Somewhere around the age of twelve, I drew up a blue print for life. I decided I knew who I was, what I was, what I wanted, and how to get it. Almost instantly after making that decision, I shut down and became unteachable to anything that was in contradiction to what I believed to know to be Truth, which was of course determined by my blueprint. After seventeen years, something was revealed to me, I was basing my life, on the decisions of a twelve year old, now when your twelve years old, this makes good sense, at twenty nine years old, this can cause some problems, and it most certainly did.
I would constantly move from venture to venture, idea to idea, from one profession to another, or from one location to the next. There was only one problem, every new thing was based on the same blueprint as the last, same actions, same results, nothing changed, so nothing changed. Imagine if you will, a construction company, building on office building from a blueprint with a constructional design from twenty years ago. Now in a place like Los Angeles California, where constructional design has changed radically in twenty years, due to the constant threat of earth quakes, this would be insane, and so it was with my life. So now I'm faced with a blueprint that is out of date, and can't support the structure it was designed to create. So now what? Throw it a way? Well . . .yeah! It was either that or continue to live my life based on the decisions of a twelve year old. Imagine this if you will, a twelve year old, comes in your room every morning and tells you how live your life. Now if you are five years old this might be ok, but if your thirty, it's more than likely this could be a problem.
So there I was twenty nine years old, no blueprint, no foundation, no direction, and no goals. It was pretty frightening for this twenty nine year old, I didn't know what to do next, then the inner voice spoke "Well, how about God?" Of course this posed a whole new set of problems, "Where is God, what is God, and how does one find It?" Sure, I had the old religious pictures of the God I was raised with, you know the one, the old man on a throne in the sky, mean, vengeful, jealous, and punishing, full of all the weakness of man. This wasn't going to work for me, it seemed kind of pagan when I thought about it, what kind of God is full of all the frailties of man? Maybe a blue light special god, or a little tin god, but this was hardly the kind of God I wanted. So I went back to my search for God, I went back to some of the books of my childhood, and I went to new books, all which are listed at the end of this book. I searched my heart and I searched my soul, and I invited God in on the process even though I wasn't sure what God was. I asked God to help me draw a new blueprint, and lay a new foundation, one that We would build my new life on.
A funny thing happened, it was as though God's answer was, first the old structure must come down, then we can draw a blueprint, and lay a foundation. As I read, studied, probed, meditated, and yes, I even prayed, I began to find answers, in meditation the inner voice spoke of a God who dwelled inside of me as well as a God who was also outside of me, a God I had cut myself off from, by the walls I had built up inside of me, It spoke of a God I needed to let out, not a God outside of me I needed to let in. A God who was only waiting for my invitation, a loving father who had a gift for me and was only waiting for me to accept it. Also many of the books I read, had that same common thread, God was within me, God was love, and to get to God I had to tear down the walls inside, and the way to do that was to accept the gift, and the gift was love. Then the thought came to me, all my life I wanted to be rich powerful, important and successful, I always believed if I were these things, if I had these things I would have love.
The inner voice spoke once again, "If all you are looking for is love, and God is love, then all you've been looking for your whole life is God!" I thought my head and heart were going to explode simultaneously, the new blueprint had been drawn and the foundation was ready to be laid. The first part of the foundation, was realizing that surrendering to God, is not a sign of weakness. It is really no more than accepting a gift, God's will for us. So what is God's will for us? In its simplest form, for us to be happy, in its most complex form, to find our true place in life, the place we were meant to be. God's will for each of us often has nothing to do with what we plan. In my life many fine things have been put on my table, but like a spoiled child, who didn't get what he wanted, I refused to accept them, no gifts for me thank you very much, I'll fight tooth and nail, to get what I want instead. A change in this way of thinking was to be the corner stone of my foundation. I was going to follow to the best of my ability, Gods blueprint for me, after all my way wasn't working.
© Lester F.Schone, Jr. 1999
Author: Lester F.
Schone, Jr..
Copyright © 1999 [Modern Mystics, Inc.]. All rights reserved.
Revised: February 08, 2003.
