simple thoughts - Challenges help us grow towards God

When life is very good for us, then it is so easy for us to cling to the world, and to the ways of living and being that are most popular in the world, rather than choosing a deep spiritual path for ourselves - of surrender, devotion, and moving deep into our interior heart, where we can be empty and let God flow through fully. Even though this deeper path would bring us such great joy, we are more familiar with the surface materiality and attachments of the popular lifestyles of the world so we cling to those familiar ways and objects and means so tightly.

However, difficult situations offer us a great gift that we may not notice at first glance, because we may be focused on pain. Why can they be beneficial? In an unfavorable situation there isn't a possibility of falling into worldly traps, but then the emphasis is upon opening more toward God in your life, because you will be seeking a deeper or better way of being that will bring you more joy, more aliveness, less suffering.

Two practices will help us on our spiritual path: letting go of our deep attachments to worldly ways and things, and walking towards God.

When times are very good, we cling to the world; so it can sometimes require a great effort in those times to open your heart to a deeper reality of God (though also blissful circumstances can indeed help to open your heart to God, as well); but in very difficult situations, much less effort is required to move away from the world. So in trying times, half the work is already done. This is a gift of facing difficulty; it helps to encourage us to open us to God in a much deeper way.

Unfavorable circumstances help us to open our hearts and lives to God, more than almost any other type of situation.

If you are in a difficult circumstance, rather than judge it or reject it - which will give you more suffering - please know that it truly is an opportunity to open your heart and life more deeply to God.

Love, Lalita

"The wise man builds his house on the solid rock of Truth, and not on the shifting sands of instability. He measures causes by effects and estimates Reality by that which is real and enduring. The foolish man, living only in sense perception, has no measure for Reality and builds his home on false and erroneous concepts; the vicissitudes of fortune upset his frail building, the edifice falls about him in ruins. Truth alone endures."

- Dr. Ernest Holmes