The Implications of the Impartiality of Spirit...

There is something both comforting and unsettling about considering that Spirit may be completely impartial.

We have spent much of our human history creating a God who behaves remarkably like we do. A God who rewards the faithful, punishes the wicked, grants favors, withholds blessings, chooses sides, and occasionally appears to have a vested interest in the outcome of sporting events.

Apparently, one team Prayed harder.

But what if Divine Love has no need to choose whom to Love?

The sun does not decide who deserves its warmth. Gravity does not inquire about our moral character before holding us to the Earth. A river does not refuse to carry someone because they have temporarily lost their Faith. These things simply remain available, and Spirit may be asking us to understand Divine Love in much the same way.

We tend to interpret the circumstances of our lives as evidence of Divine approval or rejection.

When something beautiful happens, we say we were blessed. When something painful happens, we wonder why God allowed it. When someone else receives the thing we have been Praying for, we quietly wonder what they did that we didn't.

But if the Divine exists within everything, how could Spirit favor one expression of itself over another?

There is a scene in William P. Young's The Shack that has stayed with me because it asks this question in an almost unbearable way.

Mack, who has endured the murder of his young daughter, is brought into a conversation about judgment. He has judgments about the person responsible for his daughter's death, judgments about humanity, and ultimately judgments about God for allowing such suffering to exist.

Then the question is turned back toward him.

Mack is asked to become the judge.

He must look at his own children and decide which will be welcomed into heaven and which will be condemned. He cannot do it. Whatever their differences, failures, struggles, or choices might be, they are his children. When forced to choose among them, judgment collides with Love.

He would rather offer himself than surrender one of them.

The scene does not need to tell us what to believe about God. It simply places a difficult question in our hands.

If our imperfect human Love can understand this, why would Divine Love be less capable of it?

A parent does not need five children to be identical in order to Love them equally. One may be struggling while another flourishes. One may make choices that break our heart. Another may travel a road we do not understand. We can recognize those differences without deciding that one child has become less worthy of Love.

There is the impartiality of Love...

Spirit does not have to approve of every human action in order to remain Present within every human being.

Love and consequence can coexist. Free Will and Divine Presence can coexist. Someone can travel terribly far from their highest expression without somehow traveling beyond the reach of the Divine.

That understanding asks something difficult of us because impartiality is much easier to embrace when we are the ones hoping to receive it.

It becomes considerably more challenging when we realize Divine Love must also extend to people we believe do not deserve it.

There is Mastery in that discomfort.

Spirit asks us to stop measuring Divine Love according to human ideas of deserving. The difficult season does not mean we are less Loved. The open door does not mean we are more deserving. The closed door does not mean we have been rejected.

This is Faith beginning to move from something we believe into something we practice.

It is easy to trust Spirit when the road opens exactly where we hoped it would. A different kind of Faith is required when the road turns somewhere we did not expect. An even deeper Faith is required when nothing seems to be happening at all.

Each of these moments invites another level of Mastery.

Not Mastery over life. Not spiritual superiority. Not reaching some elevated place where we no longer need the Divine.

Spiritual Mastery is something much more intimate. It is becoming so familiar with the Presence of Spirit that we no longer require constant reassurance that Spirit is there.

At first, we ask Spirit to show us the way. As the relationship deepens, we begin to recognize the way.

Eventually, we are asked to choose the way and take the step ourselves.

The relationship has not disappeared. It has matured.

This same impartiality exists in Guidance.

Spirit doesn't waste notes on the page...

We sometimes approach Prayer expecting a detailed response. We want direction, but we would also appreciate an explanation, a timeline, supporting documentation, and a brief overview of the anticipated outcome. If charts are available, even better.

Spirit seems considerably less interested in our presentation requirements.

Sometimes we Pray and what comes is simply: Go. Stay. Wait. Call. No.

That may be the entire message.

Our human mind immediately wants the why. Why should I go? How long should I wait? What happens if I stay? What happens after I make the call?

We receive direction and immediately request a follow-up meeting with management.

But Guidance is direction. It is not necessarily explanation. The why belongs to the journey.

This is another invitation into Mastery because we must learn the difference between receiving Guidance and receiving enough information to make ourselves comfortable.

They are not the same thing.

If we truly Pray for Guidance, become still, and one word comes, there is a moment of choice. We can honor what we received, or we can continue asking until the answer begins to resemble the one we wanted in the first place.

Faith says, "I heard you," and then Faith moves.

There will also be times when we Pray and nothing comes.

That silence can frighten us. We have been conditioned to believe Divine Guidance should always feel like something. A sign. A synchronicity. A dream. A feather. A number appearing repeatedly. A song arriving at exactly the right moment.

Those experiences can hold tremendous meaning, but sometimes a license plate is just a license plate.

When we sincerely ask for Guidance and receive nothing, silence does not have to mean abandonment. It can simply mean there is no new instruction.

Stay the course.

There is another kind of Faith required here. It is the Faith to continue walking without constantly asking Spirit to confirm every step.

There comes a point in any loving relationship when trust must become strong enough to survive the spaces between words.

Think of a child learning to walk. At first, we hold both hands. Then one hand. Eventually we walk beside them. One day they move ahead of us without looking back every few seconds to make sure we are still there.

We did not stop Loving them. We trusted what they had learned.

This is where the impartiality of Spirit begins to feel very different.

What initially sounded like Divine distance begins to reveal itself as something much more beautiful.

Spirit may have enough Faith in us not to steal the experience from us.

