Serving God

Today during my meditation, I received a clear message – You are here to serve God. OK! Got it! Now, what does that mean exactly?

From a purely traditional interpretation of this message it could mean that I am to leave behind life as I have known it, enter the priesthood and declare vows of poverty and chastity. Well, that is not likely to happen. While it might be for another, I don’t think that is what it means for me to serve God.

It could also mean that I am to commit solely to the service of others, denounce my individual needs and desires, and move to a developing country to live with and serve those in greatest need. It could mean that, but I think that, too, would be me grasping for a predictable interpretation of the message.

Some might say that I am serving God because I am a minister. There is some truth to that; however, I prefer the thought that I am serving God as a minister. I recognize that one can be a minister who is licensed or ordained by a religious institution and still not be serving God. I trust that is not entirely true for me. I will elaborate.

While I distinctly heard the word ‘God,’ it did not stimulate in me an image of an external being or power outside of myself exerting control over me as it might have in the past. I felt no resistance to the word or to what it represents. It was immediately clear to me that ‘God’ refers to the Light/Life/Love that is expressing in all, through all, as all. God is the perfect potential and possibility individuated as each expression.

As I sat with the message a little longer, it was revealed that for me to serve God, I first need to honestly and unabashedly acknowledge how God expresses through my body, my mind, my soul, and my unique human incarnation. It became clearer to me how essential it is for me to honor and share my gifts and talents, not from an egocentric perspective, but from a God-centric perspective. Additionally, it is important for me to honor the study and practice I have done over the past decades. Further, I am to respect Light/Life/Love expressing as my body, treat it well, and do whatever I can do to remain strong and healthy so I can be in service through it.

Light/Life/Love expresses itself through me in unique ways. It is not for me to judge it, hide it, or decide that it needs to be different. Even writing this, I am aware of an inner voice that is saying, “Boy, that sure sounds conceited.” It is that voice and other internal voices like it that I often allow to keep me from fully serving God as IT expresses as me.

Serving God means to embrace God expressing as me and share IT joyously without attachment or resistance.

Serving God also means beholding the perfect potential and possibility inherent in all others. This does mean that I serve God simply by repeating the phrase “I behold the Christ in you, or I behold the Christ you are.” It is a beautiful sentiment that I can speak with sincere conviction, but unless I live into it, it is meaningless. Serving God means that I not only behold the Light/Life/Love expressing in all others, but that I also do everything within my sphere of influence to bear witness to it for them and call it forth from them. With everything I am, I am called to serve the God in others. 

Serving God does not mean that I have to renounce or deny my desires or needs. It does mean that I have the opportunity moment-by-moment to connect deeply with the desires and needs of my heart, embrace those that are alignment with the Light/Life/Love living as all creation, and embody them through my thoughts, feelings, words and actions. By living in conscious connection with my heart’s desires, I am living my deepest connection to the God of my being. As I embody that connection, I am serving God in all I think, feel, say and do. And, I am doing my part in bringing the Kin-dom of God upon the Earth.

Even though I have shared this as my personal revelation, I know that it is not only true for me, it is true for everyone. Each of us is a unique and wondrous individuated expression of Light/Life/Love, and each of us has gifts that only we can share. I assert that it is now time for us to stop hiding our light, cease playing small, and boldly accept our gifts in service to God.

Acknowledging our own Light/Life/Love without hesitation or resistance will open us to the recognition and acceptance of the Light/Life/Love living as each other. When we join together to give our gifts and talents in service to God, we encourage and support others in doing the same. When we all shine our Light/Life/Love, the world is illuminated in the glow, and we all assist in bringing into manifestation a new heaven and a new earth as spoken about in Revelation 21. 

As author, spiritual teacher, and now presidential candidate Marianne Williams so eloquently stated in her book, A Return to Love,

“Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our light, not our darkness that most frightens us. We ask ourselves, 'Who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented, fabulous?' Actually, who are you not to be? You are a child of God. Your playing small does not serve the world. There is nothing enlightened about shrinking so that other people won't feel insecure around you. We are all meant to shine, as children do. We were born to make manifest the glory of God that is within us. It's not just in some of us; it's in everyone. And as we let our own light shine, we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same. As we are liberated from our own fear, our presence automatically liberates others.”

I encourage us all to acknowledge our brilliance, gorgeousness, talent, and fabulousness and let our light shine. Not from an ego-centric self-serving perspective, but from a God-centric, God-serving perspective. We are all here to serve God – the God within us, within each other, and within all creation.