A Ramble About "Do You Know God?"

This question has so many implications and connotations to it that it is, more than most, an extremely loaded one. Another one, along the same lines, is no less fraught with meaning, "do you know Jesus?" The real question being asked is "are you saved?" And more to the point, "do you belong to the same Church, or do you follow the same theology that I do?"

The thing that doesn't seem to be on the mind of those who ask is what the question really means according to the Bible. This is ironic, because it is generally only asked by those of the "Bible Christian" persuasion. What the question means according to the Holy Scriptures is "do you love?" And the Holy Scriptures are quite explicit about this meaning in St. John's first letter, and in the thirteenth chapter of 1st Corinthians.

According to the Holy Scriptures, if someone doesn't love they don't know God, nor can they. It's simply not possible. If someone says they know God, and yet hate their brother, they are either lying or don't know what they're talking about to begin with. You can't know God through studying doctrine, or memorizing Scripture. While these may contribute to the goal of knowing Him, they cannot bring it about. They are the means to an end, they are not the end of themselves. If you do not love, it doesn't matter if you have the entire Bible memorized and are a theological Jedi Master, you neither know Him nor can know Him. It doesn't matter what kind of a profession of faith you have made or to whom. It doesn't matter what kind of good works you may or may not have done. Nothing else matters. If you do not practice love for the other person, any other person, than you do not know Him. God cannot be known by thinking about Him. He can only be known by loving Him, being loved by Him, and having His love flow through you to other people. If you don't love, you don't "get" God. It's as simple as that.

The implications of this are profound and should be disturbing to the great many people who ask this question to other people. How many people who ask this question of others hold prejudices, grudges, or try to one up the other person next to them? How many people who ask this question of others don't ask themselves the same question on a daily basis because they're taught they don't have to once they make a profession of faith?

The great failure in the prayer life and the practice of discipleship of many people is the flippancy with which this single most important command Jesus gave is treated. "Well, it's something I'm going to just have to learn and grow into but I'm not there yet." But no one treats it seriously enough to give it the time to. Jesus stressed it. Love. It's the single most important thing in the Christian life and practice. It's the lynchpin upon which everything else hangs. Compassion and care for others at least as much as what you show for yourself if not more. If that lynchpin isn't present, everything comes apart and you have nothing. You don't know Him. Jesus taught to love God, love one another, love the stranger, and love your enemies. There's no one left to hate, and St. John was explicit about what hating meant. It meant you were on par with a murderer and couldn't possibly know Him. Love is the first thing which must be learned and mastered, everything else can wait.

"Do you know God?" I truly have to wonder upon seeing the lives of the people who ask the question.

A Ramble About Coaches and Mentors

This year, my family and I have taken to watching the new season of "The Voice" on Monday nights. The contestants have all been impressive with their natural talent, but to be honest what has really impressed me are the coaches. They were all names that I had heard before, and knew they were big in the music industry, but I had never really paid much attention to because I don't generally listen to their songs. When the Voice started I didn't really know what to expect but I've grown to like some of the music reality shows and seeing the talented people get their big break and hearing their stories. My respect for the coaches has soared exponentially when watching them. The people are real artists who know their craft well and are not only able to put on a good show themselves, but are very capable singing coaches who really seem to take the time to spend with their charges and really try to help them improve. All things considered, it's been impressing me how they really keep up their end of the bargain in trying to help people with natural talent reach capabilities they never knew they had. They also bring in other artists who are legends or near legends in their industry to help them in ways which they might not be able to to help them reach even farther heights. Rather than treating their part in the competition cavalierly, they take it very seriously and it shows and for this they have earned my respect even if I don't listen to their music.

In the Star Wars prequels, we got to see how Jedis are trained and learn the ways of the Force. In short, they can't learn it on their own, but instead are taken as very young children and taught from a very early age by Jedi Masters. When they are old enough and have a sufficient grasp of the Force they are assigned to a more mature Jedi, generally a Master but not necessarily, to learn from them as a Padawan apprentice until the time when they are old enough to face the tests which will deem them ready to accept the full responsibility of knighthood. Without this bond between Master and apprentice, and the attention to teaching and training the Master gives the apprentice, the Padawan would never be able to achieve the heights of wisdom, understanding, or ability that the Jedi knights demonstrate. If Anakin hadn't been found and trained as a Jedi, he would have continued as a very unusual, very angry boy with a great deal of wasted potential. He would likely have ended up the best known human podracer, but that's pretty much it.

