“Sometimes we turn to God when our foundation is shaking, only to find out it is God who is shaking it.” ~author unknown
If your foundation is shaking; if your life is struggling with whatever obstacles you see as impeding the way of life you believe you should be living… Then Pause… listen quietly… listen to the clues, the signs…. God may be trying to tell you something. While you have been focused for so long on the door to the left that just won’t seem to open and are just so convinced with ‘that way’ being your ‘only way’ to live, all along God may have had another door he’s opened for you, if you would only shift your eyes and look to the right.
Slow down… Stop the panic, and listen to the message. Everything you will encounter is a message. Is your mind open to receiving a message? If it is, then quiet your life for just a few minutes, blocking out all distractions from your ego, and try listening to this message. Try looking to the right. Try looking in the opposite direction. I always hear the old cliché that says when it rains it pours. I’ve come to find out in my own past experiences that it only begins to pour as I continue focusing on the rain. And then the rain begins to pound harder, and the storm rolls in until one day it’s as though I heard God shout from the clouds, “I love you, but what do I have to do to get your attention??? Get your mind out of the past and stop worrying about the future, and look at the gift I am blessing you with NOW”.
In my experience I’ve come to believe that God doesn’t involve himself with the lives of all six billion of us on earth (I’ve survived supposedly terminal cancer four times, two bone marrow transplants). I logged thousands of hours of training with a kung fu master, holding difficult postures to strengthen my immune system–and it worked, clear for 13 years. Conversely, I’ve seen countless people rely on the doctors and God to heal them–and most of them are dead. I’ve tried to help many people but most don’t want to take the effort to help themselves.
You can rationalize every mishap that befalls you or problem you have as God’s way of making you stronger. That all sounds good in America, where most people have enough to eat and roofs over their heads. But every night 50,000 children in Africa alone die of malnutrition, AIDS, malaria and other maladies. Where was their Higher Power? Are the deaths of countless children from disease part of God’s plan? Doesn’t seem reasonable.
I think God created the universe, wound it up like a clock and placed it on the mantle–then left the room. I realize I’ve opened the proverbial Pandora’s Box with this comment. But I got a little sick of all the sobriety tales recently–it seems every celebrity and every rock star on earth has gone through alcoholism and drug abuse, and it’s a dead horse.
Bob