How Can I Know God's Will? Eliminating Frustration and Anxiety Too - a Reading from Pastor's New Book

     If you want frustration and resentment to leave your life, then simply learn the art of not setting goals. If you have no goal, then there will be no more striving, frustration, futility, or resentment. 

Perhaps that is one of the reasons why we are all so authority oriented—we want someone to decide for us, absolving us of responsibility and the need to endlessly plan, scheme and struggle. When decisions are made for us, we simply follow.

The problem is that the kind of authorities who presently rule this world are the types who will set ambitious goals for you and then motivate, pressure, or manipulate you into struggling toward the goals they set for you.

And so, even when we abdicate our will to another in order to avoid the guilt and frustration of deciding ourselves, soon we are doing their will, which leads to the same guilt and frustration as we struggle and strive toward some goal they have set for us.

What I want you to see is that your problems stem from setting goals, those you set yourself or those others set for you. 

Even the smallest goal can cause conflict. All you have to do is make it a goal to get to the front of some line first, and you become dehumanized. You rush for the line, forgetting manners or even safety. And if another gets there before you, you resent them. Gone is love of your neighbor. Instead a mean spirit enters, and suddenly the only thing that is important is attainment of your goal. You damn and curse anyone or anything that gets in your way.

Some people develop tremendous guilt for such goals. Perhaps as a child they were instructed (while hypnotically obeying their parents or teacher) to struggle, strive, and work to get the best grades or win the spelling contest. Fixated on the prize, under the direction of the motivator authority, they did exactly what they were told to do. In the process they became a monster—ambitious, perhaps even enough to cheat or try to sabotage their competitor.

To the entire world, an athlete who cheats or uses performance enhancing drugs looks like the villain. But the real villains are the hypnotist manipulators—the motivators who egg on the athlete to win at all costs with threats, bribes, or promises.

The perceptive child, though hypnotized by authority and seeking to please them, may soon feel alienated from fellow students because he or she doesn’t feel comfortable being ambitious, cruel or a cut throat. Some such perceptive and sensitive children will even unconsciously become sick or somehow mess up so as not to have to engage in the ambitious activity that others want them to. 

At some point, the ambitious scholar, athlete, or performer may suddenly find himself or herself in the process of doing something cruel or wrong in order to reach the goal. At this point, he or she tends to wake up. At this point, such a person is likely to go to one of two extremes.

One: the pain of seeing his or her own cut throat strivings may drive the person into an even deeper trance to escape from the pain of awareness. Rededicating himself to the goal, he pursues it doggedly, perhaps even with self loathing or self pity. The goal is the main thing, he tells himself. "It will be worthwhile in the end. No one loves me anyway." 

Because the motivator does take an interest in the ambitious one, he seems to be the only source of love. And so, the victim falls even more under the spell to avoid the guilt and anxiety that comes with awareness and to receive the approval and love of the motivator.

The other way such persons might go is to awaken to see just how heartless and inhuman they have become in the pursuit of the goal. In guilt, they might set a goal of making it up to those they hurt. This new goal now becomes the pressure to function. And under pressure of the new goal, and making it too important, they might actually force themselves on others, pressuring them to accept their apology or pressuring them to accept some payment to make up.

In a similar way, they might set a goal of helping others like themselves. They become a teacher, coach, or other authority with a goal of helping anyone like themselves. 

So instead of being a harsh teacher or coach, they become a "nice," easy going, people pleasing teacher or coach. Instead of being a disciplinarian, they become a liberator, friend, or nice guy or nice gal. Unfortunately, the goal of being nice, or to put it another way, the goal of not being like their parent, coach or teacher makes them dogged and narrow minded. They also become seducers.

Such a person will actually become threatened and resentful if others don't accept their niceness or if others don't see them in a good light. Think of it! The goal seeking nice guy will hate you if you don't like him.

But others can see something fanatical about their good deeds. Others can sense the pressure in the person who aims to please. And so, the rejection they bring on themselves through trying too hard to please or be nice causes anxiety and resentment. 

In order to reach the goal of being the world's nicest teacher or whatever, he will do everything he can in order to seduce you and win you over. And if nothing works, he will hate and reject you.

The truth of the matter is that when the person goes into a hypnotic state, they come under the influence of another. Twenty years later, the hypnotized person continues to carry out the directives of the motivator. And eventually it is the spirit of the motivator which acts through the victim. 

Evil, you see, is a spirit which never dies. It is undead, like a virus. It infects each new generation with itself. And the ambitious ones then come under its spell and it operates through them.

If, at this time, you are impatient with your children and are seeking to pressure, bribe, threaten, or motivate them, it is undoubtedly the spirit which was operating through your parents (or driven teachers or coaches) which is now living through you, seeking to destroy your children and to use them as a new vehicle for its plans.

Can you now see the wisdom of the words: “Seek first the Kingdom of God and His right way, and all other things will be added unto you?”

