Whenever there is a disaster, tragedy, life altering event, or any form of huge loss, people will often cry out, “Where is God? Why doesn’t He do something? Why did He let it happen?” When one has the wrong idea of the concept of “God”, they will usually see it as some outside force that dictates what goes on in this large world and the universe around it. What they don’t understand is it just does not work that way. God is right there with you.
This “God” is not an actual being, per se, but a force in which we all connect with. This god is within us, around us, and among all that is. How we apply that force depends on us.
When we look outside of ourselves for what is happening, we often overlook the most important thing about life – it is a fleeting moment in time and insignificant in comparison to the big picture. What we have is brief and it is up to us to make the most of what is before us.
It is a waste of time and energy to worry about your fate in a next life. Our trials and tribulations are here now for a reason. We are here and we can take it all in while we can. We can use this brief chance for better of for worse. There are great things we can do now. All of our lives are independent and interdependent of each other. We have our own lives to live and how we live our lives can change the outcome of the lives of others.
Think about a tragedy such as 9/11 or Hurricane Katrina. There are three sets of victims in these natural and man made calamities. The ones who died. The ones who knew and loved them who were involved directly. And everyone else whose conscience will be forever marked by the incident. The ones who dies are no longer here to deal with what happened. It is everyone else who is pained by the events.
On September 11 2001, people woke up going about their business as usual. Without much of a thought, the majority of the people in the US were going through the motions of a typical day. Eat breakfast, shower, change clothes, go to work or school while their minds were settled in a typical pace. Many were not really thinking about anything other than what directly affected themselves — bills due, a fight someone may have had, a person they were in love with, an assignment to turn in, a problem that was ongoing… it doesn’t really matter what, but we are all saddled with a natural rhythm in our lives. We all went about our lives not really thinking about what was a real possibility, until the first plane went into the World Trade Center.
I remember that day when I was at home with my daughter home schooling her. Watching the news was part of a new routine I developed for her to be exposed to current affairs. I wanted her to be aware that the world did not just revolve around her life. What a day for that lesson to unfold!
I remember telling her that the world is basically a safe place when you keep your wits about you as long as you can be fair and keep your cool, you can get through life with the least amount of problems with other people. I also told her that there were places in the world that life is awful for a lot of people and they are angry about it and such angry people can be dangerous and to avoid dealing with them. When I said that, I knew already about the plight of the poor people of Afghanistan. I wanted to start a lesson on this area as an example…then we saw it.
Like everyone else, I thought it was merely a tragic accident and felt sorry for all those poor people who suddenly died and all their family members. I could wrap my mind around an accident. I had a hard time wrapping my mind around the concept of doing it deliberately, but soon had to deal with it when I saw the second plane go into the building as I quickly ushered my girl out of the room to play.
I was like everyone else. I was stuck in a rut where I had a certain planned routine of what was to take place. Then the reminder that life can be altered, out of the blue, and change your mind about a lot of things to help you reevaluate what is really important.
It really should not have come as a surprise to us what happened that day. Terrorists tried to bomb the building before and it was likely they were going to do it again. It really shouldn’t surprise us that something like this or worse WILL happen again. When that future tragedy happens again, we will all be dumbfounded at what happened and ask – “Where is God?” – when all along, god is here with us and that power is in our own hands.
Do you not think the people who perpetrated that act played god themselves? They claimed to worship an outside force, but it was an internal decision to handle this god-power in their suicide-pact while taking out what they believed was “the Great Satan”. Surely in their minds they rationalized the murder of innocent civilian people as a good thing to please an outside god, but in reality they played their role and used their god-connection to commit this act. The perverted the god within.
Of course, it is not as simple as I stated above. We are, after all, interdependent. When we get caught into the trap of a mundane life, we often forget this fact. All life on this earth is fragile and can be undone at any time. What we do has a ripple effect to others. We just may not realize how we may have indirectly encouraged it.
If you cut someone off in traffic you most likely have made that person angry. That person may act out in a fit of road rage and cut off four other people to catch up with you to cut you off. Those four people are now a bit agitated as are you and the driver you cut off. If all six of you were to give into these feelings of outrage, it would spill out in how you treat others that day. Your hurtful words or actions may cause them to become hurtful to others. Before long, the one thoughtless incident you had created misery for hundreds of people that day.
