Letting the World Be As It Will Be

Watch what the world will do

As it twists your mind from what is true,

As your heart is contorted

And love for God is, in the moment, aborted.

One trouble with the world

A fact of regret silently unfurled,

Is too often it’s our focus on envying others

That shifts our love off thinking of them as sisters and brothers.

If we allow others to be themselves, we can then allow ourselves to be ourselves. Others are no real threat to us if we are focused on God. If we can let them live, we also give ourselves the opportunity at life.

There is always a threat to our experience of life when we look too horizontally – when we lose sight of our relationship with God.

Let’s explore two pulsating relational facts:

What They Will Be, They Will Be

We cannot, truly, impact on others’ thinking; how they feel about their world, the situations of their lives, or anything else, but at times we are given influence, which is a privilege.

The people we are likely to have issues with we will also have little influence over; it’s frustrating, yet true.

What another person will be they will be, and we are best simply accepting it. If we can let another person be the way they choose to be, then we give ourselves permission to be as we choose to be.

What We Can Be, We Can Be

When we resist the envying call of our troubled hearts, and we can switch from a horizontal focus on human relationships to our vertical relationship with God, then we can be liberated of an unnecessary burden.

Our focus needs to be simplified in order that we would receive an empowering purpose for life.

What we can be, we can be, and there’s nothing that can limit us as we remain under the Spirit’s power. As we debunk the world’s power – where our interest has waned – because it cannot be controlled, and to think it could is a version of insanity – we have freed up mental, emotional, and spiritual space for growth in faith and wisdom.

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If we allow others to be themselves, we can then allow ourselves to be ourselves. Others are no real threat to us if we are focused on God. If we can let them live, we also give ourselves the opportunity at life.

© 2014 S. J. Wickham.