I’m teaching about ships this week and guiding students in drawing them. Therefore, my mind is own ships and sailing.
Just as sailors never know exactly what they will encounter when they set out on the ocean, we don’t know what we will encounter in our lives here on earth.
When the winds are right, the sailing is smooth.
If a ship’s captain did not have a destination in mind, make decisions in moments of clarity and know how to interpret the elements or know how to use his/her navigational equipment, the outcome could be devastating.
Your Ship, Your Life
Ships depended on the winds and currents for sailing.
Imagine your life is a ship, one that depends on wind and sails.
The launching point is when you are born into this world and the docking point is when you leave it. Therefore, the time in between launching and docking is your journey.
There are other boats on the sea, other lives, but they’re not your boats. You are not meant to control their journeys or their destinations. You’re only responsibility is your boat.
External Forces
Forces are things outside us like storms at sea.
As you sail on your journey there are environmental forces all around you, winds, waves, currents, sharks, whales, pirates, gales, hurricanes, rain, heat, and cold. You get the picture. These forces are outside of you. They are beyond your control. They will hit your ship at times.
Effort
You can’t do anything about the external environment around your ship. You can’t control the wind, the storms, the currents or the waves, but you can lay in your course, and you can hold true to your map and navigational instruments.
That part of your journey IS in your control. It’s the effort guided by intuitive inspiration. Remember, inspiration comes from the Latin word “inspirare” which means, breathed into.
Efforts are the things that are under your control. For example, on your boat, effort is how taut you hold the sail, whether you come about, or which side of the boat the sail is going to be on as you navigate the winds.
How we hold our rudders and stay our course is due to effort.
It’s up to you to hold the rudder a certain way so that both the currents and the winds affect your journey. It’s up to you to be attuned to the elements of the sea, signs and subtle changes.
A good sailor knows how to optimize the direction of the wind, the flow of the currents and the aspects of his/her boat and put these things together in a way that takes him or her where they want to go.
Favorable winds are God’s grace, and they can propel us forward if we are sensitive to them and their timing.
You can live your life divinely guided, inspired and with purpose.
Set the Destination with Clarity
What do I mean when I say purpose?
I mean living a life that propels you to becoming the highest version of yourself, a life that fills you with inner peace, contentment, and joy, that allows you to use your unique skills, talents, vision, and voice to impact the world around you in a positive way. For each person this will be different.
You have to decide what kind of person you want to be. What do you want your life to be about? Your guidance system? When you set your course, do it in moments of clarity. When there is confusion and turmoil, don’t lay in a course.
Old time sailors used to set their courses by the stars. If you don’t have a guiding star, a pole star, you will not be able to keep your course. You will be blown off every time the wind changes directions.
In life, it’s the same way. If you have no idea what your guidelines are, the kind of life you want to live, where your boundaries lie, or the kind of person you want to be, there’s a good chance that the winds are going to blow you all over the place and that pirates, thieves from other ships, are going to overrun your life, hijack you and take you places you never really wanted to go. Then one day you wake up in a holding cell on somebody else’s ship.
If You Don’t Set Your Intentions, Someone Else Will Call the Shots for Your Life
Stay the Course
Sometimes the sailing will be smooth and easy. The winds will be favorable, and the currents will carry you toward your destination. For every wind that blows and for every weather pattern and ocean current there is an optimal way to sail toward your destination.
There are other times when the wind will lay or else it’s blowing you in the wrong direction, away from where you want to go, away from who you want to be. You may even encounter a horrendous storm.
Your best bet at times like these may be to lower the sails and stay put until you are certain you’re moving in the way you want to ultimately go. Even a good wind, if it’s blowing in the wrong direction can take you off course. Sometimes, in our lives, in moments of enthusiasm or confusion, we follow every wind that blows and end up nowhere at all.
So, if the clarity is not there, wait it out. Just do the best you can with the understanding that you have. When you seek clarity, even if you’re standing still, you’re still moving in the right direction because you’re not going off course.
There will come times when new clarity comes to you and helps you make course adjustments and hone your direction. That’s fine. It’s okay to change course in the light of clearer understanding.
There will come times when other people may want you to make a quick decision that has a big impact on your life. If you’re not clear on it, if you don’t have peace about it, it’s okay to just wait. Remember, their boat is not your boat, and you are only responsible for your boat. Your purpose in life is not to make everyone else happy.
That’s an impossibility. Because happiness can only come from within and since you are an external force in their lives, you have no control over their ships and they have no control over yours, unless you surrender it. If you surrender your ship to invaders, even benevolent ones, you will never reach your destination and become the self-actualized version of yourself.
So, seek clarity and once you find it, plot your destination, set your intention, make adjustments in light of new clarity, stay the course and sail toward your purpose, your calling.
I’m sitting here early on a Sunday morning, sipping coffee at the kitchen table, listening to two of my favorite sounds, the clicking clock and the humming fridge. Outside it’s been drizzling rain. I take pleasure in slow rain. It brings me a sense of calm, like the ticking clock and humming fridge.
