Waiting For God

I listened to a session of inquiry today by Byron Katie entitled The End of suffering - 2 which can be downloaded for free from the link I have provided. At the beginning of the session, a woman, I suppose you could say the inquiree, said, “I want God to make it easy for me to commit to a partnership.” The thing I want emphasise and explore in this post is the concept of waiting for God – expecting God to do something for you.

The woman, the inquiree, correctly identified the fact that holding onto the thought that God should do something for us, that it makes her feel like a victim, bottom of God’s list, orphaned, unlovable, and separate from God.

Without the thought that God should do something for her, the woman related that she would feel more self-worthy, more trusting of self and more open.

During this session of inquiry, Katie raised the point of procrastination: when we hold onto the thought that God should do something for us, we inevitably put off doing what we should be doing. With this thought, God becomes the source of the blame for our not doing something, or something that we expect to happen in our lives, which ends-up not happening.

The turnaround for this session is, “I should…”, or, “I want me to…” It is a matter of self meeting self. If we want God to do something for us – we could be in for a long wait. If we want God to do something for us – we should do it. Personally, I believe in God so the way I see this is that it is God who moves in me. Nevertheless, I concur that holding on to the thought that God should do something, is a recipe for procrastination.

Cancer Meets Inquiry

This session of inquiry at the beginning of The End of suffering - 2, reminded me of one of my favourite sessions of inquiry by Byron Katie entitled Cancer Meets Inquiry which is downloadable via iTunes (for a cost) or for free via the link I provided.

In this session, a woman was saying that God promised all good. She was upset because her church (she is a Christian) promised that God is good and that He would heal her. So when this woman developed cancer, she held onto the thought that God promised all good and that He would heal her. The contraction around this thought brought her stress.

She said she was angry because she didn’t know what she was doing wrong. This is a common thing that happens when people believe in God. When a person becomes a Christian, or believes in any other religion that supports the existence of God, several things happen:

• They have a whole lot of expectations that they believe God can, and should, fulfil.
• They develop a sense of guilt as they wonder what it is they should do in order to appease God’s wrath and to merit His favour.
• They inevitably blame God for all the bad things that have happened in their life and continue to occur in the lives of other people.

The inevitable outcome of these convictions and expectations is:

• God becomes a tyrant who is impossible to please.
• The person feels that they are not good enough and that there is something they must do to please God. They feel a sense of hopelessness.
• They feel like the innocent victim of an unfair world.

This woman felt that she had caused the cancer, she said, “That’s what they say.” She does not say who “they” are – but I would suppose that it is this woman’s church members who said, or subtly implied this. When a person holds onto the thought that they have created their own illness, it causes a person to feel as if they are a bad person and that the illness is proof of that. The thought “I created cancer”, also gives a person the thought, “I created it – I can stop it.” People must realise that they did not choose to be ill.

The Secret to Physical Healing?

There has been a lot of Christian teaching on the subject of healing through faith. Kenneth E. Hagin is known by some as the “Father of Faith”. Hagin’s life story is rather remarkable: he was miraculously healed of an incurable heart condition and blood disease at the age of seventeen. Hagin had several near-death experiences – he even went to the very gates of hell itself – only to be snatched away at the last moment (see Hagin’s minibook “I Went to Hell”).

Kenneth E. Hagin used faith for finances, and particularly, faith for healing in all of his books on Christian faith. Hagin even wrote entire books just on the subject of healing by faith. Hagin would teach that Christians should confess that they are healed – because Christ has already healed them. There are numerous different verses of scripture from the Bible that Hagin used to support this notion, in particular, 1 Peter 2:24 - who Himself bore our sins in His own body on the tree, that we, having died to sins, might live for righteousness--by whose stripes you were healed. Hagin would point out that this verse says that we are not going to be healed, but that we are already healed. Hagin recommended finding verse of scripture that say that our need is met – and then confess it, believing that we already have it.

It has only been during recent years that Bible teachers have been reflecting on Hagin’s teachings and establishing why his methods don’t appear to work for most people. Hagin, and similar faith teachers, would say that it is because people don’t believe enough, or because they don’t confess scripture enough. But the real reason is because:

• They don’t believe that God loves them the way they are
• They feel that they are not right with God.
• They believe they must do something to merit the blessing and favour of God.

Byron Katie related how people develop cancer: it is because they attach the thought that they have cancer. People, who have cancer, or another illness, can ask themselves, “I have cancer – is it true?” (You could substitute cancer with any other illness. The turnaround for this is simply, “I don’t have cancer.” Even though the doctor, the lab and medical science says that a person has cancer, they can still question the thought that says that they have cancer.

Without the story that a person has cancer, they would not worry about it. It is only when the thought arises that they have cancer or that God should heal them – that they experience stress. Katie related how she was diagnosed with cancer – she did inquiry and did not worry about it – this is what led to her remarkable recovery from this illness.

I cannot help but feel that this is the key to healing from any physical illness, in fact, healing from any issue in life. The key is questioning contraction around a stressful thought. When people try to use prayer, confession of scripture or affirmations to control their physical health or anything else in their life – they end-up losing the very control they are trying to attain. Whenever we try to control something in our lives we end-up becoming anxious. Our lives would be much better if we just simply relinquished control by questioning stressful thoughts - no matter what other people or established science may say.