A chat with Isaac:
Comment: I’ve recently experienced a shift, and I’m not sure how it happened. I used to feel that I had to earn worthiness. I had to do things before I deserved worthiness. But now I can feel worthy without doing anything. I don’t have to effort, because I’m already worthy.
Thanks for bringing this up.
This is about how much we invest in efforting.
On our spiritual path, often we choose some areas of our life where we allow God’s will to run things. But in other areas of our life we try to run things ourselves.
We know God is omniscient, omnipresent, all-powerful. Our sages tell us, not even a leaf turns over in the gutter without that being God’s Will.
If your faith is strong, you know God is running every detail in your life and details of the world around you.
At the same time, we all live with the idea of free will. I am making this choice. I am buying this house, because I like it better than that house. I am improving my life in such and such a way. I am making things better for myself and my family. I am using my free will constructively.
As God creates the world, there is a space of creation that exists between free will on one end and God’s will on the other end. It’s like a continuum, this space where creation forms.
Or you could say one end of the continuum is choice, the other end is faith.
This paradox exists in our world. Are we making choices? Is God making all the choices for us?
If you know about this continuum, you may notice how people handle it.
Which areas of their life do they release to God’s Will, and which areas do they take on as their own part?
We all have to cope with this paradox of free will versus divine will.
In a way, our lack of understanding this paradox is our ticket into this world.
We believe in free will and we want to work with that. We arrive here in a state of forgetfulness. We think we are making our own choices.
Someday, if and when we see that God is running all of it, that’s our ticket out.
When I’m in the mode of free will, I believe I make my own choices, and I am in a state of anxiety. I have anxiety because I will never be sure I did it right. I can’t control all the ramifications.
Did I plan this well? Did I say the right thing or the wrong thing to that person? What about the unknown ripple effect I may have had on others? When should I come and go? What arrangements do I need? Did I mess up? I did that, and I can’t undo it. We lie awake at night, putting ourselves through all this guilt and worry.
I am making my own choices, and I automatically have anxiety about that. In fact, as time goes on and I get older, the burden of all this worry and anxiety will weigh on me so much that it makes my body bent over. It’s hard on the nervous system, all this anxiety. I get disorders arising from the nervous system. It affects my health.
All I really want is peace of mind.
If we don’t put at least some parts of our life into God’s hands, then we will have ever-increasing anxiety about everything.
But we each decide what is “our part” and what is “God’s part” in our lives.
Say I get sick. Uh-oh, let me get the vitamins. Let me fix this sickness. Whoops, I took too many vitamins. Now I’m worse. What happens next? “Please, God, help me.” When I find out I can’t handle it, I give it over to God.
On the other hand, a person might get sick and immediately give it over to God. They would say, “All is well, and if I’m sick, it is divinely ordained for me to be in this condition. I’ll just go with it. Gam zu l’tovah. All is for the good.”
To be continued . . .
These are Isaac’s teachings, excerpted from Chapter 10 of Volume 4, Walking The Bridge: With Courage And Trust.
(Thanks to Aia Fernandez on Flickr for this image.)
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