Did God tell you to do it?

This weekend, a man was arrested in my town for walking through an apartment complex in his underwear reading the Bible. When asked for an explanation by the police, he said, “God told me to do it.”

Hmmm…did God tell him to walk through a public place inhabited by children, mothers and fathers who deserve a semblance of decency and respect shown in their common environment?

It is sobering to think about how often questionable acts have been justified by the worn-out phrase of, “God told me to do it.”

It’s a tough call for many to make, deciding whether the impulse they feel to act is divinely inspired or humanly motivated. How do we tell the difference?

Certain deeds like walking naked through a public gathering place have guidelines laid out in the law that give clear direction. Other decisions, though, are not so easy to sort out.

What about career paths, partner choices, spending options, or what to tell the boss? How does one know if the choice made is divinely inspired or selfishly motivated?

To answer the question, “Did God tell me to do it?” it helps to elevate the question.

Ask, “Is this choice in harmony with the nature of God?”

For example, with tight budgets and shrinking income, many people are currently struggling with spending decisions. They get confused about what to do when asking, “Does God want me to make a particular purchase?”

It helps to remember that God is Spirit, and Spirit aides us spiritually, not materially.

The material picture is always a limited view of the ultimate spiritual reality which needs to be understood better. If we try to pull God down into the limited mortal view, and ask, “Would God do this?” our reasoning might get complex, confused and feel uncertain. God is infinite. He does not see limited prospects and narrow options. Humans do.

It’s better to go up to God’s point of view, and reason out in terms of spiritual qualities the divine nature expresses. The more we reflect divine qualities in our human actions, the closer to God’s way of doing things our actions will be.

For example, we know that God is an all-knowing Mind that makes wise decisions that lead to positive outcomes. This is a model to hold in thought.

We can ask questions like, “Will our decision lead to a favorable outcome that manifests God’s qualities which include strength, balance, discipline, economy and wisdom? Is it morally sound? Is it going to leave us in a better place?”

Selfish decisions lead to bad outcomes. They put us into more debt, cause strain and stress, worry, doubt and fear. These distressed states of mortal mind are automatic signs that something is wrong in the decision-making. Selfish interest is getting in the way of sound logic and grounded principles.

“Did God tell you to do it?” is answered by, “Is my decision manifesting God-qualities?”

And we have to be honest about what we conclude and not overlook glaring errors. For instance, we might feel justified in buying a new car because it manifests reliability, but if the decision puts us into deeper debt that causes further strain on the budget, and we later complain about the stress, as if we couldn’t help it, we were not honest in our original decision to buy the car. We selectively chose what factors to consider.

Impatience, anger, frustration, discouragement, selfishness, and their kin also get in the way and result in poor decision-making. They are the agents of error, and lead to poor results.

What one purchases or does humanly is not so much the issue compared to the qualities of God being lived. As we demonstrate, “Thy will be done,” by being content with what we have, exercising discipline, dwelling in peace of mind, possessing gratitude, joy, cheer, and patience, we will act in harmony with what God would have us do. Wise choices will be made, and we won’t find ourselves “wandering around naked” in places we ought not to be.

“When the human element in him struggled with the divine, our great Teacher said: ‘Not my will, but Thine, be done!’—that is, Let not the flesh, but the Spirit, be represented in me.” Mary Baker Eddy

Shooting in Illinois response

Just received the below inspiration from a deep-thinking reader in response to my recent blog, “Shooting in Illinois.” It will reach your heart…

Evan,

Last week, I read your blog about the tragic shootings at Northern Illinois University in which you talked about such acts as "extreme selfishness." Like you, I've been troubled by such random and thoughtless acts. This past weekend, I was at Virginia Tech to talk with a number of engineering students. The ways that they've reached out to each other and their care for others is almost palpable on the campus. Here's something I wrote about the experience.

Steve


Giving unselfishly

Saturday morning on the campus of Virginia Tech was an overcast 35 degrees with a chilling wind blowing across the drill field toward Burris Hall. Less than a year earlier, the field was the scene of a tribute by thousands of Hokie students, faculty and administrators as they remembered their 32 friends who, a few days earlier, had been killed by a gunman, one of their own, in the most tragic college shooting ever.

But this Saturday the drill field was empty. A colleague and I parked our Ford Explorer nearby, several blocks from the place we’d soon be speaking to engineering students but only a few feet from the semi-circular memorial honoring VT’s slain students and faculty.

