We Are Listening, but Do We Act on It?

It is amazing, the things that come into your mind whenever you are doing something as simple as (or as complex as, depending on your personality) taking a bath. I take baths after going back from work (unlike some people I know), and since this is a fairly routine activity (thus leaving the mind free to think of other things), my mind usually wanders to the things that I've done the whole day long. Some form of recollection, I guess. Unfortunately, this is not applicable whenever I'm going through some sort of 'hormone overflow' situation...let your imagination take flight here...

Anyways,

A couple of days ago, my mind happened to rest on a subject regarding an e-mail I'd received from a good friend (and yes, it happened during shower), who happens to be the administrator and owner of this blog. The title of the e-mail was "FW: ARE YOU LISTENING?" (it seems that some people have flairs for the dramatic, or probably an elephant was sitting on his/her 'Caps Lock' button). In it, it tells a story about how a person, longing to find God, was inspired by an unusual event. Now, I don't know whether he found what he's looking for (which was probably God), but before we go any further, I think it would be appropriate if I would re-tell the story again here.

I just love copy-paste. Make life so much easier.

Anyways,

This is the excerpt:

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The Lord's voice

This will give you the chills........GOOD chills.(Blogger's note: I told you, flairs for the dramatic...)

A young man had been to Wednesday night Bible Study. The Pastor had shared about listening to God and obeying the Lord's
voice. The young man couldn't help but wonder, "Does God still speak to people?"

After service he went out with some friends for coffee and pie and
they discussed the message. Several different ones talked about how God had led them in different ways. It was about ten o'clock when the young man started driving home. Sitting in his car, he just began to pray, "God...If you still speak to people speak to me. I will listen. I will do my best to obey."

As he drove down the main street of his town, he had the strangest
thought to stop and buy a gallon of milk. He shook his head and said out loud, "God is that you?" He didn't get a reply and started on toward home. But again, the thought, buy a gallon of milk. The young man thought about Samuel and how he didn't recognize the
voice of God, and how little Samuel ran to Eli. "Okay, God, in case that is you, I will buy the milk." It didn't seem like too hard a test of obedience. He could always use the milk. He stopped and purchased the gallon of milk and started off toward home.

As he passed Seventh Street, he again felt the urge, "Turn Down that street." This is crazy he thought and drove on past the intersection. Again, he felt that he should turn down Seventh Street. At the next intersection, he turned back and headed down Seventh. Half jokingly, he said out loud, "Okay, God, I will".

He drove several blocks, when suddenly, he felt like he should stop. He pulled over to the curb and looked around. He was in semi commercial area of town. It wasn't the best but it wasn't the worst of neighborhoods either. The businesses were closed and most of the houses looked dark like the people were already in bed.

Again, he sensed something, "Go and give the milk to the people in the house across the street." The young man looked at the house. It was dark and it looked like the people were either gone or they were already asleep. He started to open the door and then sat back in the car seat.

"Lord, this is insane. Those people are asleep and if I wake them up, they are going to be mad and I will look stupid." Again, he felt like he should go and give the milk. Finally, he opened the door, "Okay God, if this is you, I will go to the door and I will give them the milk. If you want me to look like a crazy person, okay. I want to be obedient. I guess that will count for something
but if they don't answer right away, I am out of here."

He walked across the street and rang the bell. He could hear some
noise inside. A man's voice yelled out, "Who is it? What do you want?" Then the door opened before the young man could get away. The man was standing there in his jeans and T-shirt. He looked like he just got out of bed. He had a strange look on his face and he didn't seem too happy to have some stranger standing on his doorstep. "What is it?"

The young man thrust out the gallon of milk, "Here, I brought this to you." The man took the milk and rushed down a hallway. Then from down the hall came a woman carrying the milk toward the kitchen. The man was following her holding a baby. The baby was crying. The
man had tears streaming down his face.

The man began speaking and half crying, "We were just praying. We had some big bills this month and we ran out of money. We didn't have any milk for our baby. I was just praying and asking God to show me how to get some milk." His wife in the kitchen yelled out, "I ask him to send an Angel with some. Are you an Angel?"

The young man reached into his wallet and pulled out all the money he had on him and put in the man's hand. He turned and walked back toward his car and the tears were streaming down his face.

He knew that God still answers prayers.
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I always love tear-jerkers.