I think about my life and smile. Lately, I’ve experienced a life-altering moment of profound clarity. Every action that I’ve taken in the days since then have been because of that life-altering moment, a moment that changed my entire outlook on myself and on my life. I call this moment, the Quickening.
I take the word quickening from Romans 8:11 where the apostle, Paul, uses the Greek word, zoopoieo (quickening) to refer to the way the spirit of God makes a person “alive.” So, to quicken something is to make it fully alive.
The last time that happened, I was thirteen. Can a person have more than one life-altering moment, more than one moment of coming to life, more than one awakening? more than one quickening?
I believe they can.
A quickening moment is best described as an awakening. We all wake up every day in the natural, so too, we can re-awaken in the spiritual sense. We may need to re-awaken because we allowed ourselves to be lulled to sleep.
Some people wake up in an instant and spring into their day. Others wake up slowly and go through a morning ritual of sorts before they’re truly alert. Well, spiritually, it’s the same way. However, it happens for you, a quickening moment is a spiritual awakening that shifts the entire meaning of your life and outlook on everything and everyone. It’s a moment when you wake up and are “born again.”
TWO REALITIES
There are Two Realities
There are two realms of existence.
We will call one realm the physical realm and the other realm the spiritual realm, (Kingdom (realm) of God (Supreme Magistrate, Divinity). We could even say that there is God’s reality and physical reality.
The spiritual realm has no starting point and no stopping point. The laws of physics do not apply to this realm. They apply to physical reality. The physical reality is inferior to the spiritual reality in that it is temporary and subject to the laws of thermodynamics.
The laws of the spirit realm operate on principles of a particular kind of energy and that energy is the creative force behind all that exists in the physical realm.
That energy is God, love, the source of all.
The physical realm is like parentheses in eternity. The beginning and ending parentheses are time. Or we could think of the physical realm as a bubble floating in the vast expanse of the spirit realm. The spirit realm is so much more expansive that everything inside the bubble is minute in comparison.
Now beings from the spiritual realm can take on a carnal, physical form and enter the physical realm for a time. While they’re there they experience what it means to be finite, to have a beginning and an ending.
So often these beings come into the physical realm and experience trauma, hardship, and pain, because they forget who they are and, just like Adam and Eve in the garden, they believe a temporal lie that enslaves them while they’re here.
ONE SPECIAL BEING
However, there was one particularly unique being from the spirit realm who came with all of his memories and awareness of his true origins still intact. This being defied the laws of physics at every turn, starting with his birth. He was born to a virgin. He walked on water. He raised the dead, healed the sick and confounded the most brilliant and highly educated minds of his day.
He never sought earthly credentials and was unmoved by both praise and criticism. These things meant little if anything to him because he knew who he was, where he was from, why he was here and where he was going.
Nonetheless, his final demonstration of the origin of humanity was when he allowed himself to be crucified and laid in a grave. Then he left his physical body for three days before returning to it, healing it, and reanimating it. (see Romans 8:11)
He came to open our eyes and show us who we are and the kind of life we are meant to live while we’re in this physical realm. He said, “…he (those) that believes on me (trust me, adhere to what I say) the works that I do shall he do also; and greater works than these shall he do; because I go unto my Father.”
In another place he said that he had come to give us life and life more abundantly. He said he came to seek and to rescue those who were lost, off their path, wandering around with spiritual amnesia.
So, now that we’ve established that there are two realms of existence and that we are really spiritual beings having a physical experience, let’s look at how to get our memories back! What happens when that occurs?
My aunt tells me that I am an alien because I carry a gene for being Rh-. I tell her that she’s right. I am an alien, but it’s got nothing to do with blood type.
This body that I’m in is merely the vehicle that I travel in while I’m here. It’s like Iron Man’s suit. It allows me to interact with the physical world. I’m actually an energy being, and I came from another realm, an energy realm.
I’M JUST PASSING THROUGH
So, you could say that I’m an eternal spirit being who is having a temporary physical experience. It’s like I’m on vacation here and I came to visit the pyramid, and whether you realize it or not, so did you. The problem is that after we’ve been here awhile, we get culturally acclimated and forget who we truly are. Our GPS goes offline, apparently.
Visiting the pyramid.
Now about this pyramid that we’re experiencing while we’re here, at the base, you have the need to feed yourself, for finding shelter and water.
As you move up the pyramid you discover that you have the need for companionship, connection to others, a sense of belonging and a need for acceptance and to feel loved.
At the tip top of the pyramid is a need for purpose. It’s where you live your life as if why you’re here is clear to you, and you feel that the essence of who you are is being actualized. You begin to realize that you are not the vehicle that you’re traveling in. The goal in this life is to get to the top of the pyramid and remember WHO WE ARE.
WHO ARE YOU?
If I asked you, “Who are you?” You might reply by telling me your name, but if I called you something else, would you continue to exist as yourself? Of course, you would. You still exist regardless of what I call you.
