What prevents us from living in the flow? Is it a choice that we make continually, deciding to trust completely?
What limits us? I'm sure it's different for each of us. For me, it is fear, anxiety, the illusion of control, and the desire to be efficient, sensible, practical, and prudent.
These questions reminded me of the following verses: "I can’t tell you how much I long for you to enter this wide-open, spacious life. We didn’t fence you in. The smallness you feel comes from within you. Your lives aren’t small, but you’re living them in a small way. I’m speaking as plainly as I can and with great affection. Open up your lives. Live openly and expansively!" (2 Corinthians 6:11-13 MSG)
My friend, SR, has stage 4 lung cancer. She has completely surrendered to God's will precisely because of her suffering. She has given up the illusion of control. She lives a wide-open, spacious, abundant life, splashing around in God's flowing stream, being carried by the current, willing to go wherever God carries her. I, on the other hand, am still collecting my canoe, paddles, life vests, food, water, bug spray, and first aid supplies; I'll most likely spend my entire life on this earth preparing for all possible eventualities and never enter the stream. When we have lots of options, it is difficult to trust God completely. SR could choose to be bitter, discouraged, sorrowful--but instead, she has chosen a life of acceptance and glorifying God.
Prayers for continue strength of calm for SR.
ReplyDeleteIt sounds like SR lives by the fact she is a spiritual being having a human experience and death will only be of the body she is in now and not in her eternal spirit.