Living Beloved: Becoming A Child Of God | Part 2 of 3

What would it look like for me to live as the Beloved?

This is part 2, continuing from yesterday's blog about how I found a path forward in the healing of my soul. How I was brought to a bath of healing when I had no idea where to turn.

For me, the idea I'm learning to live as a child of God, known and loved by the creator of the universe, is the ultimate healing. I can feel deep in my soul but once I have fully integrated what it's like to be loved, fully loved, my superficial desires will dissipate. There are things I want but I don't really want, like recognition, awards, and social approval.

 At the surface level, I want those things because I think they will make me love myself more or they will make others love me more. But it is much better way to live as one who is already centered, loved and cherished. If those kinds of external acknowledgement and recognition happen in my life, they are just the cherry on top. They're just a reflection of what is already inside me, not a sugar coating to make up for in empty interior.

The Beloved Child

 This question is an echo from the story of The Prodigal Son (which should be more accurately called the forgiving father).  In the Bible there's a stunning story that Jesus tells to explain what the kingdom of God is like. He tells the story of a father with two sons.  One of the sons decides that he wants his inheritance now and basically tells his father, “I wish you were dead so that I could have all your money now.” His father gives him his inheritance and he uses this money to go and live an extravagant lifestyle, eventually squandering all of the money. He gets to a point where he has nothing left and has to take a job feeding pigs. He has no money so he ends up eating the same food as the pigs. In his devastation and poverty, he realizes that he would be better off being a servant in his father’s house because even those servants have better food to eat then what he's eating with the pigs.

 He makes his journey back to his father's estate, fully prepared to ask to be a servant. He's aware of what he's done and ashamed and it doesn't feel like he's worthy to be treated as his father son. While he is still a long way off from his father's house, his father sees him and comes running towards him and embrace it him. (Check out the story straight from the Bible here if you’d like!)

 Can you imagine what that would feel like? To be welcomed to home after you have fully rejected your own home, disgraced your father and lost your honour?

 Then, the father even throws a party for this prodigal son. He gives him robes and rings and prepares a huge banquet. He tells his son that he's been waiting for him to come home all this time. There is no anger or shaving. Just a vast, wild, inexplicable love for the child.

 When I came back to Toronto and landed these jobs in creative companies and teams, I felt a bit like The Prodigal Son . I was ashamed and prepared to do anything. I just wanted to be fed, and to hide from the eyes of the world. Instead, I felt like my Father in heaven gifted me with a place to call home a place to belong and a place, literally, where you learned how to be his daughter.

 So what would it look like for me to live as a beloved child of God?

 As a daughter, fully known loved and cherished by God of the universe, I would wake up with a deep, abiding sense of purpose. I would know that today is important. Today I'm going to meet people who I am going to blast with my presents and whose presence is going to bless me. No matter who I encounter, whether it's the caretakers at work or the grocery store cashier or the president of the United States, my job is to exude a particular kindness, Grace and Authority. 

The kindness and grace that a daughter of the King of Kings has is not something fake or conjured up. She has poised. She is full of grace because of who she is. When she is given a platform to speak, she knows that she speaks for more than herself. She sees herself as a humanitarian, someone whose job it is to spread kindness and empathy and compassion.  She would be very conscious of her time, knowing that she only has so much time in a day or in a week but that since there are a lot of people vying for her attention and wanting her voice. She is very conscious of what issues she chooses to speak about.

 Showing up at a job is not one of her concerns.  She might have a job, as Father may decide that her best training will be done in a business or organization. But she shows up at a job differently from everyone else. She is there to learn, to contribute, and to improve the entire operation. There's no such thing as lacking in her world. She shows up for every occasion how's your best self, because her best self is who she is.  at work, she is attentive to those around her. When her superiors and bosses speak, she listens, knowing that they hold wisdom and insight from their years of experience that she doesn't necessarily have, even though she is the daughter of the Father.

 She does not doubt her future. She knows that her dad, the god of the entire universe, oversees every minute detail of the entire world.  He can put her at a position in Zimbabwe if it would be best for everyone. He can put her on the cover of magazines across movie continent if it would be best.

As a daughter of God, I trust God's judgment, since he knows what I need at every moment to grow to the next level and who knows what the people need. I release all of my career planning or career goals and I wake up everyday trusting that God has my absolute best intentions in his heart.

When I am planning or thinking about my future, it's like I'm entering into dad's office to chat with him. And because I am dad's daughter oh, the door is always open for me. It's different from people who see my dad as the CEO or the judge. They go to him only with problems or they may carry a facade when they show up to him. but as his daughter I can just be myself. I can have deep conversations. I can ask him about the meaning of life, why I'm here, why there so much pain on Earth and how to make a last-minute thing positive contribution with the decades that he's giving me here. (and I do.) I can come to Papa dressed  in my pyjamas with greasy hair, and I can come to him completely done up, glowing in a ballroom gown with perfectly styled hair and still, he just sees me as his daughter. He already knows the things that hurt me, the wounds that need to be healed from my childhood. He already knows where my heart is broken and the best path for healing. I can trust him with everything.

All of my deepest darkest secret and all of my wildest, grandest dreams because even my wildest dreams are like a simple math compared to the calculus that he can orchestrate in the universe. 

I love spending time with my dad more than anything else. why would I want to separate myself and struggle to make work happen, when I can just spend some time with Dad, hash out the details and return to my life situation with grace and poise of a princess? 

Yes, this is how I choose to live. 

This is my healing path. Teally it's a journey for the rest of my life, but I like to imagine that there will be a point where I no longer forget that I am a daughter of God, where God can put me at any situation on Earth, from the brightest to the darkest, and I would carry his love. 

 I am like a royal princess, who forgot I have a royal inheritance and right away. Out in the world I tried to but I am that I am a normal person I tried to find my own way through the world like someone without God would have to do. and now I have been welcomed back home into the arms of my forgiving father and I'm getting a chance to relearn how to be loved.

 This is the most precious thing I could do with my time. And it's not really something I can do. Learning to be loved is more like, slowing down to receive the love that is available to me everyday.

She is not afraid to be the light, because she remembers she IS made of light. 

 I realized this might sound absurd to some people, but I believe that this kind of life and this way of living is available to everyone. We are all children of God. When we forget that we are wholly loved and cherished by the creator of the universe, that's when we suffer. That's when we're trying to grasp for superficial things like money, careers,  worldly power, social influence or fame. But when we have learned to live as children of God, we become totally free. free from bondage of the Soul, the Superficial things that tie our spirits down.