Following G-d

When a person is dedicated to following G-d, he recognizes that G-d is sending him thoughts every single moment of the day, and that embedded in these thoughts are hints about what to do next. So if we run into a circumstance or a thought that is challenging, we need to start asking ourselves: “Why did that just happen to me?” “Where did that thought come from?” Each time we make an effort to think about using all of our abilities and experiences to serve G-d, including our negative thoughts, we are progressing up Jacob’s ladder. Every time we take the hint and work with it and turn it around, we climb another rung.

If we really want to be living at this level, it’s not enough just to read and learn about G-d and to know him in our minds. We also have to have Divine awe, and we need to find a way of siphoning that Divine awe into our hearts, so that G-d is also in our body, and not just in our head. When we truly are trying to follow G-d, we should feel that it’s such a pleasure, a joy, a wonder to serve G-d. We should feel the mystery and potential inherent in every single day; the amazing progress we can make every single moment, when we’re faced with the test of turning each and every one of our negative brain impulses into a positive thought, instead.

Let’s work through a practical example, to see how this process can really help to illuminate our lives.  I was in my car, on my way to picking my wife up from her job. As I was driving, I suddenly saw a beautiful sunbeam come down ahead of me, which lit up the whole road. That scene sparked something off, and G-d sent me a lovely memory from my childhood, where I was just happy to be alive and breathing. I was probably out of school and it was a nice sunny day, and I was on the way to the park to play basketball, or something like that. It was a wonderful feeling. But then the good feeling started to sour, because of a particular thought that arose: “I wish I could do something more fun today than I usually do.” But then, I caught myself, and turned it around. I said, “Thank You for the negative thought, G-d. Now, I can bring some sunshine into today’s routine and make it better. I can use those memories from the past in a positive way and infuse them into my present, and that’s the main focus I should have.”

G-d puts the emphasis on the present tense above the past and the future because we are living in the here and now, and we really only have this moment. So if G-d is going to the trouble of sending me a message or memory from the past, it’s not because He wants me to go back to that time of my life, or to be that person again. That memory or message is meant to be used by us now, today, exactly how we currently are, in the lives we are currently living. Yes, it’s great to be out on a sunny day playing basketball without a care in the world – but the truth is that I don’t want be that age again when I didn’t have a care in the world. I want to recapture the lovely feeling of sunny pleasure and freedom that G-d sent me and make it part of today where I am still taking care of the people that I’m responsible for.