“Decide today who you will serve.”
The words above are from the Book of Joshua in the Hebrew scriptures and perfectly describe where we find ourselves at this point in our human evolution as we are being given an opportunity to choose:
- Who or what do you serve?
- Who or what do you follow?
- Who or what do you worship?
- Who or what do you seek to obtain or acquire?
- Who or what do you believe in?
- Where do you put your time, energy or attention?
- What or who do you give your energy to?
- How are you using this one precious life you’ve been given?
To me, there is only one appropriate response to these questions, the answer being Love (that which some might call God). When we choose to serve the cause of Love, when we follow Love to its source, when we hold Love above all else, when we seek to know Love more fully, when we believe in the power of Love, when we focus our time, energy, and attention on knowing and being Love, when we give ourselves over to being Love, and if Love is the goal and intention of our lives, then we find ourselves authentically free – meaning peaceful, joyful, and content.
When we choose anything other than Love, we are doomed to be imprisoned by our fears, our conditioning, and our limiting beliefs. Then, we become vulnerable to the manipulations of those who seek to benefit from our fears.
The world in which we are currently living is ruled by those who seek to benefit from our fears: Corporations. Politicians. Governments. Religious authorities. The Media. Conspiracy Theorists. Propaganda creators. – just to name a few. The world is rife with those who understand that fear is an easier choice than Love and who use those fears to control us by getting us to do what they want us to do for their benefit and our detriment. The wholesale destruction of Gaza, for example, is the result of a nation capitalizing on the fear they have created and the individuals around the world who financially benefit from a nation always at war. An example closer to home are the snake-oil salespeople who are happy to take advantage of those suffering with a tragic, difficult, or terminal diagnosis by making false promises of a cure.
What the world doesn’t know is that choosing fear is easier only because it’s all we’ve been conditioned to do. From the time we are conceived, fear is the primary message and tool of control. It doesn’t, however, have to be this way. Neither are we doomed to remain in fear. Breaking away from fear begins with a choice – a choice that we are invited to make every single moment of every single day. This choice begins with a simple question:
In this experience, am I choosing fear or Love?
Let me provide some simple examples:
When you are watching TV and an ad comes on for the latest “weight loss cure,” will you allow the ad to trigger your body judgement and be tempted, or even decide to purchase that product or will you see the ad for what it is – a corporation trying to make you feel bad about yourself so you will buy their product – so you can then decide to choose self-Love over fear?
When crazy sh*t is happening at the White House, do you get sucked into anxiety, fear, and the temptation to enter the spiral of doom, or do you take a breath, see it for what it is (something purposefully trying to trigger your fear), and then let it go with Love?
When a political party (or individual) uses the media to try to set apart a specific ethnic group as “the enemy,” do you buy into the fear or do you understand that in Love, there are no enemies – only those seeking to benefit from a world divided.
Choosing Love requires intention, dedication, discipline, and persistence. Choosing Love takes practice – and is a practice. Choosing Love is at once a choice and an unchoosing as we retrain ourselves from the fear we’ve been conditioned to choose to the Love that is our truest and most original nature. Only in choosing Love will we ever know peace and it is only in more choosing Love over fear that the world will ever know peace.
What are you choosing?
Choosing Love is a practice. All of the resources I provide support you in learning how to choose Love and how to unchoose fear.
Lauri Ann Lumby 