Christ exhorts us to make our Creator and His right way most important--first, last, and always. If you seek to do what you know is right in your heart—making it at all times and in all places and in every moment more important than anything else, then you can know no frustration. You won't have to decide anymore or face dilemmas. You will have made THE choice—to submit to your Creator's will instead of seeking your own will.

And when you seek your Creator's will, then you come under His authority. And when you are under His authority, you are no longer under the worldly motivator's authority.

It's a strange thing about time—time should be a benevolent source of a substance we need to accomplish anything. In the material creation, things come to fruition in time. The end intended then comes to pass through cause leading to effect. One precedes the other in sequence. And the awareness of the sequence, one after another, gives the reference points by which we measure time.

If you intended something, and you knew that it would come to pass for sure. .  .  and if you knew that it was God's will, then there would be no anxiety, no worry, and no pressure, because you would be certain of a happy fulfillment.

Even more fun would be if you were certain that the Creator's will would be done, and you knew that you were doing His will for each moment, but you did not know what the outcome would be or when it would be, you could simply live care free moment by moment doing what is right and then waiting with joy for the surprise happy outcome.

When the good came to pass, it would be a joyous surprise (like a birthday present), yet all along you knew that something good would happen, you just didn't know what it would be.

It all depends on intent. But you might say, “I have had the right intent, but things didn't work out.” First of all, you must not make a goal of “doing good.” If so, then this goal, leads to putting your will into it, the usual frustration, time pressure, and resentment. Your will then becomes a pressure to others. The goal (and accompanying preplanning and attempt to have some effect or make some impression) ruins your timing and robs you of spontaneity. 

Jesus often warned the people about doing things to make an impression on others. He also often warned us not to be hypocrites. Do you see the connection? Having a goal of being good or doing good results in doing things for effect and effect on others. 

Your intent must be to be ready to do what you know is right in your heart for each moment. In other words, as I go through life and approach a situation, I do not know what the good is. I watch and wait. I check with my intuition. Sometimes nothing is required. Sometimes a word, deed or gesture will happen. I just act or speak spontaneously, flowing from intuition, and the action is right. If I over analyzed, planned in advance, or used some pre digested formula—I would have messed it up. The innocence, the sweetness, and the power would have been absent. Instead an ego would be laboring for effect. 

Life is subtle and involves timing. There are not enough books in the world to cover the perfect action for any delicate moment with your loved ones, for example. You need guidance, just in time guidance—the kind that comes from within, in the moment, when you get your ego out of the way, not knowing what to, but wishing with all your heart to do the right thing. With this attitude, you will suddenly know what to do. 

If doing what is right, but not really knowing in advance what the “right” is in any particular situation, is your sincere intent, then you may simply go about your life, living humbly, quietly, not given to prediction, not seeking selfish advantage, and not seeking to make any impression on others. In most moments of your life, nothing is required of you. In this respect, doing right often means not doing wrong. Going the right way means not going the wrong way. Doing the Creator's will means not doing other's will.

Remember, whenever you move under pressure, you are obeying another's will. That's why if you respond to the pressure of another's praise or the pressure of their criticism, then you are moving hypnotically.

When something becomes too important—more important than seeking to quietly realize what is right for that moment—then you have a goal directed consciousness, which will lead to your striving to attain.

Remember Christ's words concerning doing good: He said "let not your right hand know what your left hand is doing."

Can you see what innocence is? It is moving spontaneously without thought of the outcome. Children are naturally innocent. That's why their honest speech and lack of self consciousness are so sweet.

There are also adults who are naturally innocent—often scientists, who love discovering truth, move innocently. People like Thomas Edison (who often forgot his umbrella) or Einstein.

What makes us self conscious is the ego appeal of the gaze directed at us by others who question our motives and seek to confuse us. Wrong, impatient, or ambitious people hate innocence, and so they try to draw attention to yourself with praise, criticism, or blame.

They know that once they can make you self conscious—embarrassed, ashamed, angry, and resentful—you will then seek to move to alleviate the feeling.

They also know that if they can make you doubt yourself, you will become confused and unsure, and they can continue to dominate you.

Natural innocence is nice, but you need to go beyond it to find spiritual innocence. The angels are innocent. And because they are, they immediately acknowledge truth. And because they have no will of their own, other than to do God's will, they only bear goodwill toward their neighbor. They do good unawares, being not self conscious of themselves as an operator. In fact, they even know that when they do good, it is not of themselves. 

Can you see how this fundamental realization saves them from pride (which also makes us self conscious in a most unfortunate way, alienating us from the good)?

In order to find innocence, you must give up your goals and striving. Relax and wait patient for the wind of the spirit to move you.

Click on the picture to preview Mike's inspirational story of how he overcame depression, fear, anxiety and bipolar, with 2 chapters by Pastor Roland