Make yourself available to God
By Edward Hirsch
Make yourself attractive to God to the point of being irresistible. How? Not by being the most physically attractive, or the strongest, or the most accomplished. No, God doesn’t need anything like that, as God already has beautiful leopards, mountains, galaxies, angels, beyond your imagination. No, what attracts God is an available soul, a soul available to God.
Make yourself so available to God that that is really all you care about. Make this the most important relationship of your life, indeed, the only relationship. For that is truly how it is. Then you don’t notice the little things that used to distract you, upset you, get you impatient, get you reactive. Make yourself available to God and you will find God is fully available to you. No exceptions.
Then you listen, you become sensitive to inner intuitions, promptings, inspirations. Start listening in your heart. Are you ready, are you worthy, are you worth God spending time with you, are you worth God investing His/Her precious and infinitely valuable time with you? Yes, for if that is even awake in you, God has brought you to this point and made you ready.
Perhaps you think (fear is the better word here) that God will be attracted to you but will quickly see through your facade and see your inner ugliness, impurity, with lifetimes of mistakes, misdeeds and layers and layers of obstructions, unfinished business, your soul weighed down by the endless chains of your past: endless quagmires of desires, fears, attachments, lusts, addictions, fascinations, complications, confusions, terrors, endlessly. Anyone with any awareness would quickly see all this and turn away in disgust and despair.
You might imagine that God judges you, saying, “I’ve tried everything; I’ve given you parents, teachers, friends, lovers, opportunities, books, instructions, pointers of all sorts, and still you don’t get it! With all I’ve given you, still you are ungrateful, unfeeling, unseeing. What am I to do? My hands are tied. You must make the first move now.” But that is all your imagination, except for the last word, “now.” For God does not live in the past, God is available, present, completely fresh in this moment. Now.
God is faithful, so you be faithful. God doesn’t give up, so you don’t give up. God keeps showing up, so you keep showing up. You don’t have to be perfect and show God an unblemished heart. That’s a fantasy and is not going to happen. God doesn’t need your perfection, for God only sees perfection, God’s own Perfection. You simply show up. Be spiritually selfish to the point of wanting God’s complete attention, for that is what God wants of you. Just you and God, like on an island in paradise, just the two of you. And when you get intimate with God, it becomes apparent that there is no two, there is no “God and …” and you melt into God.
The play goes on, is even renewed. All is in perfect timing, as it always was. Everything from your past, down to the smallest detail, has led you to this moment now. You need not be attached to any outcome, for God is taking care of all of that. You don’t need people to understand you or approve of you or love you. Beyond praise and blame, success and failure, reward and punishment, let go of expectations and demands. Let it all go and be in the Hands of God, as it truly is. Let go of care and be free, free in God. Fate or free will, good and evil, time and eternity, endless arguments and conundrums, these are not your concerns. You are not going to figure out any of this, you are not going to unravel God’s Mystery. And you don’t need to.
And now you know God’s secret, and that secret is Oneness, is Love, even beyond anything you think you know as love. So now you are open, you are fresh, you are available for whatever God wants from you, with you, in you, as you. And it is all God. That’s the laugh, and it is also deadly serious. Beyond tragedy and comedy, you enter a new world.
Edward Hirsch, M.A. teaches about the Practice of Presence at OLLI and offers free weekly Zoom meetings in the teachings and practices of Presence, Saturdays 1-2:30 p.m., on a drop-in basis. us02web.zoom.us/j/84805886301.
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