Today at church I had a moment of clarity. When I think about it now it seems in your face obvious, even common sense. When you hit the bottom, there is no where to go but up. The possibility of growth through helplessness is limitless.
This morning I went to my mom’s church. The preacher there is known for his bare knuckle approach to a Godly lifestyle. He isn’t afraid of the hard parts, and he wants his congregation be aware of the traps of a softness.
His message today was one he should have trademarked. It can be summed up as, “God chooses you, you don’t choose God.” It is not an easy pill to swallow. I have heard him preach this before and I just walk away angry because he doesn’t say anything to all the people who weren’t chosen.
He assumes that just becasue you are in church, God has chosen you.
However, today I realized that this line of thinking is just a defensive line that I draw becasue I want to have some power. That is the real message. You have no power over your life.
We all try to exercise power. We may even do Dopamine Challenges to try and gain control.
I was reading my log of my first dopamine challenge on Saturday, and then the pastor basically said it in his sermon verbatim.
We think, “once I pay off my debts,” or “once I loose 10 pounds,” or “once I gain full self control,” or “once I figure out what this means,” then I will be happy.
But, what if we accept that all the onces will never end. Where could we go if we attempted growth through helplessness? (I highly recommend this TED Talk on Vulnerability if you want a power secular argument for the power of helplessness)
There would be freedom. Think about it – what if you could just trust the universe. Fear would no longer be boss.
When the concept of heaven is real in my mind, I often ask myself if I can see myself there. The scary thing is that the answer is no. The interesting part is that I can tell that it is me standing in the way.
In a way it is my pride. However, the word pride has too much imagery attached to it so it is hard to see why pride is so important.
The amazing part about knowing that God chooses us and we don’t choose him, is it erases us altogether. We just need to give up and listen.
This takes faith. It will not work if we believe the universe hates us. We need to believe that there is a place for us in the circle of life and be willing to helplessly follow.
I guess my enlightening moment from church this morning is a concept that you have to feel more than know. So, I am sorry if I you couldn’t really understand what I meant.
I don’t mean that quitting all forms of fake dopamine stimulation is a waste of time. We need to be clear minded to be able to properly see ourselves. However, to truly ground freedom, it needs to be planted in reality.
This means that we must accept the truth of our own helplessness. Only then can we truly grow.
3 Thing To-Do List
- Go to ToastMasters (this is going to be a hard one I really don’t feel like going!)
- Finish editing book
- Make outline for conclusionÂ