08/09/20
Leviticus 25:35-38
If any of your people become poor and unable to support themselves, you must help them, just as you are supposed to help foreigners who live among you. Don't take advantage of them by charging any kind of interest or selling them food for profit. Instead, honor me by letting them stay where they now live. Remember--I am the LORD your God! I rescued you from Egypt and gave you the land of Canaan, so that I would be your God.
I’ve spoken about letting our little light shine, and it is a wonderful metaphor for describing God expressing through us. When we open to that presence of God within and align with our Spiritual natures, we allow God’s energy, which we describe as light, to flow through us. It is as if there was a switch that flips on and that light floods into everything we think, do, and say.
It is our true nature to be filled with light, and yet at times we feel dark inside, as if there was a dark switch that was turned on. We feel separate, alone, unable, and unwilling to reach out to others. What is happening in our world can cause us concern, doubt, even fear, and these emotions can incapacitate us. It is at these times that our souls cry out for help.
Each of us knows right now at least one person in our lives that we wish we could help: someone who is suffering an awful disease or is experiencing emotional pain. They may be severely disabled or suffering from critical financial lack or a debilitating addiction.
There will always be someone in our lives that we feel needs help in one form or another. The question becomes – what can we do about it? Is there something we can do?
This instruction from God, to help the poor, has been a part of our human consciousness for millennia. Primatologist, Frans De Waals, believes that fairness, reciprocity, empathy, cooperation - caring about the well-being of others - is part of mammalian DNA. The desire to help has resulted in many charitable programs and organizations encompassing a broad spectrum of social concerns. It is a natural part of us to give, share, and help others, and it is important that we do as much as we can with our human resources. Yet our DNA and primal compassion can only do so much.
Through our human eyes we often look upon someone’s cry for help in terms of lack. Someone is missing something and needs fixing. We tell ourselves that we know what’s best for someone. So, we are often anxious to share our uninvited wisdom with them, pointing out their mistakes and reasons for their misery.
Have you been on the receiving end of such well-meaning sentiments – where someone has made you feel lacking, incapable, and incomplete – even though their intentions were to help you? It’s easy to start to believe them and begin seeing our self as less than whole.
When I am feeling this way, I must remember that God only makes perfection. There may be things that we don’t think live up to our standards. But from God’s perspective - it’s all good, perfect. A two-headed goat, a guy with freckles and a gapped-tooth smile. We are not lacking in anything, and neither is the person we want to help. We don’t need fixing and neither does anyone else.
When we offer to aid someone in their challenge from only our human level, we are acting out of desperation, and are motivated by fear, concern, or a feeling of superiority. Our feeling is that we can’t wait for God; it requires our immediate interference!
As we change the way we see an individual or a situation - from our human perspective to our Spiritual awareness - we realize that this person does not need our help. They may need direction, or they may need someone to see them as they truly are – complete, perfect, whole, capable. When we can see from this higher perspective, from God’s perspective, we see passed the circumstances to the truth of them.
This is the only way we can ever really help someone, or ourselves. A person’s situation can only change when their awareness of their self changes. There is nothing that we can offer or do at a human level that can provide the help that we genuinely want to offer or that they truly need.
There was once a young soldier who was sentenced to death by the king. The king declared, “He will be hung at the ringing of the curfew bell this evening.” The soldier’s betrothed, in a desperate attempt to save her beloved, climbed the bell tower an hour before curfew and tied herself to the bell’s giant clapper. At curfew, the bell was rung, but the king heard nothing. He ordered an investigation and they discovered the battered body of the young woman. The king was so moved by the woman’s willingness to suffer such pain for someone that she loved that the king said, “Curfew shall not ring tonight,” and the soldier was spared. But the soldier continued his treacherous ways and was ultimately hanged for treason.
Until there is a change in awareness, in consciousness, in how we think about ourselves - an inner change - there can be no change in how we think, speak, or behave, and therefore, no change in our outer conditions. So how do we raise someone’s consciousness? We can’t, but we can raise our own.
There is no dark switch. The darkness that we experience is simply the absence of light. We cannot flood a room with darkness, so we turn off the light.
The same is true with our consciousness: our lower human consciousness is simply a temporary shadow – an absence of our true spiritual awareness. Just as a shadow is cast by an object blocking all or part of the light coming from behind it, similarly our egos or erred human thinking can block all or a part of God’s light that is within us. When this happens, we perceive a darkness within us, a lack, or separation - a shadow. But really, there is no disconnect; there is only a temporary blockage that we are causing.
For us to help someone, we must first see ourselves fully lighted. We must raise our own consciousness God-ward to impact another. When the Christ in us beholds the Christ in another, we see only perfection in them. There is nothing to fix. It was how Jesus helped others: he did not make things right; he saw things right.
In Mark and Luke there is a moving story of a young woman, who for 12 years suffered from hemorrhaging. She heard that Jesus was coming to town and believed that if she could just touch his clothing that she would be healed of her affliction. Amidst a crowd of people, she pushed her way toward Jesus and managed to touch the hem of his robe, and instantly she was healed.
Touching the hem of his garment is symbolic of aligning with the Christ consciousness. Jesus at once recognized that someone had made this alignment, and asked “Who touched me?” The woman threw herself before Jesus and explained why she had touched him – to be healed. Jesus told her that her faith had healed her.
Jesus did not have to do anything to help this woman. He did not try to fix her. He just … was. By being in tune with God within him, he attracted and helped people. Just by seeing the wholeness of a situations or people, he helped healed them.
This is how we can help others as well. As we align with our highest selves, our God-natures, and let that Christ light shine, we attract people to us that want to ‘touch the hem of our garments’; they want to feel the energy from the connection that we have with God. When we raise our consciousness, we are allowing that person to be healed, and we may not even know them or know that we are doing it. There is no need to do anything other than just be.
We have no way of knowing what is best for another soul - what roads they have taken, or what solutions are required. But we can know that the Christ mind does have the answers and is present in that person, and their Christ presence will respond to us when we allow our Christ presence to radiate from within us.
We are one in this light, in this Christ energy. When we flip on our Christ light, we draw people, not to our light, but to their own Christ light. If they need help, they will find their own way. It may not be our way; it will be their way.
The darkness that we see in the world is not a result of God punishing us but teaching us. It is a result of many inner battles against the darkness created by individuals within themselves. Many people have blocked the light of God that wants to flow in and through them. And it’s not ours to judge them. We all have lessons to learn. They may be struggling against the emotional abuse of a tough upbringing. They may be fighting the limited viewpoints of parents, or the oppression of an environment that continues to tell them they are not worthy without being superior.
The light from within us is passed on from heart to heart, awareness to awareness. I encourage us all to continue to help people from our humanity. As human beings, we must continue to face the darkness and the challenges, and do what Spirit calls us to do – speak the words that need to be heard, perform the acts of kindness and love that need to be seen and experienced. It makes a difference.
And it is my prayer, that even before we engage from a human level, we fill ourselves first with God’s Light, Love, Joy, Hope, and Power, and then as a Child of God choose to see the perfection in everyone despite the struggle with their inner darkness. 2 Corinthians 4:6 For God, who said, “Let there be light in the darkness,” has made this light shine in our hearts so we could know the glory of God that is seen in the face of Christ. Perhaps, as a Child of God, we will find that the best way we can help someone is to see the Christ in them, see them whole and filled with Light, and then simply be – be the Truth, be the Light, be the Love, be the Peace.