My posts usually come at the end of often long days. Today I sat to write in the afternoon, but something unusual happened. There were no words. I've been writing since I was able to hold a pencil, and words have almost always been there. And, today, there were no words. I made several false starts, but I knew those words were from my head and not my heart. I washed the glass top tables, but when I came back to my computer, there were still no words. I did some ironing, and still no words. I watched episodes of two TV shows I missed this week...and no words. I watched a movie, and no words.
I had made a commitment to this spiritual discipline to write every day, and words would not come. But writing from my head and not my heart for a blog called "You Know In Your Heart" seemed like a serious breach in integrity. By that point, darkness was approaching. I'll do my grocery shopping, I thought; then I'll have that chore out of the way for the week. I can write later. You can probably guess that when I returned the words were still not there.
What should I do? I felt duty bound to my commitment to sit at my computer and contribute to this blog. Early this week I wrote about the angel who had showed up to help me with learning some features for this blog. One of them was the "Labels" feature, which allows me to make the blog more searchable. Well, I thought, if words won't come, I'll devote that amount of time to attaching labels to old posts. I set about reading through the last month's posts and labeling them. Then I "got it."
Reading my most recent 25 posts was homework for today's writing. If you have been reading regularly, you know there have been some demons that keep recurring on my journey. Being awake and present, consciousness, gratitude, forgiveness, the nature of God and Love, integrity. There was something missing though, and whatever was missing felt like "glue" for the others. "Surrender" was the word that kept coming to me. I've certainly wrestled with spiritual surrender before, but I had a hard time connecting the dots today.
By the time my labeling task reached today's post, I was ready to write. Floating up as gently as a feather floats down were the words, "Let God be God." A smile came to my face, and a knowing chuckle caught in my throat. In my day job, I'd describe the problem as role ambiguity--not being clear about what my role is and what God's role is. My job is to be awake, present, and listening so that I may be led, allowing the world to experience God's love through me. I am to ask for help, probably even when I don't think I need it, be grateful, offer forgiveness, and walk my talk. Other duties as assigned, of course, such as writing this blog and books that may bubble up from within me. That's it.
Everything else is God's job. Most importantly, God gets to be God. That is explicitly omitted from my job description. Enter "surrender." I believe that it is important for us to do the work we are given, to learn and grow spiritually, and to develop our "God given" talents. Holding to those intentions may be the only things in our lives that are real. God's job is to determine how these play out and on what time schedule they occur.
That's where surrender comes in. For me and many others, "surrender" seems counter rational in our modern driven society. We are taught to take charge of our lives: active on the world before it acts on us. That is playing God. Doing so requires resisting the forces of the Universe. It is exhausting and counter-productive. Sigh! Surrendering allows us to float through life on the River of Peace, like I did when I was in Greece and the waters parted at every turn to get me to the publishing house. ("Being Led", 11/4/13) Why on earth would I want to resist that? I cannot for the life of me figure out one good reason.
I surrender.
I will let God be God.
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