I remember reading this Bible verse in Sunday School: Work out your own salvation with fear and trembling.
I thought to myself: Well, that doesn’t sound like much fun.
I think all of us hope that somehow we’re going to be able to avoid the fear and trembling part of life.
We can’t.
And that’s actually a good thing.
Salvation means preservation or deliverance from harm, ruin, or loss.
We have all needed salvation at one point or another during our lives. Many of us more than once.
And so we come to understand. when you’re facing harm, ruin, or loss, you’re often filled with fear to the point of trembling.
At that point, we either work our way out of it, or succumb. No other choices.
Yesterday I got so triggered by something that my whole body started to shake. My hands were fluttering like leaves and my heart was beating out of its chest.
Because my mind was relatively calm, I knew that what was happening inside was very very old — and I knew I didn’t want to stay stuck in those very very old and unpleasant feelings.
So I called a friend who patiently worked me through my response to the situation, which I was crafting in an email.
At one point my friend, who was listening in Love, said something that shifted everything: You are writing as though you’re expecting rational response. But this is an irrational situation.
That was it!
I grew up, as many of us did, with mercurial parents. In other words, I often didn’t know which person would show up on any given day. In my childlike logic which made me the center of my story, I reasoned that I had something to do with their behavior. So, I thought, if I showed up and tried to do everything right — perhaps their irrational behavior wouldn’t surface.
It didn’t work.
And yet, on some level I have believed that my whole life. If I am rational in the face of irrationality, that’s the best I can do. Until last night. When I recognized that not only can’t I control another person’s behavior, but I also that my peace of mind or sense of well being don’t depend on another person’s behavior.
The only rollie coaster rides I enjoy are in amusement parks. So if there are people in my life who live big highs and big lows — as there were in my childhood — I can choose to get off that ride. Not by leaving — though that is always my instinct. But by working out my own salvation, even if it involves fear and trembling.
I realized last night that I behave and feel as though I am still scared by rollie coaster behavior. So I avoid it. But that wasn’t the Bible verse, was it? It wasn’t: Work out your own salvation by avoiding unpleasant situations that scare and trigger you.
See, the fear and trembling are merely the clues that something is off. Way off.
And salvation comes when we acknowledge that and turn the situation over to Love.
But we can’t do that until we stop trying to fix something through our own behavior modifications.
To work out our own salvation with fear and trembling means that we have to learn to be lean into Love. And to do this we have to be strong. We have to resist old habits and recognize that our strength is Love and Love is our strength.
When the news makes us afraid, when something going on in our lives or our bodies or our families or our work lives or the world or with our loved ones makes us afraid, we have to work out our own salvation with fear and trembling. And the only way to do that is to be strong enough not to take fear’s bait. But instead lean into, listen to and learn from from Love.
Last night, the moment I stopped trying to justify myself, fix a situation through behavior modification, or fall into old patterns of anger, shame or wanting to flee, Love came in. Immediately my heart calmed, my hands stopped shaking, and I felt pleased with what I had written. It came from Love.
And from that place I knew it could only be heard as Love. Which ultimately it was.
You see, the heart-centered practice of BEing Strong is being strong enough to be willing to let go of our old familiar habits and responses and to turn wholeheartedly to Love. When we do, Love is strong for us. And what we do in Love will be heard in Love. IF — and this is important — we stop looking for a rational outcome in an irrational situation — and look only for Love, at Love, with Love, in Love, through Love instead.
This is BEing Strong. And together it is how we #LoveViral.
Today’s heart-centered video is not a spoken version of this blog. It is Rudyard Kipling’s famous poem IF, just changed up slightly. Have a listen: