Is This Really Part Of The Divine Plan?

There are people who believe that everything happens for a reason and it serves them. I have been one of those believers and yet I admit at times my level of faith in that proposition has been severely hammered by difficult life events. I have clung to that belief by nary a fingernail at times. It has been a tenuous proposition to maintain when dire circumstances decimated perceptible good beyond recognition.

How can we resurrect or even justify our faith in a benevolent universe, a beneficent God that is on our side when we have suffered great difficulty or loss?  I have stared at the surface of my challenges, long and hard with only greater suffering to show for it. So I’m inclined to offer that we must look deeper than the appearances to restore faith in life that supports our greater good no matter how it looks.  Every food of the earth that has nourished our bodies began below the surface.  As a seed of possibility, in darkness, life begins again for the plant, and for us. We often need the reminder that Jesus shared that unless a grain of wheat fall and die it remains only a single grain, but if it die it yields a rich harvest.   Transformation from a tiny seed into a stalk of golden wheat has a price.

I believe it more accurate and satisfying to hold the idea that the universe is on the side of our enlargement, that Life is pushing us to be more of Itself. It is this urge to wholeness that can upset our ego-librium.  In unrelenting fashion, spiritual forces are no respecter of person, demanding transformation of everybody who passes this way. Static states of consciousness are subject to upheaval if not, annihilation.  Of course we see only in part, so what we call loss may indeed be answered prayer to a soul bent on realizing its timeless, formless nature.  If that explanation seems too far out there are ancient and contemporary stories that point in the same direction.

Moses was banished from his privileged life to the desert, where he heard and answered the call that became his life’s mission.  The desert of hardship and separation became the soil of his awakening and the ground where the Israelites went from a wandering tribe to a nation with a covenant and a mission. Through the lens of our mortal sight, we may not see that a divine plan is spread upon the earth where today we stand, and tomorrow we may fall. Yet you and I have seen evidence of the Divine, when the lesser falls away and something greater arises in its place.  It is the season of life having its ways through us.  If I am truly committed to realizing  infinite Life then my attachment to how my life should be, must be released. One way or another.

Our favorite contemporary stories reveal the same pattern. Luke Skywalker, Frodo, Harry Potter all faced major losses, and sacrifices as precedent to their true mission.  Introspection comes easier when the outer fails us. Our reluctance to look inward diminishes in our desperation to know who we are when this or that no longer defines us.

If we embrace the premise that there is a spiritual agenda always working in our lives, we might find this journey more noble, adventurous and ultimately quite satisfying. We might even find ourselves heroically proclaiming at a pivotal moment,  Not my will, but thine be done. We can be enlarged by loss. We can choose Life over life.

This Sunday the bright, articulate and talented Anton Mizerac and Laura Berryhill will bring you the music and message based upon the theme of transformation with the intriguing title, “"Remake my World: Mythic Transformation and Renewal."