If I asked you who you are and you say, “I’m Fred’s wife?” Then if Fred leaves you, do you cease to exist? No. You would continue to exist.
Who you are is not somebody’s spouse or mother or girlfriend, husband, brother, father etc. These things may be a part of your existence, but who you are is an eternal and mighty spiritual being, not some title that you were assigned when you were born into this world.
ETERNAL SPIRITUAL BEINGS
Wayne Dyer said that the telling question of a person’s life is found in their relationship to the Infinite Source of All, God. Until you have a relationship with the Infinite Source of All you will not know anything about purpose, and you will not know who you are. You will not realize why you are here.
So, I could say that my relationship to the divine defines who I am and yours determines who you are. Paul said, “Know you not that you are the temple of the Holy Spirit?” The essence of the Almighty is traveling around in our little bodies.
Jesus once said, “God’s kingdom is coming, but not in a way that you will be able to see with your eyes. 21 People will not say, ‘Look, here it is!’ or, ‘There it is!’ because God’s kingdom is withinyou.” Luke 17:20-21 NCV
And again, Jesus says, “For verily I say unto you, That whosoever shall say unto this mountain, Be thou removed, and be thou cast into the sea; and shall not doubt in his heart, but shall believe that those things which he saith shall come to pass; he shall have whatsoever he saith.” Mark 11:23
It is from the world within that the world without is created. The Apostle Paul tells us to set our affections on the eternal things rather than temporal things. Why?
Because–temporal things owe their existence to eternal things. All things that are manifested in this physical realm must first be called into existence in the spiritual realm. So, how do you do that? Call those things that are not as though they were?
ASK and it is GIVEN.
You do it by asking, then appreciating that the thing you asked for is already given. Jesus said, “Ask and it will be given to you; seek and you will find; knock and the door will be opened to you.” (Matthew 7:7)
What should we ask for and how do we do it?
Jesus gave us a good model:
Our Father in Heaven hallowed be your name–be appreciative.
your kingdom come–the kingdom of God is within me, and I operate based on the laws of the spiritual universe.
your will be done on earth as it is in heaven—I will be in alignment with your Way. I will trust you with all my heart and not adjust my behavior and attitudes to match those of the prevailing societal illusions around me, but rather turn them in the path of peace. I will seek peace and ensue it. And you will direct my steps.
Give me this day my daily bread—thank you for meeting all my needs, according to your great riches in glory. You do exceedingly abundantly above my wildest dreams through your power that works within me.
forgive me for my trespasses–thank you for not holding anything against me.
as I forgive those who trespass against me–I release any resentment that I may have towards anyone and realize that there are no justified resentments. I do not hold anything against anyone.
lead me not into temptation–do not let me go inward, where I focus on the illusion of lack, trying to solve things on my own and “fix” them based on my own limited knowledge. Keep me from self-sabotage, and do not let me listen to those who have not received the revelation that you desire us to live peaceful, joyful, and abundant lives.
Deliver me from evil–rescue me from harmful traps, ill-will, hurt, and degeneracy.
for yours is the kingdom–your mighty reality, realm, that I’m living in.
and the power–your miraculous force, abundant ability, strength flowing through me.
and the glory–dignity, honor
forever–perpetually without end.
Amen–Surely.
WHERE YOUR TREASURE IS
People focus on the treasures of this physical reality but it’s in the realm of the Spirit where the true treasures lie. For the things which are visible are not made of the things which we can see or experience with our five senses.
We, because we contain the essence or spirit of God, can literally call those things that are not as though they were. The key is to do with while maintaining the joyous state we would feel if we saw them right in front of us. That’s what “faith” is, rejoicing the moment you ask for a thing as if though you’re already experiencing it.
FEAR NOT
Knowing that while we are currently experiencing this world, in it, but not of it, that we are spiritual beings having physical experiences, why would we ever fear lack? Why would we ever fear death? Knowing the truth of who we are frees us from the limiting laws of the physical reality.
I am remembering stories from the Bible now and in light of this current understanding, they all make sense. Of course, Jesus calmed the sea. He wielded a higher power. Of course, an earthquake freed Paul and Silas from prison. The power of appreciation and praise sets the laws of the spiritual universe into motion. No wonder Jehosophat won a battle through praise alone! Praise, appreciation for the goodness of God, literally turns the tide in our favor. Everything works out when we go forth with praise and appreciation or as it says in the Tao Te Ching, verse 4, “…Within it (the divine Way) the sharp edges become smooth; the twisted knots loosen; the sun is softened by a cloud; the dust settles into place…”
The laws of this physical universe are subject to the laws of the spiritual universe and all things in this life are temporal, yet we are eternal. We are loved. We operate on a higher plane of existence. No wonder Paul said, “Do not be conformed to the pattern of this world but be transformed by the renewing of your mind.” Romans 12:2.
Renew your mind. Be born again so that you may perceive, understand and experience the Kingdom of God, the abundant, divine, and eternal realm of existence.
