I’ve been at a place of frequently asking myself/the universe why?

• Why do I seemingly have all these gifts in which very few are interested?
• Why give me the gifts of vision, insight, knowing, and no audience with whom to share them?
• Why give me the gift of prophecy – the ability to see the sign of the times and where things may be headed – when no one hears me?
• Why give me the gift of seeing disorder (when things are out of order for an individual or a group’s higher good), along with the awareness of the remedy to that disorder when my insights are almost always ignored or rejected?
• Why give me a platform on which I can share some of these insights while keeping my platform invisible?
• Why give me wise counsel and the gift of teaching for the very few who are willing to hear and apply it?
• Why show me the red flags while those who need them ignore my pleas?

When I find myself in these times of questioning, I often feel like a whiney baby asking my parent, “Why can’t I have what I want when I want it and I want it now?”

But I have also found that when I turn these kinds of quandaries inward, the answer usually appears – or at least what I need to hear in the moment to find comfort along with encouragement for continuing forward.

This morning as I wrote out these questions and hurled them out into the Universe, the answer came quickly and clearly:

One Who is Like Unto God.

“Hearing” these words, a deep peace came over me, along with an unfolding vision of what these words might mean to me in this moment. I share this in the event that you might find these words comforting as well.

“One who is like unto God,” brought me immediately to the story from Luke’s gospel (Lk 15: 11-32) of the “Prodigal Son.” Specifically, I was reminded of the father and his actions in the story. In summation:  

• He saw and understood that his son needed this time of departure for his own growth.
• He likely understood that his son’s efforts would fail and bring him disappointment.
• He hoped that one day his son might return to the home where he was loved.
• He waited and watched. Every day, standing at the gate, looking to see if his son was coming home.
• When his son came home, the father didn’t punish or reprimand him. Neither did he say, “I told you so.”  Instead, he welcomed him home with open arms and held a celebration for his return.

In the story, the father represents God.  The son represents humanity. For us, the story of the Prodigal Son is an invitation to acknowledge the human need to seek out and explore who we are and our place in the world. It is also the reminder that the ultimate destination of that journey is (re)Union with God/Self. We are both the son and the father at different times in our journey. Sometimes we are the son boldly going out into the world despite the warnings of our family, friends, etc. Sometimes we succeed. Often, we fail. At other times, we are in the position of the father – watching and observing our loved ones (and the world) fumbling about in their journey of being human and we want like mad to share our wisdom, warn them of pitfalls, rescue them and save them from themselves. Our well-meaning attempts to intervene often blow up in our face, or our guidance is simply rejected.

For most of my life, I’ve been the son – going out into the world in defiance of the warnings and cautions delivered by well-meaning elders. Sometimes their warnings proved true. Other times I experienced freedom and liberation from these choices – albeit often with a fair amount of suffering. The human journey, no matter how perfectly we follow another’s, or our own guidance is not without suffering.

Now, when I hear the words “Like Unto God,” I am aware it’s time to be more like God. What I mean in being more like God, I mean this:

• Watching and observing human beings being human beings.
• Avoiding the temptation to judge the actions and decisions of others.
• Allowing humanity to go along on its journey unhindered, even if it means toward their own destruction.
• Staying out of the way – not interfering and not attempting to intervene.
• Avoiding the temptation to fix, save, or rescue.
• Remembering that humanity sometimes learns best through failure.
• While staying out of the way, holding them all in loving compassion.
• Being available as support and counsel when called upon without attachment to the outcome.

Ugh!  All these things are so difficult, especially when the individual(s) in question are those I love and care about. But the truth is, I’m not sure there’s any other choice. It is only our ego/false-self that believes we know what is best for another. (For God’s sake, we don’t even know what’s best for ourselves!)  While we may be able to predict the downfall of another’s decision, and the downfall does indeed happen, that doesn’t mean the failure wasn’t exactly what the individual needed for their own personal growth. While we might see and know, we will never be omniscient. While we may accept the invitation to “be like unto God,” we will never actually be God. It is this truth that keeps us humble in our humanly journey of being human and our spiritual journey of hoping to be more like God. In neither will we ever be perfect – which is the whole entire point.

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