A number of years ago I heard a famous celebrity talk about a book called, The Artist’s Way by Julia Cameron. The author wrote the book with the intention of helping people recover their creative tendencies by following a spiritual path leading ultimately to greater self awareness and self confidence. One of the main exercises in the work featured something called Morning Pages. Morning Pages are to be written in a journal first thing in the morning endeavoring to fill three pages with whatever is on your mind. The idea being to unlock things that have been going on in your mind and gain greater clarity concerning your purpose and whatever it is you have to offer the world. Enter Morning Pages.
After reading the book, I began my own journey writing my pages every morning. At first my pages were literally filled with whatever was on my mind, but after some time I began to adapt my process to something I found more beneficial for me. My early pages were usually filled with complaints and negative scenarios, fears, worries and whatever it was that I was angry about at the time. As time passed I began to notice that my thoughts were very similar day by day and that I did not enjoy whatever it was I had written on the previous day. To some extent I was writing the same old stuff with different content and context. I noticed I had developed some patterns of thought that were not healthy. I began to gain clarity about where I was at the time. As the clarity continued, I began to recognize that my Morning Pages had a spiritual component to them. It was as if God was working with me to overcome my challenges. The more I wrote and the more honest I was about what I wrote, the more light I received to help me navigate through my challenges and overcome them. Eventually my Morning Pages evolved into direct conversations with God as that was what appeared to be happening anyway. Instead of whining away about everything like a victim, I began to inquire with God directly concerning my difficulties and negative patterns. I asked lots of questions to my ‘Papa,’ as I like to call Him, and the more I asked the more He answered me. Sometimes things would just suddenly become crystal clear. Other times I found myself on a journey of discovery. Often Papa would bring His Word to my mind which always led to some personal study ideas after I had finished writing. Eventually I looked forward to my precious morning time with Papa and the opportunities I had for learning new things. Enter clarity.
I think one of the most beneficial things people could profit from in their lives is greater clarity. It is so easy, as you’re living your life, to get entangled in a giant spaghetti bowl of confusing and distracting thoughts. Sometimes you are anxious and you have no idea why. Other times you begin to see recurring patterns. At times you might recognize that you aren’t being honest with yourself and other people and vow to do otherwise. We humans are complex beings and we need a little time to sort things out. Ignoring issues and problems only leads to more difficulties. We live busy lives and there is always a demand for our time. Yet we can become so discombobulated that we start missing out on life and experiences. Instead of being clear in our minds we walk around half distracted and half afraid. There always seems to be something that demands our concern and it begins to unravel us. Morning Pages is the time we need to unravel the messes. It’s a time to talk about how our lives are going with Someone who not only cares about us, but has the specifics we need to get back to being blessed. Instead of rushing into the day harried and upset, we can embrace the day with focused eyes and a clear, unafraid heart. There is just no substitute for that. As I began to grow, I realized that my Morning Pages could be whatever it was I needed them to be. Some days I needed a page and other days I needed four. Incredibly, similar to the Psalms, I may have began negative and distraught but I always ended up recovered and at peace, confident in God’s ability to care for me. Enter answers.
I found that the more I sought help, the more help I received. All I had to do was ask. Nothing was off the table as far as my life was concerned. If it was bothering me, I concluded it was bothering Him also and together we could work out the solution. That’s when the light shined the brightest. I began to understand things I had not been able to understand for years. Some errors of logic fell away like melted ice cream while other things took a little more time. At times I perceived that I was being led little by little, piece by piece until I understood. During the day I noticed things that confirmed what I began to learn earlier in the day. Holy smokes I thought, God is right here. All I had ever needed to do was to ask Him for His help. It wasn’t that I was getting better at something, but instead it was that I was developing more humility. I was willing to admit that maybe I didn’t already know. Then, almost instinctively, I began to inquire about things I really was sure I already knew. I started some days in confusion and quickly found my peace again. I think I have learned more in the past six months than I have in my entire life previously. And it has been sublime. How grateful I became for my time in the mornings writing my Morning Pages. How grateful I became for Papa’s willingness to teach me and to guide me. Indeed how exceedingly grateful! Enter the more than abundant life.
I write this today not so much to encourage you to write your own Morning Pages, but rather to encourage you to take the time each day to get things straight. Make the time you need before the hustle and bustle of the day begins. If weird things happened to you yesterday, use that time in the morning to get it straight. I often say quietly within myself near the end of a day, “we can talk about this in the morning Papa.” No matter how busy you are it is worth your investment. And if you really want to find your way and soar in this life, have that talk with God. There is nothing you can say that He doesn’t already know anyway and there is nothing you can say that will shock Him. He invented people and He is quite clear on how they function best. He isn’t judging you for your sins because He sees everything behind whatever it is you got into. If you want illumination you have to seek the light. Buy yourself a journal and give it a try. Morning Pages can be life changing in the very best way.
