Someone asked me today if I had any wisdom or advice to share with them. Here’s what I said: “The most wonderful thing I’m learning about lately is the beauty of embracing mystery and letting go of my need to be right.”
Here’s why: Because more and more I am beginning to accept that I don’t know everything. In fact, when it comes to the transcendent Being who exists outside of space and time; who created all things with a breath, and has no end and no beginning, I can honestly say that I know next to nothing at all.
What I think I know is very limited:
-God is good.
-God is love.
-God’s Spirit is what holds everything together.
-My being is forever intertwined with God.
-Everyone and everything is saturated with God.
-Nothing will ever separate me from God or the love of God.
-All things are connected to God and God is connected to all things.
Just meditating on those things is enough to bring me peace, and hope, and meaning for this day.
I’ve also come to realize that TRUTH is not something external to myself…although I used to believe that way. I used to believe that what I needed was outside of myself and, therefore, I always needed to seek wisdom, search for truth, and chase after answers that were always just a little out of reach, or hidden in some book, or spoken by some wise teacher.
Today, I have come to realize that this Truth I’ve been chasing after all this time is inside of me…and it has always been inside of me. Because I am in Christ, and Christ is in me, and Christ is all and is in all. [See Colossians 3:11]
So, rather than seek out a guru, or search for wisdom in another book, or another conference, or another teacher, or any other external source, I now realize that everything I am have been searching for has always been as close to me as my own heartbeat.
“Be still and know…” is perhaps the deepest wisdom I need to practice.
Because when I slow down, and still myself, and reconnect with Christ within, I find in that silence a deeper wisdom, and a truer peace, and more profound truth than anything I have ever known before.
Because, I’m also realizing that there are different ways of “knowing” truth: one way is to collect information on a topic, and the other is to experience something that is beyond mere information.
Jesus called it “Ginosko“, or “knowing God [and Christ] with the same intimacy shared between a husband and a wife; an intimacy that conceives a new life within us.” [See John 17:3]
This sort of Truth is not “out there,” it is “in here.”
Because Christ abides in me, and I abide in Christ.
We are like a vine and a branch. It’s hard to know where one ends and the other begins.
So, as an author, and a teacher, how do I share with you all that God is teaching me? How do I illustrate all the nothing that I have come to know? How can I express to you how little I know about God’s Spirit or how He speaks to us?
I don’t know.
But, this leaves room for God to do more than I expect, more than I imagine, more than I can anticipate.
See, I’m used to dispensing the truth. I’ve spent a long time creating the illusion that I have all the answers. But, I’m tired of pretending. In fact, I am no one’s guru.
Yet, people still want a guru. They want a wise teacher who will give them the answers, guide their steps, show them the path.
But, the longer people follow someone else, the less ability they have to hear that voice of Christ within themselves.
What I would love to do is to point everyone to that eternal connection they all have with God already.
Learn to be still.
Learn to listen.
Learn to trust your own ability to hear that voice for yourself.
Don’t keep asking others for advice.
Stop following me, or anyone else.
You all have an inner guru living inside.
Until you connect with this wisdom, listen to this voice, abide in this Christ, you will never be at peace with yourself, and you’ll always be tossed back and forth by this person, or that doctrine, or this other teaching.
The truth you seek is already available to you.
You just have to listen.
Give it a try.
I think you might be surprised.
**
Keith Giles is the author of the 7-part best-selling “Jesus Un” book series from Quoir Publishing. His latest -and final book – in this series, Jesus Unarmed: How The Prince Of Peace Disarms Our Violence is available now. Keith is also the host of Second Cup with Keith [a new solo podcast available now on the Ethos Radio App, for Apple and Android and on Spotify; and the Heretic Happy Hour Podcast [along with co-hosts Matthew Distefano, Dr. Katy Valentine, and Derek Day], and the new Imaginary Lines YouTube Channel with poet Darrell Epp. He and his wife, Wendy, currently live in El Paso, TX and work with Peace Catalyst International.
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