God’s Questions

God’s ultimate questions to us are of being—not questions of knowing and especially not questions of doing.

His question to Adam and Eve about location (“Where are you?”) has greater bearing, not on the bushes they were hiding in, but rather where they were in relationship to Him.

Where are you spiritually?  Where are you in relation to your real Self—which is, after all, God-within-you?

Elijah flees for his life after Jezebel promises to kill him.  Then he decides he is no better than his fathers and tells God he is ready to die.  God tells Elijah to stand before Him on the mount.  And a great wind came and an earthquake and a fire.  But God was not in the wind or earthquake or fire.  And after the fire came a still small voice.  We, too, seek a knowing in a still small voice.

God directs us through the psalmist to “be still and know that I am God” (Ps. 46:10).  Notice the need to be still in order to know.  When we know God, we come to know ourselves and the divinity in our being.  We come to know that our being in relationship with God is his greatest desire.

Ann Glover O’Dell

June 2018

Garbage Collectors

I believe we are garbage collectors.  No, we don’t deposit in a dumpster or a landfill.  We don’t even use a trash compactor.  We hold on to it and let it multiply.

A friend who is a committed Christian says he needs guilt in order to get out of bed in the mornings.  He says guilt is his biggest motivator.  Another friend tells me she is attached to her sins and can’t imagine letting them go.

One of my sons as a little boy announced he wanted to become a garbage collector because that was something everyone needed.  On a spiritual level that is what God is (among other things).  A garbage collector.  But He doesn’t steal our garbage from us.  He waits for us to offer it up.  He waits for us to want Him to collect and destroy it.

What would life be without our garbage?  We can hardly imagine.  A heavy burden lifted?  a sense of freedom?  A clean slate?

In the enormous space our garbage occupied will come laughter, peacefulness, creativity, and joy.  And if we miss our guilt and anger and want it back, God will probably help us conjure it up.

Ann Glover O’Dell

20 September 2018

Challenge

Someone disagrees with my conviction that under the skin we are all much alike: we have the same fears, the same shame, the same anger, the same existential angst.

Further, I am certain that each of us has an Inner Wisdom, a force for good that wills us wholeness and can give us blessings we cannot give ourselves.  This Inner Wisdom is available to all of us in dialogue.

I challenge you readers to prove me right or wrong.  First, let me say that the folks I know who have engaged their Inner Wisdom are glad they did.  Two I know who had cancer found the cancer no longer remained the hated enemy but actually disappeared.  My own debilitating illness was also healed.

The dialogue with your Inner Wisdom is not a courageous act, not a leap of faith, not surrender.  Your free will is never compromised.  It is an interview—questions and answers.  Your rational conscious self is in charge at all times and you can end the conversation whenever you wish.

Begin the written conversation with a question, keeping in mind that your Inner wisdom is concerned with your spiritual and physical well-being, not with tangible things you might want.

The first response from your Inner Wisdom might be, “What do you think?” and that simple question may very well cause your mind to begin thinking in a whole new way about something you thought you had exhausted.

As the dialogue continues, you may find there is something your Inner Wisdom can do for you that you cannot consciously do for yourself.  And all it needs is your permission—your unconditional permission to do its work in its own way in its own time.  You decide whether to give that needed permission.

If you do, save your written interview as proof positive later on when you want to demonstrate to others that you initiated something that changed your life.

If you give permission for your Inner Wisdom to act on your behalf, eventually I predict a catharsis will occur in your life, washing away whatever has kept you from experienced your real Self.  And I hope you will report to me so I will be proved right.

Ann Glover O’Dell

7 July 2018