God Helps Those Who Help Themselves
God Helps Those Who Help Themselves
I don't know about you, but I often don't know whether I should
act on something or just surrender it to God and let it show up
in my life.
Reviewing my experience with both these approaches, I find that
both have worked and both have failed.
Sometimes when I surrender, things do show up. Sometimes nothing
happens until I act. And sometimes I do the wrong things, too,
and it still doesn't show up.
Last Sunday, I got lost on my way to a new location. I decided
to surrender. Intuitively, I knew when to turn left or right on
each crossroad. Suddenly, remarkably, I found myself upon
familiar ground and was able to complete my journey to my
intended destination.
Last night, for example, no amount of praying helped me ease my
hacking cough. Since I had not been able to sleep for three days
because of coughing every time I dozed off, I was in a highly
agitated state. Finally, out of desperation, I jumped out of
bed, wrapped myself up in multiple layers of clothes, stumbled
out into the freezing night, climbed into my car and drove
around until I could find a pharmacy that was open past
midnight. I found one; purchased a
coughing-sneezing-aching-let-you-sleep at night medication.
For the first, in what seemed like a very long time, I slept
very deeply and woke up completely refreshed.
I know that these are small and perhaps trivial examples, but
they do point to a much larger theme. God helps those who help
themselves.
Basically, you have to act in this world to get things done.
Rarely do things just show up by themselves. This does happen,
but not at a statistically significant level to count on it.
However, after you act, you have to let it go. You can't predict
the outcome, and you definitely can't control it. Thus, I have
come to the conclusion that our best recourse is to do what we
can and then let go the results. Basically, we act and then we
surrender.
Here is a small fable to illustrate my point:
In a time long ago, there was a clever merchant who bought some
camels from a distant town and had to transport them to his home
through the desert. On his first night in the desert with his
new herd of camels, he did not know whether to take the time to
tie them all up before he went to sleep that night in his tent.
Should he just trust God and hope that he would be able to see
them still flocked around in the morning? Should he make the
effort of spending several hours tying up each camel to a stake
in the ground?
Mysteriously, a monk showed up. He was passing through and asked
the merchant for some food and shelter.
After dining the monk, the merchant asked him what to do about
his camels.
"Tie up the camels," said the sage, "and trust God to keep them
there until morning."
And here is a true story that illustrates it:
I once worked with an MLM person. I joined his team when he was
making direct sales and doing $10,000 a month. He was a wizard
at the cold call. He could charm the fleas off a dog with his
words. He was also highly religious. What he did was make the
effort and surrender the result. Avalanches of abundance flowed
to him.
Then he became enamored with the surrender texts in his Bible
and shirked the doing part. Within four months, everything that
he had built up collapsed.
In conclusion, God is the ultimate mystery. Sometimes our life
lessons are to be proactive and change the world. Sometimes it
is to be passive and let the invisible powers make all the
necessary contacts and experiences. As human beings, we seldom
recognize the lesson until later on. From our limited
perspective, we don't know what things mean and what to do.
Thus, I think action and surrender is the best way to play the
game of life.
Keywords: God, surrender