It goes without saying that in order to be really good at something, you need a teacher, or a guide, or a coach. You need someone who knows what they're doing. Who's played the game, who knows the rules, and who knows how to win it and where the pitfalls are. Natural talent and ability will only get you so far. You need someone who's been where you're trying to go to show you how to get there as well.

So then why doesn't it go without saying that in order to really understand how to follow Christ and to draw closer to God you need someone to guide you and coach you? There is a mistaken idea within the Church today that a person needs no one but his Bible in order to really get this down. The argument will be made "the Holy Spirit teaches the person. He doesn't need anyone else." But then, who teaches the person how to listen to the Holy Spirit and to distinguish His voice from well-sounding but deceiving voices? Who teaches the person the tricks and traps that demons will use to spin you this way and that and leave you wondering if God really exists at all? Who teaches you what's to be expected, what's to be avoided, and what the best way of achieving your goal is?

St. John Cassian wrote some time at the turn of the fifth century citing an older saintly monk called Abba Moses, "The devil brings the monk to the brink of destruction more effectively through persuading him to disregard the admonitions of the fathers and follow his own judgment and desire, than he does through any other fault. We should learn from examples of human arts and sciences. If we cannot accomplish anything in them by ourselves -- in spite of the fact that they deal with things we can touch with our hands, see with our eyes and hear with our ears -- but still need someone who will instruct us well and guide us, how can it be anything but foolish to think that the spiritual art, the most difficult of all the arts, has no need of a teacher? It is an invisible, hidden art which is understood only through purity of heart, and failure in it brings, not temporary loss, but the soul's destruction and eternal death." ("On the Holy Fathers of Sketis", The Philokalia, vol 1. Kallistos Ware et al, trans.)

I've struggled with this truth, because in this day and age it's not an easy one for Christians to come to grips with for the simple fact that it seems like there are so few "Yodas", if any, to seek out and from whom to learn the path of Jesus Christ. What do you do when it seems like no one around you really gets it when compared to what it's supposed to be like in the Scriptures? Or what do you do when you don't know if you can trust someone to train you and take you to the next level. Most expect their pastors to be able to fill that role, but the cold hard truth of the matter is that pastors are rarely trained themselves in actually being a disciple. Their heads may be full of theory, doctrine, and theology; but their practice is often a far cry from demonstrating what Jesus taught in the Gospels. And even if they are capable, it's tough giving the level of attention mentoring someone to be a disciple really needs. The truth is that it really needs to be a one on one with someone whom you trust, who follows what Jesus taught themselves, and with whom you are comfortable not only confessing your deepest flaws and thoughts to but in following their instructions concerning the same. This is a relationship not seen in the day to day workings of most churches between pastor and church member, and it requires a vulnerability and intimacy which is far too easy to be taken advantage of by corrupt and abusive people.

For my part, I've taken to seeking instruction as much as possible from the writings of these ancient Christians like St. John Cassian, Evagrios the Solitary, St. Peter of Damaskos, the author of "The Cloud of Unknowing," Thomas a Kempis, and others. It isn't a perfect solution, but in taking my instruction from them rather than relying on my own judgment I know I've grown and developed farther in the faith far more than I ever could have on my own. They bring up situations that I know I've faced in my own prayer life, walk, and Christian practice and also give instruction on how to deal with them in practical and honest ways. I know from reading them that they've been down the Path I'm trying to walk because they keep pointing out the same landmarks and landmines I've run into time and time again.

In looking for a spiritual mentor, be it a live person or the writings of knowledgeable Christians long dead, you have to be very careful. The questions you want to ask yourself are "is this person living like Jesus said to live? Is he or she humble? Does he or she care more about being successful in this world than they do about successfully drawing closer to God (and yes, they are mutually exclusive; anyone who tells you otherwise is not from God). Does he or she care about others and not return wrong for wrong? Do they do what they profess to believe, and is what they profess to believe lining up with what Jesus taught?" More often than not, those who are true Yodas in the path of Jesus Christ would never think of themselves that way, and are totally unknown to anyone except God. The writings of recognized Saints are usually safe bets because there's generally a reason why they were recognized as Saints and it usually had to do with their total devotion to Jesus Christ and doing what He said to do. There's a few which may be questionable from the later middle ages and modern times, so use discernment. The writings of more modern authors can be a gamble depending on the author. Chances are though, if he's preaching health, wealth, prosperity and good times ahead it's a safe bet to stay as far away as possible because that's not the Cross or the life the Saints came to know and embrace.

