I don’t want your sacrifices – I want your love; I don’t want your offerings – I want you to know me.
Oh my God, I LOVE this chapter. In Day 9, Warren says “The smile of God is the goal of your life” and uses Noah as his biblical example: “Noah consistently followed God’s will and enjoyed a close relationship with Him.” If you take the concept of an external God and make it internal, this entire chapter is about healing the internal divide.
“God smiles when we trust him completely.” This is about following the dictates of your heart, since that’s where your soul resides, your connection to “Good” and Being, your internal God. This is trusting in your internal guidance system. The idea of “God” smiling – of bringing joy to God – is really about bringing joy to your Self, which Warren points out further in the chapter.
“God smiles when we obey him wholeheartedly.” This is also about following the dictates of your heart. First you must trust, then you must obey. Warren also says “you will never understand some commands until you obey them first.” I know this to be true in my life. I didn’t understand leaving my ex when I had no means of supporting myself, I just knew I had to do it. That experience – trusting in my internal guidance system to lead me in the right direction, and in the Universe (God, Good, Being, Truth, Light) to support me in that endeavor – laid the groundwork for this experiment, enabling me to break all the rules to follow my heart’s desire, trusting that, while I can’t possibly know the purpose now of doing what I’m doing, fulfillment, joy and clarity await me on the other side. But only if I trust and obey.
“God smiles when we praise and thank him continually.” This is where Warren asserts that when we bring joy to “God,” “our own hearts are filled with joy.” Much research has been done on the effects of gratitude, including the fact that people who feel gratitude are happier than people who don’t. If you’re looking for an entertaining video on the topic, this Ted Talk by Shawn Achor is excellent and terribly funny. When you feel gratitude for what your internal guidance system brings you when you follow it, you feel joy. I know this to be true in my life. I’ve made it a habit to ignore my internal guidance system, so it has to speak REALLY LOUDLY for me to hear it, but when I do, and when I follow it, I feel nothing but joy regardless what I’m “giving up” to do so. This was true when I left my ex, when I started learning how to dance, and when I quit my job to travel the world and study dance. This is true now. I cannot tell you how happy I am here and now. It’s tempting to look externally for the sources of my happiness – the beauty of Rio’s geography, the joie de vivre of the people, the weather, the fact that I’m not working… – but the truth is my happiness comes from following my heart’s desire. It’s only when we attach our happiness to things external that we begin to feel longing, neediness, insecurity, and unhappiness. I’m grateful to be here now, and I’m happy because of my gratitude.
“God smiles when we use our abilities.” This is Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi’s concept of “flow” – when we are engaged with single-minded focus on, or absorption in, the task at hand. This happens only when we use our abilities in the service of our affinities – our desires. Finding “flow” brings us joy. I know this to be true in my life and I wrote about this before when describing how I feel when I dance.
And you? When was the last time your soul smiled?
TL;DR: No tl;dr for virtual book club posts.
My soul smiles reading this post!