July 28

There is an interesting phenomenon that has occurred since I started this process. While I made the emotional commitment to change and took action related to that, things begin to happen. It appeared almost like magic or that money or relationships came at exactly the right time. Whether it was money, relationships, or other things, they started happening after I made an emotional change and then begin to act.

The phenomenon leads to a major question. How much of what happens to us is because we program it to happen? Is it possible that we are actually in control of even more than we thought. (And I have always thought we were in control of a lot.)

In seminary the air was full of discussions about the nature of the universe, God, and who is in control of what. The predominate camps of thought were in the extremes - full control and no current control. God is actually in control of everything like the chess player moving the pieces on the board was one of the common camps. This was particularly popular with the more conservative crowd (of which there were a lot a Southern Baptist Theological Seminary). The other camp was closer to the deist view. God was the celestial clock maker. He built the universe, set it in motion, and then stepped out of the picture.

The middle ground was the concept of the dance. God can't do what he (or she) wants to do alone and neither can we. God is always inviting us to dance. When we say yes and step onto the dance floor, together we can do more than either one of us could do alone. I resinated with that concept for many years.

I am migrating now toward a model that is a spinoff of the dance model. I have not fully thought this through, but I get the sense that God wants us to be co-creators in the universe. Instead of asking the question, "What does God want me to do," the logical question for me now is "who was I created to be?" I was created, and I believe that we are instinctively driver to find meaning in our lives. Therefore, the driving question is not about what someone or something else wants me to do. The driving question is about who was I created to be.

In that train of thought, obedience is about discovery and manifesting, not following. Paradoxically, with good intentions, it seems that in our pursuit of following God in our lives we focused more on submission to someone else's path rather than discovering our path and what that means.

I leave with a thought. I now believe that our one task in life is to discover who we were created to be and then live that out in the time and space that we have with the people that we encounter. When we do that and we do it with gusto, magical things do seem to happen.