If every decision were answered, every mistake prevented, every road clearly marked, every consequence removed, and every Prayer accompanied by a detailed explanation, we would certainly feel protected. But would we become spiritually mature?

We might not develop Faith at all. We might develop dependence.

There is a difference.

This does not mean every painful circumstance was deliberately placed in our path because Spirit decided we needed a lesson.

I struggle with that idea.

When tragedy enters someone's life, telling them God did it so they could grow may be one of the least compassionate things we can offer.

It turns Spirit into the author of suffering and then asks the wounded person to be grateful for the curriculum.

I believe there is another way to understand it.

Spirit does not have to create the circumstance in order to remain Present within it.

Human beings have Free Will. Other people make choices that affect us. Bodies become ill. Accidents happen. Nature moves according to its own laws. We inhabit a material world where actions have consequences and where painful things can happen without requiring us to believe that God personally arranged them.

Spirit can still meet us there.

That is another form of impartiality.

The Divine does not abandon us in the darkness simply because it did not prevent the darkness from arriving.

Guidance remains available. Love remains available. Companionship remains available. What we choose to Create from that moment remains ours.

This is where Faith becomes action.

Spirit's refusal to interfere is not necessarily distance. It can be Spirit having enough Faith in us not to take away the very experience through which we discover what we are capable of becoming.

We spend so much of our lives trying to develop Faith in Spirit.

Maybe somewhere along the way we discover that Spirit has been demonstrating Faith in us.

That changes the relationship.

We begin to move from petitioners of the Divine into Companions of the Divine...

Talk to the Is as though it were right beside you all the time.

Talk while driving. Talk while cooking dinner. Talk while walking through the woods or sitting alone in the morning. Talk when you are grateful and when you are furious. Talk when you are confused. Talk when nothing particularly spiritual is happening.

Prayer does not always require folded hands and sacred language. Sometimes Prayer is simply saying, "Well, what do you think?"

Then becoming quiet enough to listen.

As that Companionship deepens, Guidance may become less dramatic because it no longer needs to be dramatic. A whisper becomes enough. A feeling becomes enough. One word becomes enough. Eventually, even silence can become enough because we know the relationship has not disappeared simply because the conversation became quiet.

This is what I mean by Mastery.

Not Mastery over the Divine. Not Mastery over other people. Not some spiritual merit badge proving we have finally figured out the universe.

Mastery is becoming responsible for our participation in the relationship.

It is learning to recognize Guidance without demanding explanation. It is learning to remain Faithful when circumstances do not look like what we Prayed for. It is learning that silence does not mean abandonment and that difficulty does not mean punishment.

At each new level of understanding, Spirit seems to ask a little more of us.

At first, "Trust that I am here."

Then, "Trust what you heard."

Then, "Trust what you have learned."

And eventually, "Now walk."

This is where we begin to understand Co-creation.

Spirit is not here to live our lives for us. If we ask for direction and receive Go, Spirit does not then have to pack our suitcase, buy the ticket, open the door, and physically shove us through it.

At some point, we have to get off the couch.

The Guidance is the direction. The human is the action. Creation happens through the relationship between the two.

This means we cannot continually ask the Divine to Create a life we are unwilling to participate in.

We cannot Pray for change while refusing to move. We cannot Pray for healing while gripping everything that keeps the wound alive. We cannot Pray for a new direction while demanding to see the entire road before taking the first step.

The next step may simply be all that belongs to us right now.

Each time we take it, something changes. We become a little less dependent on reassurance and a little more capable of discernment.

We begin recognizing the difference between fear and intuition, between desire and Guidance, between the voice demanding certainty and the quieter voice that simply knows where the next step is.

That is Mastery.

Not controlling life, but becoming responsible for our participation in it. Not becoming independent of Spirit, but becoming so intimate with Spirit that we can walk without demanding constant proof that we are accompanied.

We are Co-creators because both sides of the relationship matter.

Spirit offers direction. We decide whether to move.

Spirit offers Love. We decide what to do with it.

Spirit remains Present within the circumstances of our lives. We decide what we will Create from them.

There will still be wrong turns. There will still be moments when we confuse our desires for Guidance.

There will still be times when we look toward the heavens and say, "A little clarification would be appreciated here."

We are human. Apparently that remains part of the arrangement.

But Faith was never meant to eliminate uncertainty. Faith gives us the courage to walk within it.

The impartiality of Spirit is not the absence of Love. It may be one of its deepest expressions...

Spirit does not choose favorites because there are no outsiders to the Divine. Spirit does not live our lives because our experience matters. Spirit does not explain every direction because some understanding can only be found by walking the road.

And Spirit does not always answer because sometimes we already know enough to take the next step.

There is a quiet invitation within all of this.

Listen when Guidance comes. Trust when it doesn't. Act when direction is given. Stay the course when it is not.

Allow every new understanding to become another invitation into Mastery, not Mastery over life, but Mastery of our participation within it.

The child asks, "Will you hold my hand?"

Later, "Will you walk beside me?"

Then one day, without needing to look over their shoulder:

"I know you're there."

That may be one of the deepest expressions of Faith available to us.

Not requiring Spirit to continually prove its Presence.

Knowing.

We spend our lives learning to have Faith in the Divine, only to discover that the Divine has been placing Faith in us all along.

The Guidance is the direction.

The human is the action.

And somewhere in that sacred meeting between the two, we stop merely asking Spirit to participate in our lives and begin consciously participating in Spirit.

That is where Faith becomes Creation. Blessings, Love & Light...