I believe there are no coincidences. I wrote a post early on Sunday morning recently and it didn’t get saved on my computer. Today, I wrote my post and the more I thought about it, the more I started to understand it. Then, I found out that the post from Sunday didn’t get saved. I think it was the universe telling me to write more about what I figured out today.
I think God asks me to do things out of faith. Sometimes those things are a struggle and they are difficult for me to do. I fail and often have to keep trying to be able to do what I believe God is asking me. The interesting part of faith is that sometimes when I do these things, something happens, often unexpectedly, and the struggle becomes so much easier because my perspective changes.
When I was in college, I knew a brother from a religious order. He told me that whenever I felt lost and need God’s help to chant “Be still and know that I am God.” In my youth, I thought it was the most useless advice anyone could possibly give me. However, now I realize that in God’s presence, I feel safe and can know peace. When I feel at my lowest, I do tell myself that very phrase and try my best to remember that God is with me. It actually works.
When God ask that I forgive my enemies and those who have hurt me that’s difficult. When He asks that I love others as I love myself, it’s really difficult to do so when that means everyone, even people who are murders, maniacs, and people who would hurt me.
Then today, everything changed. I had been doing as I felt commanded out of faith, but I realized that there’s something common to all of us, regardless of race, religion, gender, etc. There had to be an original life force and we all came from it. Every single one of us that ever lived, every single one of us that is alive today, and every single one of us that will ever live all have that life force in common. It isn’t a question of deserve. It isn’t a question of morality or how good or bad a person you are. Every one no matter who they are, no matter what they look like, no matter what they believe, and no matter what they do all have a life force within them. It isn’t something man made. We can’t create it. It has to be passed from parents to child. Even with all the technology we have, we may be able to manipulate DNA and genes, but we can’t create that life force. It’s the reason I can forgive and the reason I can love. It connects me to every human being that has ever lived, every human that is alive today, and every human being that will ever live. God doesn’t just see me at all the times of my life. He sees all of us during the entire history of humanity. I am myself and yet I am part of everything, too. How can I hate my brother when he is a part of me? How can I hold a grudge against my sister when she is a part of me? How can I not love my human family when they are as much as part of myself as I am? No wonder God ask me to love others as I would love myself.
My faith saved me. May God’s peace reside in all of our hearts.
