Forgetting God’s Love

 

Photo Credit: Global Stewards

Forgetting God’s Love

One of the most fundamental tenets of life is that God loves each and every one of His creations. Most of us tend to forget this basic fact and only call God in an emergency.

There are problems in life and there are agonies to be encountered and to be surpassed. Life is not just a bed of roses; hence many times one tends to forget that God loves us. In fact, great doubt arises: “How can there be a God if I am in such suffering? How can God allow such suffering? If he is omnipotent, omniscient, omnipresent, then why does suffering exist at all? Why always me? Then why does the world go on living in suffering?”

There is every reason not to believe in God and there is no reason to believe in God. The mind can supply a thousand and one reasons why God cannot be, but the mind cannot supply even a single reason for God’s existence. In fact, from the mind there is no way towards God. Mind is just the opposite of God: it keeps our back towards God - and if we keep our back towards God how can we see? Hence the importance of constantly remembering that God loves us, that if there is suffering then there must be meaning in suffering, otherwise there would be no suffering. And there is meaning in suffering. It is through suffering that one becomes integrated.

Suffering is a challenge. It is not a disease to be destroyed, it is a challenge to be accepted, it is an adventure. In the very effort to transcend suffering one arrives at one’s real being. It has a purpose: without it there will be no evolution of consciousness. Pain is not without purpose; hence whatever the world is, it is as it should be. It is the most perfect world there can be. It cannot be improved upon.

It is very human to forget that God loves us. When we are in misery how can we remember it? But those are the moments to remember that God loves us. And if misery has come to us, then it is because He has sent it. It has to be accepted with gratitude.

Even Jesus had doubts when he was being crucified – he questioned God for his suffering. But he immediately remembered – only for a moment did his agony, suffering, pain possess him, and then he transcended it all and said, “Let thy kingdom come, let thy will be done.” He remembered that God loves, that if the cross has happened, if he is crucified, then it is because of God’s will; then there must be something hidden behind it, then it must be a blessing in disguise. He has become surrendered. Just a moment before, the last part of the human mind was still trying to struggle; now he has dropped that too. He dies enlightened, he dies a Christ.

But the whole of life is like a crucifixion. Each moment, at each step, there is suffering, there is agony. All we need to do is remember God loves us, and all that happens has to be accepted with gratefulness. That’s what being a sadhak (a person who practices spirituality) is all about.