As we walked down the gently sloping path to memorial, I couldn’t help but reflect on how honorably the 32 Hokie Stones, as they’re called, marked the lives of such diverse people. And, if there’s a blessing in the tragedy, it may be that Hokie students and alums are more steadfast in their love for their school and what it stands for—a place to “invent the future” as they call it.

Sadly, only two weeks earlier, another tragic college shooting took place when a gunman killed five Huskie students on the campus of Northern Illinois University. Trying to make sense of the shootings at Virginia Tech and NIU is difficult, if not impossible. A friend of mine, writing in a blog a few days ago, called it “an extreme form of selfishness.” An apt description, that’s for sure.

But as my colleague and I stood at the memorial, numbed by the moment and the cold wind, I told her of my friend’s description of selfishness. She paused for a moment and said, “You know, it’s also an extreme form of loneliness. The killers in these cases were all alone with no friends to listen or talk to. Or at least that’s what they thought.”

It made me wonder if selfishness, when taken to an extreme, is really an inability to see how we fit together in a sort of inter-dependent universe, one in which no one stands alone? Could it be that selfishness is nothing more than a trick that obscures how we are really all part of a great big “whole?”

I realized that the healing of selfishness occurs when we “operationalize Love” by both knowing that God is Love and by living a life of loving one another through inclusion and compassion. Such living would not only help change loneliness into inclusiveness but selfishness into concern for others.

Our talk later that afternoon to 25 engineering students would be about preparing themselves for the world of work by choosing to make a difference in the world. We used an idea from the movie Pay It Forward in which a social studies teacher challenges his students to come up with an idea to change the world. One of them decides he will do something good for three other people. They cannot return the favor to him. but must “pay it forward” to three others who, in turn, must pay it forward to three more. (If you do the math, the number of people who are touched grows very quickly!)

As we talked about this idea with the engineering students they laughed about the fact that the size of the act wasn’t important, it was the act itself. One person told me later, “Good doesn’t come in sizes—good just is.”
The idea of paying it forward can make a huge difference in the lives of people who are lonely and hurting. Even the act of selflessly listening to others can break the spell of loneliness. Such acts of love help clear the dark of loneliness with the light of inclusion; they extinguish the trick of selfishness with the truth of unity and oneness.

We may never know the results of paying good forward as it’s almost impossible to know if doing so prevents bad acts—however minor or extreme—from happening. That’s the wonder of it. We may never know how we’ve made a difference. We just need to remember that we have.

Shooting in Illinois

Oh, dismay, dismay…another horrible mass shooting yesterday, this time at Northern Illinois University, leaving 6 dead, and many more wounded.

When will the mindless killing stop?

When conversing about the tragedy with my wife this morning, she observed, “What an extreme form of selfishness on the part of the murderer.” And her comment got me to thinking more.

I agreed with her analysis.

Walking out on a stage in front of a classroom full of students and opening fire at random with no offense done by any of the victims is selfishness to the hilt. There was no regard whatsoever in the mind of the killer for the well being of those students. Absolutely none! This was extreme selfishness…the murderer thinking only about himself and entertaining his own personal views.

I immediately asked, “How do we prevent tragedies like this from happening?” And my long run analytical approach to life replied, “Rid our children and population of selfishness.”

Whoa…sounds like a tall order. But I believe there is an inkling of truth here to be appreciated.

As my mind’s wheels turned, it occurred to me that perhaps society at large takes selfishness too lightly. When people see a selfish act, many discount it or even ignore it, justifying the egotism as part of human nature. But should this be? I’m beginning to think not.

Many of us have selfish moments. I certainly have had mine… But maybe extremes of selfishness should not be tolerated in our society any longer anymore than robbing the local bank or destroying public property is allowed. If an ultimate outcome of the extreme self-centered thought is public acts of murder, like the above type of shooting, then shouldn’t the animus of the evil be checked early on? For example, with children at a young age, being raised at home, attending elementary school, and beyond?

How much suffering do we have to endure at the hand of mindless murderers before we realize there is a fundamental shift in thought that needs to occur in public thought to prevent such horrific acts from germinating in the first place?

I don’t mean to imply that I understand all the dynamics and background of yesterday’s shooting. I do not. But I know something needs to change in our society’s thinking to turn the tide away from an increasing number of these types of shootings. A bit more unselfishness in how we interact with each other may help.