The Robin’s Nest

After being blessed to live through my 20s, 30s and 40s, I now enter my 50s with one sure fire belief — there is nothing we have to do except “be”. “I am the vine; you are the branches. If a man remains in me and I in him, he will bear much fruit; apart from me you can do nothing (John 15:5).”

This is a very freeing scripture because it says to me clearly that any notions that I may have of what I am, am to become or want in this life can be mine — as long as I stay connected to my Source. The mistake that we so often make is falling prey to the belief that we are responsible for our lives; sadly, the only thing that comes out of this is a lot of stress and mess as we try to “make” our lives happen. We pursue education believing that this will make our lives meaningful, and then we become disappointed when we don’t feel whole. We work long and hard for material possessions in the hopes that fulfillment will be a natural outcome of all that work, and then we become dejected when we still feel empty. We go on an endless pursuit of putting our faith in people and things thinking that if we just had this or that, our lives would be complete, and then we have the nerve to actually get angry when people don’t meet our expectations.

We postpone the happiness that is ours naturally and without price because we falsely believe we must suffer first, and suffer we do because we’re too obsessed with alot of “doing” and not “being”. We have even bought into the adage that our lives are a canvass and we are the painter — “just create in your mind a vision for your life and then paint it,” we’re told. But we prod along painting ourselves into stress and depression, all because we don’t seek God’s original and only plan for our lives.

When we study, meditate and accept John 15:5, we can relinquish the belief that we are responsible for our lives. I look at it this way — if God conceptualized and created me, He had to do it for a purpose, so it is His responsibility to sustain my life. My primary aim is to listen to the still, small voice for guidance and instructions. I am “to be”. Moses received the knowledge “I Am that I Am,” and because he listened, Moses moved past his doubts and what he thought was a handicap (stuttering) and became a great and more importantly, an obedient leader. It’s time for us to hear, truly hear those words, also.

The present tense of the verb “to be” is ‘I am.” Now, before you begin to think that I am about to embark upon a lesson on how to conjugate verbs, let me propose another way of viewing “I am.” I am proposing that instead of striving to become a thing, that we “be” that thing, and we can only do that after we have asked God for divine direction, and then proceed to follow His will for our lives. We spend countless hours, days, and even years working toward becoming something or someone, and usually that something is a prefabricated notion of who we think we are. This prefabrication or hynotism is often created from some external stimuli, some seconded hand knowledge of what constitutes success and happiness. We are simply not taught “to be” what God created us to be — we’re taught to be what we think God (really our will) wants us to be, not what He said we are to be.

If you connect yourself with the He that knew you before the foundations of the world, all that you are and all that you are meant to be and experience can’t help but to manifest. The beauty of this way of life produces the joy that we are meant to express every day –without worry. Instead of our words being “I want this or that,” we will naturally “Be anxious for nothing…(Philippinans 4:6-7).” We will find ourselves saying, “Speak Lord, thy servant heareth.” I firmly believe this is the path to joy. You can’t experience joy if you are bogged down with that which is not your business, but your Father’s. You can’t feel joy if you are too busy trying to make joy in your life. Let Him show you what joy is to look like in your life. All you have to do is ask Him.

Shakespeare’s Hamlet said, “To be or not to be that is the question.” But you and I know that the question really is “To be or not to be God’s child” — Now that is the question.