If you look around in the world of Mother Nature (the Universe), you will find a natural order to life. One season follows another. A seed comes before the mature plant and before the blossom or fruit. Day and night may happen simultaneously, but only on opposite sides of the planet. A baby learns to roll over or crawl before it can walk. We learn simple math or grammar skills before moving on to more complex concepts. The point is there is a natural order to life.
The same can be said for the way we grow spiritually. We must have some type of awareness or yearning, something that beckons our attention about God before we open our minds to more expansive investigation of the spiritual or religious realm. There is an order to the way we deepen our understanding. There is an order, a process, in the development of our beliefs …in the way we pray and the depth to which we go …in how we connect with Divine Intelligence.
What I have discovered for myself and from what other spiritual seekers have shared is that whatever idea of God was learned in childhood was eventually put under the microscope of doubt …at least for awhile.
Whether it was in the inquisitive teenage years when everything that our parents taught was tossed aside and relearned later …or whether we just forgot about it until those middle-age years when the idea of mortality becomes more of a reality of living.
There’s an order, a progression, a process of learning and exploring and understanding that builds upon itself in a step-by-step fashion of testing, acceptance, and trust.
We don’t (usually) become suddenly enlightened about the entire spiritual realm all at once. We journey into that head and heart and soul space one tentative step at a time. Each bit of information that can be tested, is. Each book or lecture or teacher than can be challenged, is. We do this until we’re sure it’s time to take the next step. Rarely do we run with complete abandon head-on towards God until the path has first been tested.
Perhaps the order we’re compelled to test and then maintain is really to offset the chaotic questioning provided by the doubting ego. In its attempt to remain in control of our fears and thinking patterns, it tosses dust storms of doubt in front of us and obscures our vision to see ourselves as more than just a trembling human body in this world of challenge and triumph. In an effort to break free of the chaos and the distorted view, to discover something bigger than ourselves, we begin to accept an invisible and powerful nature that lives in us and in everyone else. The Power back of all things.
Through a greater awareness and a trust in the Divine, we open ourselves to greater potentiality and find we can create a life of unlimited possibilities, one step at a time. We maintain order. We discover peace in the confusion and purpose in the fragments of our focus. The puzzle of our life is put together and we embrace the loving truth within our own beautiful soul.
Spirit is always there, waiting for our willingness to connect and explore. It is the order of things, now …and yet to come.