Life is Not About You
Life is Not About You
Prioritizing God over all else
Note: This piece came through after a medicine journey a few weeks ago. It’s kinda intense and maybe a little preachy. I feel it carries some potent energy though, so here it is.
If you live for self-glorification, it will never be enough and you will be devoured from within.
If you live for the Whole and to glorify God through all that you do, you will know true heartwarming fulfillment.
Nothing is possible without God.
Admit this to yourself.
Everything you are, you owe to God—the groundless ground of being.
The precursor to all.
If this is not properly acknowledged, you find yourself on a slippery slope to hell.
God has given you a precious life, innate genius, and tremendous gifts.
Do not squander what has been given.
Our society will try to crush your soul and disconnect you from your truth.
Do not allow this to happen.
Honor God by honoring the gifts you have been given.
I am not perfect on these fronts and I never will be.
I am absolutely a work-in-progress.
It is an endless practice.
To prioritize God over all else.
What does it actually mean to prioritize God over all else?
It means to notice that you can’t have any of the parts without the Whole.
Life is a ‘package deal.’
You can’t have any of it without all of it.
Whatever your greatest blessings—your family, friends, passions, home, adventures, etc.—these are only possible because of the Whole.
God is the Whole.
God is All.
When we see this clearly, it is natural to give all glory to God.
“Always bear this in mind: Everything is in God's hands, and you are His tool to be used by Him as He pleases. Try to grasp the significance of 'all is His'. and you will immediately feel free from all burdens. What will be the result of your surrender to Him? None will seem alien, all will be your very own Self.”
— Sri Anandamayi Ma
It is natural to reserve our most devout and foundational thanksgiving for the Lord Almighty.
Because in truth, if you are thankful for *anything* at all, it is God to whom you owe your thanks.
God is the one who created whatever you are thankful for.
You might say, “No bro, *I* created it. I’m a self-made man. I pulled myself up by my bootstraps. I put in the work every day. *I* did it.”
And to that I say: Ah, really, and where did you find the motivation to do that? Who gave you the motivation? Who gave you your body and mind and spirit and will and inspiration?
God.
There’s no way around it.
Look closely at Life and you will reach the unavoidable conclusion:
God—Being itself—is the essential precursor to all the blessings of your life.
As such, a wise relationship with Life and Divinity entails daily thanksgiving, in which God is acknowledged as the source of all blessings.
This is not about stoking the ego of some imaginary ‘sky daddy.’
God does not hold it against you if you do not prioritize the celebration of God.
God’s Love is way beyond that.
Utterly and totally and absolutely and automatically and instantaneously unconditional.
That is the nature of God’s Love.
God loves you beyond all reckoning or imagination, no matter what you do.
Period. Plain and simple.
And yet…
And yet…
Reality is designed to lead back to God.
In their Heart of Hearts, every being yearns for the same thing:
Home.
To remember Life as Home.
To remember that Now is Home is God, and can be trusted.
All beings yearn to viscerally remember this.
And all beings will one day remember this.
It is built into the fabric of Creation.
In your Heart of Hearts, there is a kind of Divine ‘home-ing device’ that will eventually guide you Home.
You can ignore God for a long time, stray far from Home, and get super lost…
Yet no matter how far you stray, you will eventually be guided back Home—and remember that you never actually left, for Now is always Home.
This is the design of Creation.
Part of how this works, is that it hurts to forget about God.
It might seem cool for a while to prioritize self-gratification and hedonism, or to live to please others’ egos, or to pretend that you are the ‘god’ of your life and are ‘creating your reality’…
(There’s nothing ‘wrong’ with these approaches. All life-paths are essential threads in the poetic tapestry of being, and are valid. God loves to explore all the detours through the aperture of our unique journeys. Yet eventually we are invariably led back Home to God.)
Yet eventually these approaches will start to ring hollow. Something will start to burn and ache, somewhere deep within you. “Pride cometh before a fall,” and you will find yourself being humbled by Life, smashed against the rocks of fate.
This is the gift.
This pain is a communication from your own soul, letting you know that something is ‘off.’
Thank Heavens for this pain, for without it, we would not discover the folly of our ways, and we would not be led back Home to God.
Through this process, we gradually discover that…
Praising, celebrating, & prioritizing God above all else, is the only sustainable path of truly heartwarming fulfillment.
There’s no way around this.
Balanced and appropriate relationship with Life & Divinity glorifies God over all else, for it is simply the Truth of Life that God is the source & precursor of All.
