t found my place entirely in God’s plan.I know that I’m neither the monk nor the blue-collar family man, that I used as examples in part 1. And even though I wouldn’t mind being one, I’m no rock star either. 

What I do know is that I love books, creativity, meditation and that I’m very interested in how I and other people function. Maybe I should run with that and peel away other stuff from my life and see what happens.

But I was also almost missing something. This something is nothing that I have not thought of before. But since I’m trying to get my priorities straight here, this has to go into it. It wasn’t as if I didn’t touch upon this in the first post either, but some more clarity seems vital. The real question asked here after all, would be: What do all people that aspire to live with God need to have and/or develop in their lives?

Something that the monk, the blue-collar family man, the rock star and anyone else that wants to live with God have in common. We need to develop character and do our best to remove those things from our lives, that keep us from God. All of this means of course that we need grow in the kindness and compassion that we show for other people. There is in all this also a call to transcend our lower desires, egoistic wishes and wants. 

It can all probably be boiled down to “follow Jesus’ example”.

And in all of this, maybe I don’t need to make such an issue about certain things. And maybe if a certain idea or way of looking at reality helps me to be a better person and live a better life, I can at least explore it and use it, until I find something concrete that tells me that it’s not a to do so. Of course with as much discernment as I can muster up. I must be vigilant and not close my eyes to how different things make me feel inside. 

The question is: Does this bring me closer to- or further away from God?

Sorting out spiritual priorities part 1

This is not the first time I talk about how easy it is to get lost in life. Especially in the spiritual life. My quest for God for example, has led me down so many roads throughout my life. At many times, I found myself just walking a road, while having lost sight of my original intent. 

What is important, I believe, is to live for God. I don’t believe that this is the same for all people. For some, it might mean to become a monk and life in a monastery. Someone else might live an ordinary family life, working a blue-collar job and just trying his or her best to build a strong character, be there for others and humbly accept everything that life throws at him or her. Yet another might become a rock star that really makes an effort to be a good role model for his or her fans. 

Whatever one is put on earth to do though, God has to be in all of it. God has to come first. I’ve not always been good at letting God come first. I’ve done some really crappy things, even after I started believing in God. Even after my belief turned into a knowing. If you read some of my other blog posts, you will get an idea of what I mean, even if I haven’t shared the worst yet. Far from it. Maybe some day. If God wants me to.

But I’m not writing this post to talk about how bad I was in the past. This post is mainly about our craving for firm beliefs. A lot of weird stuff has happened in my life. A lot of weird stuff is happening in the world right now. And somehow, the weird stuff in my life, is connected to what is going on in the world. And I want so badly to jump to conclusions as to what it all means. 

Some things point to things that go way outside of common biblical interpretation. And other things point straight to the Bible. 

But what I need to keep focus on is God. Specifically my personal relationship with God, to grow in love of God and to do my best to understand and surrender to God’s will. This must be my focus.

Apart from this, I guess that I have to be content with not knowing. Not knowing my place in the world. Not knowing why I have the experiences that I have or what they mean. Ultimately, not knowing if I’m right with God or not. I have only felt love, forgiveness and undeserved grace from God. And yet, I’m afraid. Yet, I doubt that God can ever accept me. I see my meanness, pettiness, egoism etcetera. Clearer and clearer each day. Sometimes I’m even afraid that I’m just going to find out one terrible truth after another about myself. One terrible truth after another, until it is finally clear beyond any doubt, that I deserve condemnation. 

Then I realise that my thoughts probably have turned sort of neurotic. I don't really believe what I said in the last paragraph. But sometimes I catch my thoughts speculating about stuff like that. I bet some other people do as well. Did I just put negative thoughts into someone's head by my writing? Or did I make someone else feel less alone? I guess I'll probably never know.

And I can see the good in me as well. I want to want what’s good for its own sake. For God’s sake. For other people’s sake and for the world’s sake. And I do want what’s good for its own etcetera sake. As long as life is meaningful, that’s all I need to care. And life is meaningful.

This post didn’t exactly turn out the way I planned it. I think that there will be a part two soon.

A flat tire

The other day I was late for work because of. Since I work for a staffing company, I fill out my own time. Of course I had to adjust for the 25 minutes that I was late, which I did. But before this obvious decision was made, a whole process happened inside my head. I thought: “Well, I’m ahead with my work assignments, so there was no harm being late. No one is going to check my time report or care anyway, as long as I’ve done my job. Besides, being late looks bad. And if anyone, against all odds, decides to check, I can just tell them that I made a mistake. Since it’s easy to just click ‘ok’ on the time report without adjusting anything, no one is going to believe otherwise. Especially since I’m a model employee.”

My thoughts were of course not as clear as they are now, when I put them into words. But this was basically the process that took place, before I overrode it with the principle of not being wilfully dishonest, that I try to follow to the best of my ability.

The interesting thing here, is that I was only partially conscious of my mental process. And had I not remembered the honesty-principle, I might have listened to the other voice. In this case, the chance was very little. But it could have happened. In a less clear case, maybe I would have not remembered my guideposts. Maybe I wouldn’t even have known what behaviour I let slip by my radar.

Useful and useless thoughts

I often hear that in the modern world, we seldom take the time to just think. We always want to distract our minds in some way. Which makes us alienated to ourselves, since this means that we don’t take time to figure ourselves or our lives out. 

I’ve been there. In so many ways. When I was younger, it was a lot of mindless entertainment. Then, as I started to find some meaning in life and became at least a bit ambitious, it was books. And still some mindless entertainment now and then. 

But there is another side to this. Because when I decided to just sit down and think, or at least not listen to something every time I did household chores, I found my thoughts skipping randomly between topics. When I was done, I had thought about things like bills, what people thought of me, my body, groceries, tv-series etc. Consequently, when I was done being alone with my thoughts, I hadn’t grown any wiser. In some instances, I had even managed to get my mood down, by thinking of some problem that I couldn’t do anything about, or someone that I was mad at, or someone that was mad at me. 

This happened even if I decided to be present with my thoughts. Because it took ten seconds for me to forget to be present with them. Only now, many years after I first made this attempt, I am starting to remember to have a conscious relation to my thoughts when I’m alone with them. 

That last sentence sounded a little weird. Re-read it again to make sure that didn’t just read it, but understood it as well.

We can't stop thinking

To many, this isn’t news. But to many it is. It was for my very intelligent grandfather when, seven years ago, when he was 96, I told him this. We didn’t speak much more about it, but I think considering that he was a very curious person all the way to his death, he must have found this fascinating. Thinking about it, I wish that I would have followed up the discussion some more. We could have probably had a very i interesting talk about it. But sadly, this was before I started to realise just how unconsciously I was approaching many thing in my life.

But I’m getting off track here. Maybe there is a point to getting off track sometimes though. 

What I want to get at, is that we have this constant wordmachine going on in our heads, that also generates diffuse images, sounds, songs, scenes etcetera. And for a long time, I more or less unconsciously assumed that I was this wordmachine, without giving much conscious thought to how it functioned. Or why it was there and did what it did. I even, again mostly unconsciously, assumed that I was in control of it. 

I believe that the above description of my thoughts is more or less true of most people. And the more I think of this, the more interesting (and also a bit frightening) I think that it is. To repeat: We have a constant wordmachine etc. in our heads that we unconsciously assume is us, and this is something that many people go through their whole lives without reflecting upon. With this reasoning in mind, I want to conclude with a question: Do you or don’t you think that thoughts play a significant role in shaping our actions and lives?