Lesson 71: Only God’s plan for salvation will work.
I don’t know about any of you, but I have a TON of plans for my own salvation and I always have. I knew I would be okay in this world if I just found the right job, the right place to live, the right partner to do all that living with and the right community to support me in all of that.
Yeah, it never quite worked out that way. I spent a lot of time looking for jobs, homes, partners and communities. They all disappointed me at some point – and in my dissatisfaction, I made new plans for salvation – new jobs, new homes, new partners, new communities.
It reminds me of the scene from Evan Almighty when Steve Carrell’s character says to Morgan Freeman’s incarnation of God, “This isn’t what I had planned.” To which Freeman bursts out laughing: “Your plans.”
“If you want to make God laugh,” the old joke says, “tell Her your plans.”
Today’s lesson reveals the truth about all my plans: “Such is the ego’s plan for your salvation. Surely you can see how it is in strict accord with the ego’s basic doctrine, ‘Seek but do not find.'”
The ego always has a backup plan to its backup plan and then another and another to keep us chasing our tails for every moment of this bodily life. Today’s lesson invites us to pause in our relentless and futile attempts to locate the source of our salvation anywhere outside of ourselves. We will never find it. Best to take a deep breath and look for our salvation in the only place it lies: God’s plan for our lives.
The ego has no interest in this because it means we will no longer be listening to its plans, to its ideas, to its urgings to get out there and get shit done. Following the ego’s plan for salvation leads to nothing but frustration, desperation and despair. Oh, we may find fleeting moments of happiness, but the house of cards we’ve cobbled together as our lives are fragile and can tumble at any moment.
Things can seem to fall apart even if we are following God’s plan for salvation – which the ego likes to remind us about over and over again – but the difference is this: Even when it all falls apart, we know that if we are following God’s plan for our lives instead of the ego’s everything will work out perfectly no matter what outer obstacles and chaos we may encounter.
The ego’s plans keep us anxious about the future. God’s plan assures a perfect outcome, no matter what – and provides us a peace beyond the ego’s understanding during the process.
How do we surrender to God’s plan for our lives and align our will with It’s perfect will? We ask, each day, these three amazing questions:
“What would You have me do?”
“Where would You have me go?”
“What would You have me say, and to whom?”
Then, all the Holy ever asks from us is a little willingness to suspend our judgments and lay aside our grievances and see every encounter during our day as guided by the Holy for our highest good. We are the light of the world, but it is the Spirit that guides us to go where our light is needed. Asking these questions shows we are ready to be the light others need in the darkness, so they too can recognize and shine their own light in the world.
When we are willing to be guided by God in every moment of our lives, Hafiz says it’s because we are always seeking to find our way Home to who we truly are. If this is what we seek – we will always find it.
Whenever you, God, want to be near me, you are.
You can even be more me than I am,
and this, this you always choose.
It seems maybe even illegal
I mean, why can’t I be with you the way you are with me?
It is your beauty I so miss, and the way it makes me alive
feel so alive and at home.
Home.
Photo by Francis Seura from Pexels