Is it possible to follow Christ without an instructor and not go wandering into left field? Theoretically, yes. But the more I learn, the more I realize how much my own judgment can't be trusted and I deeply appreciate the fact that these godly men took the time to write down their own experiences so someone like myself could learn from them. Like the coaches on the Voice, a good spiritual mentor can take raw faith and help mold and shape it into something truly profound and moving and able to cross the finish line rather than just continue to watch from the sidelines.

A Ramble About Balance

"Water, Earth, Fire, Air..." So begins the cartoon series "Avatar, the Last Airbender." It's been one of my family's favorites, and not our only. I knew of a therapist at the children's home where I worked that used episodes from the series to talk about different virtues and how to deal with loss and tragedy.

In this series, there are four nations or ethnic groups defined by one of these four elements. There's the fire nation, the earth kingdom, the water tribe (northern and southern), and the air nomads. Each nation has a martial art which is woven into the fabric of their culture called "bending" which allows them to move and shape their element. Each nation is supposed to live in a balance with one another, respecting the rights of the other three to live peacefully and practice their own beliefs. One special bender, called the Avatar, is continuously reborn through a cycle of reincarnation in order to keep this balance intact. He is the only one who has the ability to bend all four elements, and he also keeps the peace between the material and the spiritual worlds. When the avatar dies, another avatar is born and trains in all the forms of bending to take his place.

In the first series, the world has been thrown completely out of balance because the fire nation launched an aggressive world war aimed at conquering the other nations and extinguishing the other forms of bending. The avatar, a twelve year old airbender having awoken from being frozen for a hundred years, has to master the other three elements quickly in order to stop the fighting. He does, and the long process of rebuilding commences. In the second series, the world is more or less in balance again, and a new Avatar has been born. Once again, though, that balance is threatened by corruption, ignorance, and misunderstandings.

As I was watching the first two episodes of the second series online with my family today, I couldn't help but be so reminded of the Church today. We are very much like these four nations, and we have been so thrown out of balance it's unbelievable.

The Pentecostals emphasize miracles and sign gifts. The Catholic Churches emphasize sacred tradition and the communion of the Saints. The baptists and many evangelicals emphasize Holy Scripture. Some of the Orthodox Catholic Churches emphasize asceticism and contemplation. Some protestant Churches emphasize missionary evangelism. Messianic Judaism emphasizes Christianity's Jewish roots and heritage. There is nothing wrong with any of this. All of these things are the common spiritual heritage of all Christians.

The error comes in when we emphasize any single one of these things to the exclusion of all else. All of these things are the manifestation of the life of Jesus Christ through His people. True heresy is when we refuse to see Jesus manifested in the brother who has a different gift or emphasis from us. When we make the declaration, "oh, he's one of them therefore he isn't saved!"

The ancient Church wasn't quite so out of balance. They kept the Sacred Tradition, the Sacraments, and the Apostolic Succession as a sacred trust, they also practiced contemplative prayer and asceticism, they immersed themselves as much as they could in the Holy Scriptures, they understood that those brothers and sisters who were absent from the body were still a part of the Body, and they demonstrated and used the charismata, the grace given gifts of the Holy Spirit, to show the world that Jesus Christ was the way, the truth, and the life. Many of them died as martyrs in horrible deaths singing hymns and forgiving their executioners.

Corruption, greed, ignorance, and misunderstanding threw the one, holy, Catholic and Apostolic Church of Jesus Christ out of balance to where we will no longer even look at the other "martial disciplines" of the Church outside of our own, and as we are divided, so we also fall to our own sins and indulgences until those on the outside looking at us shake their heads in wonder and pity.

I realize now how blessed I have been to have experienced and trained in so many different Church traditions and denominations. The Lord has allowed me to see Him working through Catholic and Protestant alike. Through Orthodox, baptist, non-denominational, or messianic Jewish. I have even seen Him working through Mormons (go figure), and they seem to have the Church's social safety net for its people down to an art form. I really wish others would willingly open their minds and hearts to experience this as well.

In order for the Church to be unified once more, we must restore the balance that we once had that was lost. Unlike the four nations, we are all capable of reclaiming our entire heritage if we would be willing to set aside our own divisions and learn from one another. This is what the enemy truly fears. Our divisions, our true heresy, is what keeps us from really showing Jesus Christ to the world, and this is the heresy from which we must repent.

