Ten years ago, I was on a mission trip in Costa Rica. I had saved up
what I thought was the perfect amount of money to live for six weeks.
What I didn't think about was the fact that my drinking wouldn't stop
just because I was out of the United States.
And, I didn't budget that in.
And so, halfway through the trip, I was out of money.
What do you do when you're out of money and you have no other way to get it?
Take out loans.
So, I picked up the phone, got on the automated line with my credit union, and had money wired within 24 hours.
And, in two weeks I was out of pocket again. So, I repeated the loan process.
Not only was I living in the delusion that my drinking would stop based on geographical location, but I was under the impression that common sense would answer my financial problems.
If something's wrong, take the first logical solution to fix it.
What I failed to see was that my drinking was out of hand, and that I was taking out loans that would shadow me for years to come. But all I wanted was a quick fix. And I got it.
What I've learned since then (after many times of doing this same thing) is that if I look a little deeper (assuming that I'm able to), I'll find that my problems are all spiritual.
While not having money is a very physical problem at surface level, there is a whole realm of spiritual makeup lying underneath.
Car trouble. Breakups. Unemployment. Bad hygiene. Lack of communication. Broken relationships.
Underneath all of the problems we face, no matter how great or minute, is a world of spiritual information about ourselves. And, the reason so many of us fail to sink to these depths is, it's just so damn hard to wait.
Right now, I'm without a car. It's totaled. I don't know what's gonna happen. I don't know if the insurance is gonna do anything.
Common sense tells me to go take out a loan and get on with it.
But, there's this uncommon sense, this inner voice, that keeps telling me to wait, to be patient, to see what's in store.
And, it's taking everything I have to listen to this uncommon voice.
Why is it so hard to not jump after the first solution that comes to mind? Because it's unnatural to let problems linger.
When
I hurt, I want medicine immediately. When I'm angry, I want peace
immediately. When I'm afraid, I want courage immediately. When I don't
have a ride, I want to get to where I need to go immediately.
There's a whole world of people out there - called homeless - who have a much greater understanding of this concept than I do. There's a whole treasure chest full of wisdom waiting to be had there. They have to wait because in order to take a simple step, they have to take five or ten more steps than we do just to do the simplest things like go to the store.
The God I believe doesn't think like a human being. This God doesn't think like a boss, a parent, a teacher, a pastor, a president, or a financial advisor.
How many times do we find ourselves applying this statement to our problems: "Surely God would want me to do . . . "
While it sounds spiritual, we immediately fuse our common sense solutions with what we think God would do, but what it looks like is what everybody else does in this situation.
I have a really hard time believing that the answers God would have for whatever situations come up are status quo answers.
So, a healthy thing to do when facing any problematic situation is to make a handwritten or mental list of the first solutions that come to mind.
For me right now (in the problem of not having a car), the list looks like:
Get a loan. Set up monthly payments. Drain the mutual fund. Drain my vacation pay.
Once the list is made, fold it up and put it away for safekeeping. Now, start praying and see what happens. Chances are that certain people are gonna be talking. Random people are going to show up. Seemingly random opportunities are going to present themselves.
Write these down. You'll most likely notice that these things are much different than the original list?
Why?
Because this human, natural, survival mode way of thinking has been put on hold. The need for immediate gratification has been put to rest for a little bit,
and,
when this happens, a whole world of opportunity shows up that we would never have known about had we gone with the first options.
Now, we have entered a realm of spirituality that involves characteristics like trust, faith, patience, and adventure.
Instead of having common sense, logical solutions to physical, logical problems,
we have
inspired spiritual solutions to inherently spiritual problems.
We find that the solutions to our problems are not as predictable as we once thought they were, and along the way we're catapulted into a way of thinking that has the possibility of
completely . . .
rocking . . .
our worlds.
And, I didn't budget that in.
And so, halfway through the trip, I was out of money.
What do you do when you're out of money and you have no other way to get it?
Take out loans.
So, I picked up the phone, got on the automated line with my credit union, and had money wired within 24 hours.
And, in two weeks I was out of pocket again. So, I repeated the loan process.
Not only was I living in the delusion that my drinking would stop based on geographical location, but I was under the impression that common sense would answer my financial problems.
If something's wrong, take the first logical solution to fix it.
What I failed to see was that my drinking was out of hand, and that I was taking out loans that would shadow me for years to come. But all I wanted was a quick fix. And I got it.
What I've learned since then (after many times of doing this same thing) is that if I look a little deeper (assuming that I'm able to), I'll find that my problems are all spiritual.
While not having money is a very physical problem at surface level, there is a whole realm of spiritual makeup lying underneath.
Car trouble. Breakups. Unemployment. Bad hygiene. Lack of communication. Broken relationships.
Underneath all of the problems we face, no matter how great or minute, is a world of spiritual information about ourselves. And, the reason so many of us fail to sink to these depths is, it's just so damn hard to wait.
Right now, I'm without a car. It's totaled. I don't know what's gonna happen. I don't know if the insurance is gonna do anything.
Common sense tells me to go take out a loan and get on with it.
But, there's this uncommon sense, this inner voice, that keeps telling me to wait, to be patient, to see what's in store.
And, it's taking everything I have to listen to this uncommon voice.
Why is it so hard to not jump after the first solution that comes to mind? Because it's unnatural to let problems linger.
There's a whole world of people out there - called homeless - who have a much greater understanding of this concept than I do. There's a whole treasure chest full of wisdom waiting to be had there. They have to wait because in order to take a simple step, they have to take five or ten more steps than we do just to do the simplest things like go to the store.
The God I believe doesn't think like a human being. This God doesn't think like a boss, a parent, a teacher, a pastor, a president, or a financial advisor.
How many times do we find ourselves applying this statement to our problems: "Surely God would want me to do . . . "
While it sounds spiritual, we immediately fuse our common sense solutions with what we think God would do, but what it looks like is what everybody else does in this situation.
I have a really hard time believing that the answers God would have for whatever situations come up are status quo answers.
So, a healthy thing to do when facing any problematic situation is to make a handwritten or mental list of the first solutions that come to mind.
For me right now (in the problem of not having a car), the list looks like:
Get a loan. Set up monthly payments. Drain the mutual fund. Drain my vacation pay.
Once the list is made, fold it up and put it away for safekeeping. Now, start praying and see what happens. Chances are that certain people are gonna be talking. Random people are going to show up. Seemingly random opportunities are going to present themselves.
Write these down. You'll most likely notice that these things are much different than the original list?
Why?
Because this human, natural, survival mode way of thinking has been put on hold. The need for immediate gratification has been put to rest for a little bit,
and,
when this happens, a whole world of opportunity shows up that we would never have known about had we gone with the first options.
Now, we have entered a realm of spirituality that involves characteristics like trust, faith, patience, and adventure.
Instead of having common sense, logical solutions to physical, logical problems,
we have
inspired spiritual solutions to inherently spiritual problems.
We find that the solutions to our problems are not as predictable as we once thought they were, and along the way we're catapulted into a way of thinking that has the possibility of
completely . . .
rocking . . .
our worlds.
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