Anyways, the search for God, The Ultimate Truth, The Great Mystery, or such things, have always fascinated the human race. A friend once said to me that man back then created God when they went to the mountains and saw the sky, full of stars, full of infinite possibilities. And this immense realization made man feel so small...and scared. So God was created as some form a boundary between man and this infinite possibility. Probably that's where the association between God and the sky came from. Like, it's as if He (or She, depending on your sexual preference) resides up there. I've been through such experience, when I laid myself down on a hill in Puncak one fine Sunday not so long ago, looking at the sky and the clouds. Out of the blue, my imagination took me to a musing about what if gravity reversed itself and what if I'd find myself falling into the clouds, into the sky. When will the fall stop? When will it be the end? It was an immense experience, and I found myself weak in the knees after that.

Maybe it was just vertigo.

In any case, regarding the story, I presume that different people have different take on the story. Some might think that it was God speaking to the man's heart, and a lot of other maybes. I myself think that maybe it was telepathy. Having a mother who is telepathic to her former husband who is also my father, it's a no-brainer how I could come up with this (if she lied about this story then I'm so dead). In any case, if the story is true, and this is a big if since I wasn't there to witness it (I could only be a witness to my own life and nothing more), the important thing is that the baby's safe, the baby's parents are in peace, and the man (presumably) found what he was looking for.

Which is a good thing for him. And nothing more. If that was his understanding of God, and if he's comfortable with it, good for him. Very good. Unfortunately, this is not so for us. Because we are borrowing his understanding of God. We haven't come up with our own understanding of God. Each of us has our own experience of God. And I never let myself mistake religion with faith. Man may have the same religion, but each man's faith is his/her own and can never be the same as another. For each has his/her own life to lead.

Before I start wandering away from the subject (due to my nature of having a pretty big mouth, literally and figuratively speaking), I would just like to say that no man can ever be completely right or completely wrong. It's just is. But what I would like to bring into the spotlight is the man himself. To me, the 'star' of the story is not God or the voices/urgings inside the man's head, or the 'miracle' of hearing voices inside one's head (which some might interpret as signs of one's losing one's mind). He may have heard the voices, felt the urgings, but we must remember that in the end, it was the man's decision to do the things. Had the man decided to ignore them, this chain mail wouldn't even be here in the first place (by the way, this is the second time I got this e-mail...it's amazing how chain-mails could recycle themselves these days...the marvel of the e-mail forwarding technology)

Had the man decided to stay his hands, the baby would probably be dead by now, the parents miserable, the man never finding his answers. It is in our hands that the will and the capability to act rest. It was the man's will to finding the answers to his questions that drove him to act in such ways. It was his hands that carried the milk and the money to the baby. And don't forget that it was the parents' will (in the form of prayers) that brought the man to them. It might be only a simple, desperate act of 'prayer', of 'hope', of 'courage' and of 'love' that carried the message to the man, but it was an act nonetheless. These parents didn't have other means except for their strong will to give life to their baby, and their 'prayers'. But they have the will, and the capability to act (even if the act was only a prayer...or hidden telepathic potentials...sorry, can't help myself ha ha ha). So the fact remains, in the end, it is us humans that have the final say about how we want to use our potentials. Even if it's only in the form of buying a gallon of milk or wishing upon a star (or a gallon of milk ha ha ha).

So, in the end, I would like to say, maybe it's not such a hard thing to find God. All you have to do is look inside yourself, and I'm very sure that the potential is there. Not saying that we ARE God, but in each of us lies the seed, the potential, to be like God. To be godlike. All we have to do is to decide, to will ourselves, and finally, to act upon it. No matter how many miracles there are out there, in the end we are the one who decide what we would like to do about them. Thus goes the saying that man is created in the image of Him (or Her). I believe that this saying was not talking in physical sense of things.

This of course, comes also with the realization that other people beside ourselves also have the potentials to be godlike. I guess if you respect the inner strength that lies in you, you would also realize that it's only natural to respect other people since the potentials are also there. Then the world would be a much better place, ain't it?

We all know such is not the case.

Then again, I could be wrong. Who knows? Life has proven me wrong many times. Maybe the world is already a perfect place (with all its imperfections... hey, humans are always about contradictions). But I speak from the heart. At least I could admit that much.

So, in the end, I hope that you all like this entry. And Miss Administrator, I hope you like my first entry in your blog. Be waiting for yours.