As St. Paul said in 1 Corinthians 13, it doesn't matter how great you can speak, or how much you know, or how many good works, or even how many miracles we perform. If we aren't bound together by allowing the love of God to flow through us to each other and the rest of the world, then we have nothing and are nothing. The love of God overcomes all such prejudices and discriminations which we harbor against one another.

Our spiritual ancestors from so many long centuries ago knew this, and they wrote much of it down for us to learn from as well. In order for the Church to truly be the Church we must restore the balance we have lost.

A Ramble About Dangerous Prayers

When I was a kid, probably around six or seven, I remember after coming home from Sunday School one day, or it could have been the day after, praying and asking God for wisdom and understanding. We had just learned about King Solomon and him praying for wisdom instead of riches or anything else. Since God liked that better, it seemed the best thing I could pray for at the time. Later on, as I learned about David who was a man after God's own heart, I prayed and asked God so that I could be a man after His own heart, too. Still later, again after Sunday School as a kid, I prayed and asked God for the faith to move mountains. As a teenager and wanting to change from who I had been to do what was right, I prayed and asked God for everything St. Paul had. My exact words in my pious neediness were "I want it all." This was followed by a prayer to be like Jesus in everything. Finally, I prayed for humility, and that all glory would go to God and nothing to me. All throughout my teenage years I prayed to give my life freely to God so that He could use it in whatever way He wanted.


These are the prayers that God loves to hear us pray with sincerity. These are also the prayers that will ruin your earthly life.


It is no secret, and I have made it no secret, that my life has been one difficulty and setback after another. Every one of the plans I made for my future has come to rubbish. To this day I am practically penniless, and depend solely on the love and mercy of God for the daily needs, guidance, and protection of my family and myself. I am a priest without a parish from a denomination which is one of the poorest and smallest in the world. I am daily reminded of my own inadequacies and weaknesses. Our lives hang only by the thread which is held in God's hands.


God loves to hear these kind of prayers because they're what He wants most for our lives. But the means to get from where you began to where He wants you to finish are hard, dangerous, and totally humiliating. The only good way to counter the gluttony, avarice, and pride which this world infects us with is through hunger, poverty, and humiliation, and it is a truly rare person who doesn't have to be inflicted with these things to teach them. If you have any earthly ambitions you must weigh carefully what you ask of God in this regard, because He is likely to upend it in order to accomplish His goals with you.


Being an ignorant child, I wasn't so cautious. I wanted only the best of what God wanted for me and my life, and I rushed headlong without looking into places where angels backed off and crossed themselves, fearing to peer into the darkness beyond. I didn't know what that best was or what it entailed, and had I known then, or taken the time to think about it, I may have thought twice, maybe three times. Perhaps that's why God made me the way He did as a child, so that I would leap before I looked.


As I think back about it, I have many regrets in my life. But praying those prayers aren't a part of those regrets. I'm glad God made me such a reckless fool when it came to this, otherwise I might not have learned the lessons I did, or had the experiences which He so graciously allowed me; not to mention my family, my treatments, and every other single blessing God has given me. I would have missed out on nearly every good thing which has happened in my life because of my "knowing caution."


As I talked to my wife the other night about this, she related that she prayed those prayers too as a kid, not knowing what she was getting herself into. It's been extremely difficult for her as well, but she doesn't regret it either.


It's easier to pray these prayers in the ignorance of a child than it is in the knowledge of an adult. Perhaps this is part of what Jesus meant, among many things, that unless you become as a little child you can't enter the Kingdom of Heaven. Perhaps it's also what He meant when He said to count the cost of discipleship.


I do know this, however, that if you want to be rich and famous, if you want to have all of your earthly desires fulfilled, these are not the prayers for you. God is only too happy to answer these prayers, and to answer them with an overflowing abundance! There's a much wider highway off to the left for the the rich and famous seeking crowd.

A Ramble About Power

One of the last events I vividly remember from working at the children's home was getting my nose broken. One might think, "of course you would remember that!" But the truth is I was bitten, punched, and otherwise inflicted with minor injuries on a regular basis. Getting my nose broken would have otherwise just been amalgamated in with the rest of it.

I remember this particular incident distinctly because of what it taught me. I had been forced to put a teenage girl who had become violent into a restraint. It started with a right hook to my head, which initiated the restraint. As I backed her into the "safe room" as she was kicking and screaming and flailing her head back and forth. As I was trying to get her into a settled position she threw her head back violently smack into my nose and I heard a crunch. Blood started flowing from both nostrils and pain shot through my nose and face. I couldn't release her and let her go in the state she was in.

