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Where does it come from? Why do we always think that
everyone else is in control of our life? My son has just spent 18 hours trying
to be right about something he could never possibly be right about, especially
in his alcoholic mind. Knowing this was the case, I took my attention
completely away from what he was saying and doing. Literally, just no attention
whatsoever to whatever he did. He
finally got to the point where he had over-thought everything that had happened
to him all day yesterday to the point of near insanity. Well, maybe not near,
pretty much, right on.
How hard is life? Why does anyone even ask a
question like that? Life is hard, yes, every minute of every day, if that is
what you think it is. Everything is just what you think, because you are the
one doing the thinking. One is never privy to what others are thinking unless
they are being told what the other is thinking. None of us can read the mind of
others; that is why Eckhart Tolle suggests we think, “It is not our business
what others think of us,” because we can never GUESS what they are thinking. So
why try? We try because we don’t have the answers, and we don’t have the
answers because we are not looking for them, we are only looking to be right.
What a waste of time and energy that is.
Finally, my son comes to me and asks me why life is
so hard and why he is not getting it; and I say this. “The next time you are
having a day like you did yesterday just ask yourself this question, “What
would Jesus do?” He starts to think about that for a minute and then we both
start laughing at how simple that is. “Change your mind, change your life,” is
how Wayne Dyer puts it.
I told him the story about how when I was at one of
my lowest points during this last bout with mental illness, I heard this
statement “what is one thing that your
father said to you that changed your life?” And then proceeded to tell him
how when I read or heard that I started laughing and thought, “are you kidding
me, what could I possibly learn from an abusive alcoholic?” In the next minute,
two thoughts ran through my head, they were…”Be a leader not a follower,” and
“it’s all in your head.” He started laughing with me. I said “seriously do you
think I would have ever thought about those things had I not had my mind open
to the voice within? No, I couldn’t, I would have still been too afraid of what
was in my head.”
The greatest fear most people have is the fear of
dying. My son says that when the craving for the alcohol comes he thinks he
might die if he does not get a drink soon. Well, I asked him, “Why are people
afraid of dying?” I then proceeded to tell him that they are afraid of dying
because some part of them believes in the afterlife and does not remember or
believe that the work has already been done for them and they will have an
amazing afterlife at the hand of Jesus. God sent his only son to walk amongst
other humans so “He” had a first-hand look at how hard it was going to be for
us, so he gave his only son to save us from our sins, knowing full well that
every man would sin, maybe even every day, so he gave us an out(grace). That doesn’t mean we should go about our lives
sinning and just waiting to ask for forgiveness. It means that we get up every
day and face whatever challenges he puts in front of us and we do the very best
we can to get through them in the very best way we can. We get through them as
Jesus would. So asking ourselves “what would Jesus do?” and then sitting in our
quiet mind, the answer comes and we do the right thing, instead of trying to be
right. The right thing is clearly written for us in the Bible. So the answer to
every question we could possibly ask ourselves is already in there.
My son had tears in his eyes through most of our conversation,
some from laughter, some from pain, but he got the answer he was looking for,
not the one that made him right, but the one that was the “right answer.”
I also reminded him of how I came back to my faith.
I was again in that fearful place in my mind and looked up and saw my mother’s
bible on the entertainment center in my living room. I hadn’t seen that bible
in more years than I could remember and I have no plausible explanation for it,
I just know that when I walked over and picked it up I found the message my
mother left for me on the inside cover. I had been complaining to many people,
that my mother had never said she loved me, she never said good-bye, and she
never thanked me for taking care of her those last six months or her life as she
wrestled and lost her battle with colon cancer. The message read Prove 22:6
“Train up a child in the way he should go; and when he is old he will not
depart from it.” And then Acts 17:28 “For in him we live and move, and have our
being; for we are also his offspring.” Funny how things come to us, but as I
was writing what she had written just now, I looked on the next side of the
page and it said “Day of Pentecost” (Birthday of Church) (6-6-65) Day apostles
received Holy Ghost and ability to speak in tongues.” I just read that yesterday
in my daily Bible reading. It all just goes to show that while we are communing
with God, all day every day, he is communing with us.
I spent most of the day yesterday singing, “Just as
I Am without One Plea,” and replaying the words “but that thy blood was shed
for me,” did I ever think I would need those words today or that an opportunity
to use them would come to me so quickly. “And thou bidd’st me come to thee, O
Lamb of God, I come, I come.”