Or imagine, you have this habit of leaving on the lights, television, and other electric appliances you are not currently using which happen to run on electricity generated by coal. Sure, you are paying the bill, but do you really think about what this kind of usage’s ripple effect will be? Someone has to mine the coal. Sure, they have a job, but one that will shorten their life and one that does not really pay a lot of money to compensate their families for their lot in life. And think about the pollution generated from such an operation and what it will do to all the people who live in that area. Then think about the resource of coal itself and what will happen when it runs out.
If you think about how your life is interdependent with others, you may seriously want to stop and think about how you live your life. What you do really can affect many other people. This is your god-power. How you treat others is just as essential as how you treat yourself.
During the hurricane, no one is at fault. It is just one of those things that happens as a result of how the earth works. The earth is constantly moving and evolving and processing many different factors. If such factors were not going on, life on earth would not be possible at all. The elements of nature must do what it has to do. It follows its own force path.
As intelligent life forms, we do have the tools and equipment available to predict what these natural forces will do. This is something we could not even imagine doing over 100 years ago. We have this technology in our hands. Sadly, even with advanced knowledge we are not assured 100% safety.
Look at the animals. They have an instinctive feeling something big is about to happen and take appropriate action to try and survive.
Before we had technology, we had to depend on our own instincts, that godlike power within that tells us something big is coming and to take action. Our own fight or flight warning would flair up within the pit of our stomach and we looked around for clues about what was going to take place and act.
We all have that god-force connection, but as we rely more and more on outsiders to tell us what’s going on, we discount our own gut instinct which is not a good thing. We become artificially provoked to action and reaction, manipulated by someone else with a purpose that is not for your own good, but for their own agenda. We then start to get firmly grounded into the idea that all that goes on is outside of ourselves and when something happens we look outside for help instead of reaching inside and doing something about our own fate.
What made Hurricane Katrina such a tragedy was a lack of communication, a poorly planned emergency response and a slow reaction to getting the victims help. All of these show exactly how interdependent we are and how independent we sometimes need to be to access the god within. Those who gave up waiting for someone else to help them took the power in their own hands — some for good and some for bad. While some people sacrificed what little food and water and supplies they had to share with others, other people went out to loot, kill and rape. While some sat dumbfounded watching the news, others opened their homes, donated food, money, clothes or blood. While some just sat and cried over the fate of these poor people, others rolled up their sleeves and went down to the scene to lend a helping hand.
When we do reach in and use that god-power, we can do a greater good for ourselves and others. It is far more effective than waiting around for that “someone else” or outside God to do something.
If you are not in a position to go there and help directly, or are too sick to donate blood or too poor to donate food or money or have room in your home to take someone in, do not beat yourself up over what you cannot do. Not everyone is in a position to help everyone in every tragedy. There are many tragedies happening daily that are not reported which have a ripple effect on others. If we were to get up in arms over every tragedy, our ability to care would be overwhelmed and turn into utter apathy. If you can help, then help if you feel moved. If not, enjoy life because it is fleeting.
Did that sound heartless to you? It shouldn’t. Think about it. While those incidents I mentioned happened, did you bat an eye over the other traumatic things going on? Did you help those people while the major reported incident was going on? How many countless widows and orphans were made during this time that had nothing to do with either incident? How many children died of starvation, cancer, or AIDS? How many people had their limbs blown off by land mines? How many people died of a drug or alcohol overdose? How many people committed suicide? How many were killed by a drunk driver? How many were murdered? How many died in an act of war?
Life is filled with potential tragedy, but not all of it is reported. We cannot do something about every situation. All we can do is do what we can. If we cannot, we need to move on with our lives and try to make the most with what we have left of our own lives. One of these days it could be you directly or indirectly struck with tragedy. When that time comes, you could either be dead or having to recover from a major loss.
In between now and then, can you say you really enjoyed your life and the time you had with your family and friends? Did you learn all you wanted to learn? Did you see all you wanted to see? Did you do all you wanted to do? Have you let people know how much you feel about them? If not, what are you waiting for? Don’t wait for approval of an outside God to set conditions right for you to act, make it happen yourself. You do have the power, but you need the confidence to act on it. As Nike® would say, “Just do it!”
Loading ...