What About Careers (Part Two) ...?

"Do I want to serve God, or do I want to be happy?"

Oh -- is it either/or...? Must we make a choice? Do we imagine that God is out to make us miserable, giving us talents and gifts which we must deny, in order to serve Him...?

What if a life lived close to God is meant to be a life filled with JOY...?

What if sacrifice was never God's idea ...?

So ... should I ask God to send me a brilliant career/ministry/job, or should I ask God to show me the brilliance He's already put IN me ...?

What if the concept of "going out and looking for fulfillment" is a distraction (not to mention a false concept) ... what if it's about expanding my ability to receive what already IS...?

As I see it, no matter what I do, it becomes my ministry ... for spreading either fear, or love ... shame or healing ... ego or God. I figure I'm here to be used in the service of healing the world ... how it manifests is God's business ... though He invites me to express who I really am ... to discover how my own creative abilities can best be expressed ... success includes the necessary trials and errors of the discovery-process. Mistakes are not what derail me ... mistakes are my learning-tools.

What if none of us are "special" ... meaning that none of us are "better than" anyone else. We're each unique, and worthy of celebration as we are. Do we imagine that God isn't celebrating us, even at this moment...? On one hand, ALL of us are special ... on the other hand, none of us are special at the expense of anyone else. Specialness would require separation ... which breeds fearful competition.

The truth is -- there's enough of everything, and we are one. We can be generous and gracious with all we have ... for there's "more where that came from."

Beethoven, Mozart, Michelangelo, Shakespeare, Picasso, and Einstein didn't so much create anything, as that they accessed within themselves that which was created by God, and placed IN them. They then expressed what had been put in them ... they called it forth, and manifested it in a way in which others could share. Their genius was not in creation, but in expression. Great art strikes us as familiar ... we wish that we had said/done/sung/painted/created that. Our souls thrill with the reminder of what we already know, already have, and we're given "permission" to express as well.

Again, it's not about what we do, so much as how we do whatEVER it is we do ... we can discover who we are, and let our doing flow out of our being.

Shalom, Dena