Just some good thoughts…
Have you ever considered what it means to have the heart of a child? If you have been blessed to have children or to be around children, you can easily recognize their genuine purity; their tender humility and their heartfelt willingness to learn new things. Children are like little sponges soaking up every word you say and learning from everything you do. In their minds, life is still a grand adventure full of infinite possibility and hope. They have not yet been jaded by the world to expect disappointment or to put limits on what they can accomplish in this life. They know that they do not know and as such are teachable and open to new experiences which they wholeheartedly pursue. They are full of life and happiness. They get over upsets and failures quickly without reliving those circumstances perpetually in their hearts and minds. They are active and alive seeking more life and more fun whenever and however they can. Children trust fully and with all that they are. Jesus taught his followers that to really understand and appreciate God’s kingdom and His rule over all, they needed to have the heart of a child.
Human beings reportedly share over 99% of the same DNA as all other human beings. Yet in the remaining less than one percent remains all of the differences that make every person on earth unique. There is literally no other person that is identical to you. But, instead of celebrating their differences and distinctiveness people are spending much of their lives trying to be someone else. Whenever you are not true to who you are, your likes and dislikes, your feelings, your tastes and your aversions you are cheating yourself from the person you were designed to be. I challenge you to find one thing in nature that is identical to another thing. God loves variety. Whenever you are not being your true self you end up as a performer exhausting yourself trying to be someone else. The fake smile, the feigned agreement, the getting along just to get along usually takes more from you than it provides. Who or what has convinced us that we need to be someone else instead of embracing just exactly who we are? Why concern ourselves so much with comparisons and competition? Maybe the real you, the one you’ve been hiding is wonderful just as he is without the endless need for modifications and self censure. If you really want to find your own personal happiness in this very short run through, you need to “do you” the authentic and real you.
Recently a very good friend of mine suggested I read a book called, Positive Intelligence by Shirzad Chamine. I only just began the book, but have become fascinated by the spiritual parallels involving the things we say to ourselves and whether we are using our own minds as a friend to help and encourage us or as an enemy perpetually sabotaging our efforts towards success and fulfillment. The primary saboteur at work in all of our lives is called the judge or from a spiritual standpoint (parallel made by myself and not the author) the accuser. The primary purpose of the judge or the accuser is to constantly fill and overwhelm your mind with what is wrong with you, what you do wrong, what you did wrong and most sinister of all, how you can expect good things to happen in your life based on where you fall short? So, the grand question to ask yourself is, is your mind your friend or your enemy or a combination thereof and more importantly, how can you think more with your mind being your friend as opposed to your mind functioning as your own worst enemy.
It seems there are at least a million books that promote finding happiness, stumbling upon happiness or discovering happiness in one form or another. Many of the books, as varied as they are, approach the subject of happiness as being something you must strive to get, seek to discover or find in ways you may not have considered before. There are principles and keys and laws and techniques all designed, if you faithfully apply them, to bring you finally to that elusive happiness you are seeking. But, what if that is not how people find happiness at all? What if happiness consisted more of what not to do as opposed to a litany of procedures and processes to do? What if happiness was not so much focused on adding onto but rather letting go of something? What if happiness was more the natural state of a person before other things entered in and clogged the system? It seems there are some common pitfalls that almost all people fall prey to and as such thwart their own efforts in being happy. These pitfalls exist as riddles, confusing and complex riddles demanding they be resolved before moving forward. But, these life sucking riddles have no end point. They cannot be solved and in trying to solve them we move further and further away from that happiness our Creator intended. Once you engage in these riddles, which most people do, you become entangled and embroiled in them and it is hard to escape their sticky grasp. These riddles are the real thwarters of genuine happiness. They hinder, they stymie, they retard efforts. They take people down empty roads and further and further away from the true path. These happiness riddles work by deception with man as the unsuspecting victim. All three of these riddles work using the same tried and tested approach. These riddles are called fear, judgment and remembering the past. They are intertwined and interconnected, yet all lead nowhere. If you want to enjoy the happiness that is your birthright as a human being, you have to learn how to not fall prey to these tempting riddles.
There is more to managing your expectations than just being aware of the spiritual forces at work in your life and endeavoring to remain positive. There is also a hidden ingredient involved in many people’s lives and that ingredient is fear. Fear can be very subtle and has many disguises. Fear serves only to thwart and hinder life. Fear slows your experience down to a standstill. Fear engaged stops you from receiving the things you want in life. Fear is also an expectation, but it is a negative expectation. It is expecting something bad to happen and if you persist in it (ignorantly) it will lead to something negative happening to you. Fear is the adversary’s only weapon and he wields it masterfully in order to prevent you from living the life you want to live. It starts with doubt, progresses to worry and then when fully realized results in fear. When you are afraid you are now working against your own best interests. You are cooperating with that dark sinister force that wishes to bring you pain and suffering or at minimum frustrate and defeat you. Fear is an expectation that you don’t try to manage but instead work to eliminate. Fear has ruined more people’s lives than any other thing in the world. Fear is not your friend nor should you try to make it your friend. Fear, in the end game, results in unbelief of the promises of God which ties God’s hands from helping you or providing something that you need. If there is anything in your life that you really need and don’t have or have been seeking for some time, chances are there is fear involved somewhere. In order to successfully manage your expectations you have to learn how to get rid of fear.
