|
When you connect to the Infinite, you become an
integral part of the underlying fabric of our
world. You begin to see things from a fresh
perspective that is not dictated by your
separate self - your ego. Making this Connection
requires stepping outside of yourself and seeing
things from another point of view. But more than
anything, it involves surrendering your will to
that of God.
I am reminded of the words of the
old Baptist hymn, I Surrender All: “I will ever
love and trust Him, In His presence daily
live…Worldly pleasures all foresaken, take me
Jesus, take me now…Let me feel the Holy Spirit,
Truly know that Thou art mine…Fill me with Thy
love and power, Let Thy blessings fall on me.”
Four key elements of these verses: 1. love and
trust - give Him control 2. daily live in His
present - abiding! 3. worldly pleasures - not
seeking our own intentions 4. let me feel the
Holy Spirit - I want to feel the Connection to
the Infinite.
But how do we resolve free will
versus connecting and giving God control? Does
this mean we stop trying to achieve our goals
and ambitions? How do we resolve our free will
with connecting to the Spirit and living a life
as a connected part of a greater whole? The
following steps will help you resolve this
apparent dichotomy:
The first step: Is it clearly my
intention to achieve this particular thing? Since you framed the question as such, more than
likely the answer to this is yes. But be sure
that you frame your intention in the most
straightforward fashion and that you fully
understand what it is you seek. Often we don’t
fully frame our thoughts or ideas and then
wonder why we don’t achieve them.
The second step: Is
this intention consistent with the Infinite
Intention? This is where we need to trust our
intuition and feeling and we can often tell
whether something is consistent or not simply by
whether or not it makes us feel at peace or
instead, anxious or nervous. If everything seems
to be working against you, it may be that your
intention is not in synch with your Connection. Do not confuse this with taking the path of
least resistance. If your objectives are pure
and are consistent with loving God and loving
others, it may still be difficult. You must make
this distinction in life. There will be some
objectives you just know are correct because
they fit perfectly with Spirit and Connection. They fit perfectly with loving God and loving
others. In these cases, even if you still have
difficulty achieving them, you are on the right
path. It is when we get down to dealing with
specific day to day issues that we see that
things that work against us may just be pointing
us to a different path to the same, or better,
end result.
An example here might serve well. A
few years ago I was offered ajob change which
required moving across the country. We knew the
right thing was to stay where we were and raise
the kids in their current environment. I don’t
know how we knew exactly, but we just did. It
was the right intention. But then I had my own
ideas of how this was to come about. Those jobs
did not materialize. Instead of fighting it, I
had to accept that although we had the right
overall intention, the specific path wasn’t the
right one. Although the path was twisting and
winding, and I never would have envisioned how
it would go, there was a path to lead us to
staying here as was intended, and to do so in
even more abundance than I had previously
envisioned.
So in summary, you will have to be
the judge of what intentions are consistent and
which are not, and the difficulty you experience
along the way may just be an indicator of
another path to the same destination. Surrendering to intention means surrendering to
that specific path, not necessarily the end
result.
The third step of resolving your free
will versus surrendering to Intention is that
once you are clear about your intention and are
confident it matches with your Connection, then
you can bring the energy that flows through your
connection into shaping what you desire. This is
your free will at work. While continuing to
honor your Connection as your primary objective,
form a mental image of what you intend to
achieve. By approaching the situation in this
manner, you move in the direction of your
Connection and away from your personal ego. |