I don't remember if I had consciously prayed or not. There have been many times when the Lord has acted before I've had the chance to consciously pray. But I remember focusing hard on loving this girl, even as blood was streaming down my face and dripping on to my black hoodie (the one I'm wearing now as I write this, as a matter of fact). And my tone of voice became soothing and comforting to her, to calm her down and reassure her. I loved that girl that day. Loving her in that moment was all that mattered even as I didn't know what shape my face was in. Loving her and protecting her especially from herself was what flowed through my thoughts, out through my words, and into my arms as I held her in a restraint that became an embrace of a troubled girl that was young enough to be my daughter, and was one of the several girls there that I thought of as such.

There is a perverse yet pervasive misconception about strength and weakness, and about power and impotence in this world. Many people, whether they admit it or not, assume that love, mercy, kindness, and compassion are all weaknesses. That in order to survive you must learn to dominate, control, and master other people. Those who aren't strong enough to do this are crushed beneath the boots of those who are. Everywhere this image is reinforced even if it isn't named. The villain in the Harry Potter series put it succinctly, "there is only power, and those strong enough to wield it."

I knew girls in that home who had been forced to live by that creed, and it tore them apart from the inside out. There was another girl, even more unstable and violent than the one who broke my nose. She had grown up mostly on the streets as a runaway after having been molested by a family member and called a liar for reporting it. She was physically strong, agile, and domineering. The first time it looked like she would have to be restrained, we called in another male member of the staff and even then we didn't know how the two of us would fair if we had to force her to the safe room. So we stood there, with another female staff member trying to talk her down. The girl was primed and ready for a fight, and we knew it just from the look in her eyes and the fighting stance she assumed. She was angry and upset. So, we just stood there to keep her from doing any damage, not knowing when or if we should act and put our hands on her. She kept looking at us, taunting us to engage her in a fight, her eyes eventually filled with tears of frustration as she encountered a situation she didn't know how to handle. Physical strength and domination she understood, but she had no real defenses against compassion, understanding, and patience. She eventually gave up and walked to the safe room on her own.

Fear, physical strength, domination, anger, hatred; all of these have a power of their own, and it feels impressive and dangerous, and intimidating. But I learned in that children's home that none of these can truly withstand the inescapable power of love and compassion. It is the power of the love and compassion of God flowing through a person that allows that person to stand silently while people insult and spit on him. It is the power of His love and compassion flowing through a person that allow him to do nothing harmful or evil in return when someone injures or threatens him. It is the power of His love and compassion which flows through a person which allows a person to overcome all hatred, insults, threats and bodily and emotional harm directed at them and return only peace, kindness, and mercy to their tormentor.

True power lies in submission to the One within whom the only true power resides, and not in trying to free oneself from Him or anyone else. True power lies in admitting our weakness and allowing His power to flow through us. All of this is true because true and genuine power flows only from Him.

As I finish this out, I am reminded of the paradox in the final words of Obi-Wan Kenobi in Star Wars: A New Hope. He said, "You can't win Darth. If you should strike me down, I will become more powerful than you could even imagine." He knew that in that moment of his physical death, he would truly and finally become one with the Force, and then there was no way he could be overcome.

The same was true of the martyrs. They knew that if they should be struck down by those who hated them, in their final moment of physical weakness they would become more powerful than their enemies could understand or imagine. Because in that final moment of shedding their dying bodies, they would achieve final union with the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. For this reason they sang praise and thanks to Him as they died, to the total bewilderment of the crowds who watched it. This is true power.

A Ramble About Fear

"Fear is the mind killer." In many respects this is true. Fear drives just about every "sinful" response we have. If you think about it, Gluttony initially arises from a fear of not having enough food. Avarice arises from a fear of not having enough resources. Self-esteem arises from a fear of not being enough. I worry about what will happen tomorrow, because I fear tomorrow. I worry about what happened yesterday, because I fear the repercussions from yesterday's events.



As I look into my own heart and mind, and I look the prime motivation of my own selfishness and self-centeredness, all I can see is fear. Am I good enough? Do I have enough? What's going to happen tomorrow? Is there something there waiting to hurt me in the darkness?



Perfect love casts out all fear, and God is perfect love. We fear when we cannot see our environment around us. We fear when there is an unknown over which we have no power. God sees all which is unknown to us. There is nothing over which He has no power.



