Born of Bliss - Born to Bliss

Did you know - you were born "of" bliss! Which means you were also born "to" bliss. If you think about it, how could it be any other way? All creation is born of bliss, born to bliss. Everything starts as the union of two cells where something magical begins to happen. And God doesn't show any restraint in His creation. Every human, every insect, every fish, bird, exotic flower, every tree, shouts the glory of God from it's very cells.

I think that's part of what we love about Disney movies. Disney knows how to express bliss in a visual way using sparkles and bright lights and soaring music. When we see it, most of us recognize bliss as the way we are "supposed" to live - and we enjoy it for about 10 minutes - until we go back to our "other" way of life. Which is what?

Speaking for myself, I work at a large computer company in Silicon Valley where the risk of layoffs loom large on everyone's minds every day. As a result, fear presides over the environment, making it anything but bliss. What presides over this environment is a tremendous amount of faith - but not in the goodness of God to provide. Instead it's the fear of losing that which they've worked so hard to have. Which is what? The ability to keep working and providing for themselves and their families. Because if they couldn't do that, what might become of them? So they live in constant fear, which results in no bliss, and is very exhausting.

I think about dryer lint traps. What is lint but particles of everything in the dryer, falling off and "sticking" to the lint trap. What happens if we never clean out our lint traps? They become 2 inches thick and, after awhile, fail to do any good. The worries of our lives work exactly like that. If we let every worry we can come up with "stick" to us, they will establish themselves like layers of lint that block out our ability to live freely and according to the bliss we were born to. A lot of people who live in the fear-based environment of high tech companies in Silicon Valley have a strategy for dealing with their lint. That is, they only clean it out twice a year when they're on vacation. It's then that they can finally reconnect with things that really matter to them, remember how to enjoy and be grateful for their lives and what they do have - much of which is free anyways.

They come back to work refreshed, but a little bit sad, because they still haven't learned how to bring that bliss into the workplace. And how to leave the fear behind. I want to ask - isn't the choice to live in fear far more damaging to you than is the choice to live in bliss? The very thing you fear will happen - loss of quality of life - is hastened by the fear you choose to reside in. We can say "No - I don't choose to reside in fear" but actually we do, every time we fail to live in simple faith, relying on the goodness of God to provide - not on our jobs. Our jobs are transient, temporary, capable of going away at any time. God is eternal, we were born of Him, born to bliss, and anything short of that is not our destinies.

We're going to have faith in something. Faith in fear or faith in God. Which will you choose?