How pride messes up our lives part 2

Lately, I’ve become more and more aware of how much easier my life would be if I in different situations had chosen to “love my enemies”, “turned the other cheek” or “done unto others what I would have had them do unto me”. It takes some contemplation to realise how different the probable outcome of many situations would have been, had I followed Jesus’ example. If I would have tried to see the other person’s perspective, apologised and admitted my part in what transpired or forgave instead of judged. What kept me from doing so? Pride is what kept me from doing so.

Breathing

I’ve discovered something amazing! Or, other people have also discovered it (it’s a pretty basic part of mindfulness training). But until it really clicked for me, I sort of thought that they were exaggerating.

What I’ve discovered is that when I focus on my breath, I become centred in the now. My breath becomes calm, even and free. It's more like I'm being breathed, than that I'm doing the breathing.

When I’m centred in the now, I get more energy, feel more loving and experience more of the now. I also feel how my body relaxes and things just seem to flow more easily in general.

The reason I didn’t get this to work before, was that I got distracted from my breath within seconds without noticing it. And then I got lost in thoughts, just like I’ve for a long time have noticed that I, and everyone else, do most of the time. 

I still get distracted and lost in thoughts, but the more I practice remembering to focus on my breath, the easier it becomes to get back to the now.

The only thing that we need to do, to get to this amazing state, is to practice more and more on focusing on our breath. 

You might think that focusing on the breath would be a distraction from other things that are going one. But in fact, it’s the opposite. When we focus on the breath, we become more focused on everything else in the now as well.

This is so amazing and so simple, that I can’t believe that I haven’t made it a priority until now.

I wish to conclude with that I think that the Bible verse, as with so many other Bible verses, holds some significance that tend to pass people by. I believe that every breath is a gift from God. But since breath is always there, we tend to miss how amazing it feels to just breathe, when we just focus on the breath and accept the air with joy and gratitude. 

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?

How pride messes up our lives part 1

I’ve thought a lot about how there seems to be a divine structure behind everything. And how, if we’re truly humble, it will be more or less self-evident what to do in any given situation, where there is a right and wrong conduct. We might make ourselves believe otherwise. And we might tell ourselves that we didn’t know better or that everything is relative or whatever. But somewhere we know what is right and wrong. But our pride keeps us from admitting this both to ourselves and others. Our pride keeps us from asking for forgiveness.

Being okay with making mistakes

For most of my adult life, I’ve been swinging back and forth between hubris and feeling that I’m worthless. If I’ve made a mistake, I’ve more or less unconsciously assumed that I’m stupid. I’ve even, in spite of knowing that it isn’t so, unconsciously assumed that I’m the only person in the world that makes the kinds of mistakes that I make. It took a long time for me to notice this. But knowing it, I think that I can being to let go and accept that I’m not perfect. That I don’t have to be. That I’m not better than others and that I therefore have the same right as they have to make mistakes.

I should probably stop beating myself up though

Because even though I see how I fall when it comes to being humble and trusting God, I have become more courageous. More genuine and more loving. I still often let my thoughts get the best of me. But I am better at holding my tongue and think of how my speech affects other people. Not all the time. But I’m definitely seeing improvement. I'm a slow learner when it comes to all of this being-a-good-person stuff. But I'm definitely getting better.

Slipping and slipping and slipping

While publishing a series of posts about humility, I could easily conclude that … well … I’m there again. And again, I didn’t notice. I’ve started to feel pride for working hard. For understanding things. I’ve started to say “me, me, me”. And even if I say that I trust God, I don’t show that trust through my words and my actions. I want to surrender to God. I feel that it should be easy, because God only demands humility. Why is it so hard for me to be humble? Why, after all I’ve experienced, is it so hard to just relax and let go? 

Humility part 4

When I humbly ask God to guide and carry me, and I actually manage to take a step back and allow God to do so, I find that life becomes easy. I accept things as they are, I’m guided towards what I’m supposed to do and I have an endless energy reservoir to pour from. But then I fall back into my old ego-patterns and life becomes hard again.

But it is getting better. I do feel my ego getting weaker. One day, I will be free from this small self that wants to be admired, wants to be right and wants reality to be a certain way.

The ultimate truths about spirituality

I want to apologise beforehand if this post seems a bit confused. It's because I'm a rather confused person. I think almost everyone is. Most people just don't know it.

I’m going back and forth a lot in my life. I guess I’m trying to figure out things that I can’t really figure out with my rational mind. But there are things that I can know. But let’s begin with a few sentences about what I feel that I cannot know.

So, I feel somehow called to Christ. And I feel that I in some sense have to accept the basics of a Christian life, with all that it entails, including the virgin birth and that Christ died for our sins and was resurrected on the third day after his death. But maybe these things don’t mean what most people think that they mean. Maybe they are not supposed to be taken literally? Then again, maybe they are supposed to be taken literally and maybe they mean exactly what people in general think that they mean.

But I cannot force myself to believe something. Or to understand the rationale behind it. 

And on top of this, there are so many strange things that are happening, that don’t at all fit in with conventional Christianity. I mean, really weird, wonderful stuff that I don’t know what to make of.

And there are so many people that I talk to, read things by, or in other ways take part of their thoughts, that are so convinced that their truth is the right truth. So many people that cannot all be right. I know somehow in my heart that it's right to follow Jesus. But what does this mean? What is important? Is it important to believe the right things? Do the right things? Develop the right character? All of it? Why would it be important to believe the right things, about things that I simply cannot know? How can I believe the right things?

This is all so confusing, frightening, beautiful and wonderful at the same time. And the only thing that I feel that I can do, is keep reading, investigating and pondering these matters. 

And stumble.

I stumble so much.

Maybe all of this will be revealed to me eventually. But for now, I simply cannot know. But what I can know and understand, is the life that Jesus called us to live. It’s clear that he called us to live simple, humble, accepting and above else God-loving lives. He gave himself as an example of how to do this and now it’s up to us to figure out how to follow him in our own lives, within our individual circumstances.

However, as with so many words, these little words: “simple”, “humble”, “accepting” and “God-loving” call for some contemplation. Because over the years, I’ve come to realise that we often do not engage in any deeper thinking about the words that we use. Consequently, we know their meanings very loosely and on top of that, we always mean different things with the words that we use. And some words are truly worth considering, because what meanings and importance we give to them, are closely related to our character. So, what do these words mean to you?

I know that while I cannot know the truth about events that I was not around to witness, I can know how I relate to concepts that I deem important. I can contemplate what I need to improve with regard to them. I can, in a sense, find moral truths if I look for them in my heart. I can do what I can to see the truth about myself as clearly as possible. Even if I don’t like what I find.

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.