All temptations to react and respond selfishly are essentially self-defensive reflexes. I must obtain this. I want this. I'm going to become angry because I don't have it. I'm going to kill in order to obtain it because I need it somehow. These are the responses of a person who is insecure about his own being. These are the responses of a person who does not believe that his needs will be met and so therefore must harm another to meet his own needs. These are the responses of a person who is walking in a room with no light, who is scared, and who is disoriented about where he can and can't go in the room. Reaching out he might feel the back of a chair. Triumphantly he grabs the chair and holds on to it for dear life because it gives him an anchor and a bearing point. But in order to move from one end of the room to the other, he must be able to let go of the chair which he can feel and continue once more in the darkness.



All people walk in this pitch black room trying to move from one end of life to the other, constantly bumping into things. It's terrifying until you learn that the furniture in the room never changes position. The walls of the room are always where they were before. You cannot see what is ahead of you or behind you or around you, but you come to learn that it is always there whether you can see it or not. You adapt to trusting in this fact of navigating this dark room, or you refuse to adapt and become lost, confused, and frightened; taking things from anyone else in the room you might meet who is weaker than you because of your fear.



God is always present, whether we can see Him or not. He loves us and always has our best interests at heart. He is the unmoving room which we move through in our journey. If we take the time to get to know Him and to follow His path which is laid out for us, then we can stop and realize that He has not moved or changed. And if we know that He has not moved or changed, then knowing Him, we can begin to navigate the room without fear because we know we can trust Him.



If I get angry, its because somewhere inside I am afraid of losing something, even if it is only control of a situation. If I stop and look at my fear, and realize that I am afraid, I can see that I am not really trusting God. I am not really anchored in Him. But this realization must move deeper than surface things. We must begin to trust God that He knows what is best when He permits the situation around us to become hostile and harmful. We must begin to trust Him when we have no food to eat, or no money to feel secure with. We start with trusting Him with small things, but must continue until nothing can cause us to fear because His perfect love has thrown fear out completely regardless of the hardship we face.



As I stop and consider all the thoughts and voices in my mind screaming for my attention, swirling around like a storm demanding that I pay attention and be afraid because I do not possess something to make me feel secure, I see also the One who is still and unmoving and quiet, whom the storms of fear cannot move or touch. He asks only that I trust Him, regardless of the physical outcome. It is this ultimate trust which grants peace, and not seeking to quell the storms myself. Who can calm a cyclone by feeding it debris? You must wait in the storm shelter patiently until it passes, and trust that the shelter is strong enough to withstand it. Otherwise, the more debris you feed it, the more damage the cyclone will do.



Between trust and fear, where one is the other is not nor can it be. It is best to trust in God, and let Him cast out fear. Only then will the storms subside and the cyclone pass.

A Ramble About Direction

I went to the Lord in contemplative prayer today. I hadn't spent time in that kind of prayer for a week or two, and it was beginning to show. I had recently been reliving past experiences and old emotions that never got a chance to process when they happened. I also was a bit confused and seeking direction on what my family's and my next steps should be.



As I went into prayer, I had a number of thoughts and feelings assaulting me as I struggled to anchor myself to Him and His presence. His is the presence which never varies, and never leaves, even when I am unable to sense it. The inability is mine, not His absence.



The first thing I became aware of was how much fear was directing my thinking. It was fear, and not faith, which was guiding me to look for "the next step." I was afraid of my family not having what they needed, or of missing an opportunity or a window.



"Perfect love casts out all fear." This resonated through my mind during my prayer, as it often has before. He is perfect love, and when we are trusting in Him, fear has no place within us. But when we are submitting to that fear, not being anchored in Him, then He appears absent, which can lead us to be even more afraid. It is as though an apparently dark room has become even darker, even though nothing in the room has moved or changed position.



As I struggled to stay anchored and seek direction, the clear "message" came through, as it has so many times before, "I'll let you know the when, where, why, and how at the time you need to know it, and not before. Just do whatever needs to be done today, and worry about that. You first concern for today is knowing and trusting Me. Your second concern is doing whatever needs to be done today. If I choose to move you, I will. If I choose to keep you in one place, no one on Earth can move you and will be ridiculously frustrated if they try."



There is either fear, or there is God. There is either self, or there is Truth. There is either selfishness, or there is compassion. All of these things are mutually exclusive. In our experience, where one is, the other is not. If we cling to one, we let go of the other. "Perfect love casts out all fear," and fear can obscure perfect love.