So, again, returning to this question…
What does it actually mean to prioritize God over all else?
It means noticing the truth of our situation.
The truth that we owe it all to God.
It means noticing this, and acting accordingly.
It means continuously giving thanks to God, for all our blessings.
It means treating your life as a sacred gift from God.
It means viewing all your greatest blessings as gifts from God.
It means ongoingly thanking God for all your blessings.
It means harnessing your true God-given gifts & talents for the upliftment of the Whole.
It means becoming an ever clearer channel for God’s Love and Grace.
It means being Love, as best you can, moment to moment.
It means never taking this life for granted.
It means never squandering the truly beautiful gifts you have been given.
It means realizing your life is not about you.
It means making of your entire life a prayer & song & celebration & offering to the Most High.
It means singing the unique song and dancing the unique dance that God encoded within your soul, as medicine for the Earth & Cosmos.
It means devotionally taking care of your family, your children, your friends, your community, your world, your body, your mind, your being, and your soul.
This is not necessarily about becoming an ascetic impoverished martyr who makes his entire life into a sacrifice. It might look like that, and that can be a beautiful path, but it doesn’t have to.
“But seek ye first the kingdom of God, and his righteousness; and all these things shall be added unto you.”
— Jesus Christ
Here Jesus tells us that if we place God first, we will be given everything that we need.
When we prioritize God, giving and receiving come into balance: We find ourselves giving from the heart & receiving from the heart in a balanced, reciprocal flow, and there is plenty for all.
Conversely, when we prioritize self-gratification, we try to receive more than we give, we make it all about ‘me,’ and nothing ever feels like ‘enough.’ This is largely the condition of our present global civilization.
How I’m Applying All This
For me, I’m not called to the path of the ascetic impoverished martyr in this lifetime.
Periods of voluntary asceticism, fasting, discomfort, minimalism, & sacrifice have been very important on my path, and will continue to be.
Yet I don’t see a need to make this a defining cornerstone of my life.
I am called to be strong in this life.
I am called to train my body.
I am called to build.
I am called to birth new things.
I am called to make art.
I am called to lead.
I am called to grow wealth.
I am called to create a beautiful life for my family and I.
I am called to be a Strong, Vital Sun who is able to inspire, illuminate, and ignite others.
To do all of this, is to *honor* the gifts that God has given me.
To *honor* the being that God has made me.
To put God first, means to continuously notice & acknowledge that I cannot ultimately take credit for anything that I am.
I can hold a healthy love and appreciation for myself—absolutely. I can be proud of myself for utilizing what God has given me.
Yet at the end of the day, it is essential that I recognize that ‘I’ am not ultimately doing any of this. I did not give myself my gifts, nor did I give myself the motivation & inspiration to utilize my gifts.
God did.
God gave me my precious daughter. My precious wife. My beautiful mother, father, sister, brothers, and all my human & animal friends. God gave me my talents & genius. God gave me this Earth & Cosmos as a playground for the unfoldment & expression of my soul.
I must see this.
I must acknowledge it.
I must give the final glory to God.
Every day.
Else I am not living in truth.
I must harness the gifts which God has given to me, for the upliftment & loving celebration of the Whole of God’s Infinite Creation—which is the very body of God.
I must be single-pointed in my devotion to God.
I must not serve two masters.
“No one can serve two masters; for either he will hate the one and love the other, or he will be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and mammon [money, possessions, fame, status, or whatever is valued more than the Lord].”
— Jesus Chist
As I said earlier in this post, I am 1,000% a work-in-progress.
And I always will be.
And that’s okay.
If this game were easy to master, it would not be so epic and delicious.
My life is not about me.
My life is not about me.
My life is not about me.
I am prepared to devote this lifetime & beyond to learning the true meaning of these words.
Amen.
Love,
Jordan
Jordan Bates
Leadership Coach
Honor | Heart | Courage | Truth
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Jordan Bates is a leadership coach who trains heart-led warriors to give their lives over to Truth and Love. He is also a teacher, writer, mystic, artist, rapper, space-holder, and celebrator of God. He offers one-to-one coaching, men’s leadership development, self-guided courses, & retreats—and now also offers True Creation Accelerator.
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How can I help other people become more self-aware?
It is called the awakening…In mysticism, the intellect is seen merely as a means to clear the way for the direct mystical experience call the ‘awakening’. The essence of this experience is to pass beyond the world of intellectual distinctions, and opposites to reach the world of the unthinkable, where reality appears as an undivided and undifferentiated wholeness. And there is only you! You and God are One...