Dr. Judith Wright was teaching and facilitating a discussion on the 4 Stages of God Realization for Sufi’s by Hazrat Inayat Khan. The first three stages are:

1. Create a God
2. Be a Lover of God
3. All earthly resources whether favorable or not come from God

These concepts, while threatening and challenging to how I was raised to view God, made complete sense in my mind and in my heart. I have come to realize I have a personal responsibility for how I define and create God. I have made God into something- whether I am conscious about it or not. I used to say “how can God who is supposed to be loving create a world where bad things happen?” Most people will respond to this challenge by saying that God created free choice. However God still created that person knowing the choice they would make- so why would he do that?

When I view it from this Sufi perspective, I have chosen to create a God who has created good and evil. I have a responsibility in that. Do I have faith all will be well and there is a bigger plan than I understand and evil is a part of that plan? Will I love God in those dark moments? Will I trust God that this is how it is supposed to be and surrender my life in service of him? Will I give my life like Jesus did and others because God says?

I wrestle with these questions. I wrestle with the challenges I have had in my life. Yet my experiences tell me when I surrender and have faith, if I feel my feelings—the pain, the anger and trust, all is well. It is more about how I deal with the circumstances God puts in my path that has mattered, not the circumstances. To get to this place of love for God, I have had to go back and look at how I viewed and defined God. I have seen God as punishing and felt I was being pay back for some wrong I had done before. This position kept me distance from God as well as myself and others. I created hatred, resentment, and made irresponsible choices that hurt others. When I have worked my personal relationship with God and have taken responsibility for that relationship, I can love God no matter what circumstances he decides I need to face. The Sufi’s perspective is helping me come to more peace in my life and supporting me to create a stronger vision for who I am to be and how I am to lead in my life as a warrior for God.

Tags: Bob Wright, Judith Wright, pilgrimage, Sacred Travel, spirituality, sufism, the wright leadership institute

This entry was posted on Monday, January 4th, 2010 at 2:04 pm and is filed under Leading a Great Life. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.