Seek ye first the Kingdom of Heaven. For man has searched everywhere:
searched in the mountains and the religions; searched within himself, and
yet has not been able to align himself, and discipline himself, and look at
himself honestly in the world.
When we choose to grow, we choose to look at ourselves honestly. We
choose to watch our reactions, our interactions, until every aspect of our
life is spiritualized. Think not that the Kingdom of Heaven will come to
you. Rather that we will go to it through attuning our will; through leaving
behind the excess baggage of ego, of doubt and fear, insensitivity,
anger, distrust, and any other excess baggage that gets in our way on
our journey. We must drop all those things.
Now we see them clearly. We see what changes we have to make, and,
in seeing our changes, bless them; bless the fact that we know what we
need to change. Say, "God, I set before you this change I intend to make,
and I call on You constantly to help me with this change."
Jesus says he will help us: "I will help you. I will lift up that burden of
change and transform it, and give you back in exchange something more
beautiful than you began with - more secure, more able to survive the
world."
We must rebuild our lives, step by step, closely looking at what good we
have and what needs to be changed. And each change should be blessed
and it should be joyous. Certainly there is an initial shock of seeing this
necessity to change - the painful process of detachment from it. But once
we see what it is, and how valueless it is, we can just throw it away. It is
as if you were moving out of an old house that you have been living in, and
while you were living in the house, you gathered up all kinds of belongings
that you don't use anymore. So before you leave the house, you say,
"Okay, what do I truly need out of this house. Well, I never wear that dress
anymore. I never use that footstool. So I'll leave those things behind, and
I'll start in my new house really clean, with just a few things."
We must clean our spiritual house to move into the new house. And when
we pick up an old belonging, we must learn to not kick it and get angry
that we have it, but say, "Well this has served me; has served its purpose.
I had this desire or emotion to teach me something, to make me more
aware, and now I can go past that. So I'm going to leave it behind and I'm
going to my nice new clean house."
When you go to your clean house, instead of regretting the things you've
left behind: the friends, the belongings, the attitudes, just keep cleaning
the walls of your new house, keeping it really clean so dirt and dust don't
enter; keeping it fresh; seeing fresh flowers there. We must keep our new
house very clean, very fresh, and very alive, and then we will not miss any
of the dead belongings of the past.
We must constantly give thanks for these changes to go forward with joy,
rejoicing that we are indeed new people, with new attitudes. The person
we are today is not the same person we were two weeks ago, a month
ago. We are new. Our minds are new, our bodies are new, and our
attitudes are new.
Rejoice in that. Take nothing extra for the trip. I love you. Amen.
