Gordon Robinson | When you listen you learn

Life is a series of choices made by you that are the only reasons what you call “good” or “bad” happens to you.

Nobody does anything to you. You do everything to or for yourself. Let’s reason this through from the beginning. We start with Genesis 1:27 (KJV):

“So God created man in his own image, in the image of God created he him, male and female created he them.”

By now it should be clear to all but the most religiously blind that man and woman are created in God’s image. NIV’s translation makes it easier for us: “So God created mankind in his own image…”

So where can we find God? God is within every one of us. We’re created by God in God’s image. God speaks to us from within all the time. We only need listen. No need for middlemen especially those in churches that won’t allow women to lead. No need for Pastor to tell you what God wants you to do. When you go to church it should be to assemble with others of God’s creation while carrying God with you in your heart and soul.

The understanding that we all have God within us means we choose our life’s path. It’s no gift from a God living in the sky waiting to judge us when we die. Prayer is concentration of thought – communion with the God within. It’s the pathway to every life choice. It’s best done alone not in a crowd shouting ritualistic, hypnotic chants creating mindsets that fill passing plates.

So you may choose to be or have anything you desire. Don’t sit around waiting for God to give it to you. God has no time for that. God created us, little creators, in God’s image, so we can choose and create our own futures.

But you must choose. And choose wisely. Don’t want. You can have whatever you choose but never what you want. The idea of wanting something means that you don’t have it. You can’t have it. Why else would you “want” it?

On August 11 ( When you talk you teach) I wrote, in the context of Damion Crawford’s loud wanting to be PNP Leader “Anything you chase (money, women, men, power) tends to run away from you.” I was hinting at the philosophical difference between wanting and choosing.

So stop begging God to give you success, money, power, whatever. Choose what you believe you should have and bring it out from within you. First conceive your future. Then commune with God in prayer; listen to God’s message; plan how to achieve your conceived future; then do what you’ve learned from listening to God to achieve your goal. Constant yapping, telling everybody what you want to become is sound and fury signifying nothing. As I wrote on August 11: “When you talk you teach. When you listen you learn.”

Listen to the God within you. You’ll learn how to achieve your ambitions. The moment you start saying out loud “I want…” you create exactly that – the experience of wanting. Don’t ever say “I want”. Teach your children to be grateful for what they have and never to use the phrase “I want”. Better to be thankful as if it’s already a done deal. By that method you’ll have chosen it. It will be yours.

Amazing grace, how sweet the sound

that saved a wretch like me.

I once was lost, but now I’m found;

was blind, but now I see.

The foundation principle of being made in God’s image, once clearly understood, will stop you trying to find out what’s “best” for you. You have one responsibility in this life as God’s creation and that’s to find out who you are and be that person. This is how your life becomes one of choice not chance. At every juncture of life you do what makes you YOU not what you think someone else likes.

If you continue trying to be what you believe other people might want you to be (a.k.a. what’s “best” for you) your life is dependent on reaction rather than choice. Reaction is an excellent example of Einstein’s definition of lunacy. To re-act is to repeat (act again) what you’ve done before to suit others or similar circumstances. Instead search your soul; search yourself; choose to be you.

A life of “re-action” (a.k.a. asking “what’s best for me?”) is what’s worst for you. All you accomplish is to shape your actions to suit your opinion of someone else’s preferences so you can get something from that person. This makes you no less a slave to that person than any 19th century passenger on La Amistad.

Don’t do that. Don’t spend your time trying to figure out what’s “best” for you in the context of what somebody else can do for you. Save that time. Use it to look into your soul; work out who you are; who you choose to be. That’s creation. Using your mind to dwell on past experiences; past errors; past misfortunes; is reaction. Don’t re-act. Create new action.

Looking into your soul is speaking to God. A highly intelligent Jamaican man of humble circumstances and limited formal education told me his experience:

“I was walking in Half Way Tree some years ago when a man approached me ‘Good day, sir’ he said ‘can you spare me $50?’ I had $700 on me. I went into my pocket to help him but when I looked up the man had disappeared. I knew immediately that it was God speaking to me. Since then I never greet anybody by wishing them anything but ‘Good Day’. And I know we are here to help each other as best we can.”

Why wish anybody only a good morning or evening? Don’t you want them to have a good day? When somebody greets you kindly and asks for help you know it’s a good man. Help him. This doesn’t mean that everyone who approaches you with body language that screams they’re entitled to your money should get a positive response. But fellow humans who need and ask for help should be helped as much as we can.

These are the simple messages you can receive from listening when God talks to you. But if you’re too busy working out how to manipulate your fellow man for personal profit your days will be stressful and miserable. Good days will be denied you.

Through many dangers, toils and snares,

we have already come.

T’was grace that brought us safe thus far,

and grace will lead us home.

Amazing Grace was written and published in 1779 by English Clergyman John Newton. Its message of forgiveness through God’s mercy is in sync with mine of choice based on God’s guidance from within. Amazing Grace is one of the most recorded hymns so it should come as no surprise to learn it was recorded in 1999 by the one and only Dolly Parton on her 36th solo album Precious Memories. Dolly left us recently but remains one of the world’s greatest treasures and memories of her will always be precious.

God will always speak to you once you look within your soul for God’s word. Your soul is your essence. Your soul is constantly trying to remind you who you really are and seeking to guide you experientially to that person. Your soul knows that your fragile mind can’t create. It can only react.

While the mind is working overtime to find out what’s best for you; tell you to be cautious; not to offend anybody; take forever to make a decision, your soul guides you with feelings. The saying “trust your gut” is your soul telling you to trust your feelings. If any situation makes you feel uncomfortable leave it immediately no matter how much worldly profit it promises you.

For what does it profit a man if he shall gain the whole world, and lose his own soul?

Peace and Love.

Gordon Robinson is an attorney-at-law. Send feedback to columns@gleanerjm.com