Sometimes people say they like to help others; perhaps you do. It seems like a good idea.
But I’m not concerned about what you can do for others, because you cannot do anything for them – except defeat your own fears.
If you were to defeat your own fears, then you could help others.
If you could defeat your own fears, then you would suddenly be a living fire of possibility, which others would gather around, drawn to the warmth amid their cold.
But we do not embark on the spiritual journey for the sake of others.
If the perceived requirements of others are our primary concern, there is a distortion in the process, ensuring our journey becomes an exercise in deceit, vanity or escapism.
I remember a young man coming to see me. He wanted to teach the world beautiful things; perhaps save it even.
‘I definitely feel called to be a teacher,’ he said.
‘And what will you teach?’ I asked.
‘I don’t know,’ he said, crest-fallen.
He didn’t know because his life was unhappy and struggling. He wanted the role; but did not have the substance within to make it authentic.
People wish to save others because they fear facing themselves; instead of facing themselves, they offer needy care to others, opting for the comforting applause of the admiring world.
They are like the ill determined to share their disease with others.
Jesus had similar issues with the pharisees. ‘You are desperate to make converts of people – yet make them make them twice as much a child of hell as you are.’
All they have to pass on is their fear.
We, however, face our fear, and for no other reason than that we ourselves would like to be free…to know moments free of fear.
And this stepping out always starts now, in this moment in time.
You start from your present understanding, and the meaning and the truth is discovered in the journey, whether it brings mountains, shipwrecks, buried treasure, dead ends, sunsets, wounds, avalanche or rainbow.
It may bring all of these… but maybe it need not bring fear.
Life is allowing the unfolding rather than fearing it.
In such submission, there is no one, and no thing, which can hurt you. Fear retires for lack of employment.
You witness the slow dawning in your life, like a sunrise, that you really do exist, you really do matter and that fear has no dominion.
And fear shall have no dominion
And fear shall have no dominion