Anyone who has ever been on a quest to find something or obtain something knows that things do not always move in your favor. The course that leads from where you are to what you want is rarely a straight line. Cause and effect are not free to play out perfectly because there are many other causes in play. The race does not always go the swift, as the Bible says, not because it should not work out that way, but because there are hinderances and obstacles built into the current systems of the world. There are opposing forces meddling in and interfering with the natural order of things. In a perfect world absent evil and evil influences all effort would have a just reward and all investment would result in some gain. A man or a woman who worked hard would always succeed and never risk losing that which they had already gained. Before Adam and Eve gave over their authority to evil, everything worked perfectly and beautifully. The creation thrived and brought forth bountifully. Yet once darkness gained access, thankfully a temporary condition, labor, sweat and toil became the norm. With that access came control over the systems of the world with persistent and pervasive difficulties and challenges intertwined. Which begs the question, how can God’s people still succeed and prevail in a world working tirelessly against them? One such remedy is found in learning how to manage your expectations. If what a man believes in his heart is what he will receive in this life, it behooves him to keep his expectations positive and abundant based not on what things look like, but rather, often in stark contrast, with what things God promises in His Word, the Bible. You have to manage your expectations.
In order to make anything significant happen in this life you need power. Without power or energized abilities people remain powerless to affect any needed change. There is no power of the mind though it is often proclaimed as true. Instead, this power is spiritual and it comes from God. The reason so many good hearted Christians fail to see many tangible results in their lives is because they have not been taught how to operate the power of God. In fact, when it comes to the spiritual field and the workings of holy spirit, most of the world is entirely oblivious. How few teachers and preachers there are that even understand the workings of the spirit field, let alone have the knowledge to teach it. It is arguably the most misunderstood field in the world. People have not been taught the capabilities of that spirit they received when they were born again and as a result have not been able to tap into the power of God to get things done. Absent spiritual power from God, Christian or otherwise, people are left defenseless against evil principalities and powers working against their best interests in the world. The primary reason people have not been taught or the teachings they have endured have been so wrapped up in error, mysticism and downright foolishness, is because something or someone does not want you to know the truth and utilize God’s power in your life! There is power available to the Christian to help him or her overcome the challenges of life and prevail. There is “power” for abundant living which has been given to us to operate in our lives. There is power from God to help us in this life producing signs, miracles and wonders. The power is already there. The question is, do you want to tap into the power?
There’s an old adage that states the more closely you study the things that man has done, the more imperfection you will find. Conversely, the more closely you study the things that God has done, the more perfection you will find. Every sculpture, every masterpiece has its flaws, but have you ever inspected a snowflake, a leaf, the detail in the human body? The deeper you delve more and more the detailed perfection will be found. Thus, in our dealings with God as spiritual beings whose treasure is found in earthen vessels, why do we spend so much time focusing in on all of our imperfections? Why do we allow ourselves to be convinced of our every flaw and human frailty when we as humans are fundamentally imperfect? Ever since that fateful day when sin and corruption entered into God’s creation, men and women have begun life with a sin nature in their blood. No amount of good behavior escapes that reality. Try as we may, we cannot perfect that which is imperfect. Instead our task, though it be only known by very few individuals, is to accept God’s perfection in place of our own attempts at gaining it. Have you been obsessed with finding your imperfections? Is your focus of life centered on your own imperfections? Does your relationship with God suffer because of your preoccupation with sin? Have you been deceived into finding imperfections?
All of us that celebrate Christmas look back upon the holiday season with great fondness. When we were young it was a magical time when our parents adorned our houses with garlands, blinking lights and all manner of Christmas themed memorabilia. We helped decorate the Christmas tree and excitedly anticipated that incredible day when Santa would somehow traverse the earth delivering gifts to all of the children of the world. As we got older Christmas never lost its joy for us as we got to produce a repeat performance for our children. We gladly scoured the earth in search of the famous doll or the other coveted toy and generally spent more than we had in the process. We began to learn that everyone didn’t celebrate Christmas and had other holidays and traditions instead. And it was okay. Some people believed that it was Jesus Christ’s birthday while others associated it with the movements of the sun. For some, the dates were arranged slightly different and the holiday encompassed a number of days. It seemed only reasonable that with all of the people in the entire world, there would be varying practices and vastly different beliefs. And it was okay. Rather than try to make the holiday season into something deeply spiritual or sacred it seemed more reasonable to accept it for what it really is; a time when people celebrate their love for one another; a time when people are a little more kind and a little more compassionate towards their fellow man. For me the holidays have always been a happy time when folks treasured the joy of giving over receiving and seeking to do nice things for others instead of seeking only to receive nice things instead. Adult children return home from other states and other countries to spend time with the people they love most. We gather at each other’s homes and celebrate the season with various libations and all kinds of delightful foods. And for the time we are thankful, thankful for the people we love, thankful for the lives we get to live and thankful to God who made it all. We take a pause from all of our frenetic activity, slow down and appreciate one another.
justsomegoodthoughts 