The only survivor of a shipwreck was washed up on a small, uninhabited island. He prayed feverishly for God to rescue him. Everyday he scanned the horizon for help, but none seemed forthcoming.
Exhausted, he eventually managed to build a little hut out of driftwood to protect him from the elements, and to store his few possessions.
One day, after scavenging for food, he arrived home to find his little hut in flames, with smoke rolling up to the sky. . . He felt the worst had happened, and everything was lost. He was stunned with disbelief, grief, and anger. He cried out, "God! How could you do this to me?"
Early the next day, he was awakened by the sound of a ship approaching the island! It had come to rescue him! "How did you know I was here?," asked the weary man of his rescuers. "We saw your smoke signal," they replied.
I am sure you must have experienced this type of frustration in your life. No matter how carefully you have planned or how hard you have worked, everything seems to fall apart. It is as though some evil genie is doing his best to ensure that you do not achieve whatever it was that you set out to do. It is especially galling if you are a religious or spiritual person and have used fervent prayer to back up your plans, or to obtain release from an intolerable situation. It seems that your God is laughing in your face. Indeed, in some similar circumstances, people have been known to lose their faith in God altogether.
Although we may think we see everything clearly and know what is best for ourselves, this is often not the case. I am not suggesting we should stop making plans or working out our own ideas as to what is best. However, when things turn out differently, I am suggesting that instead of wringing our hands and turning away from our God, we should examine carefully what has happened. We should look at the new situation and weigh up its benefits before condemning it. It could well be that with a small change in our attitude we could make far more of the new situation than we think. Indeed, it may turn out to be better for us than we were planning.
Life is full of uncertainties and as we grow older, experience should teach us to be more adaptable. In practice, the reverse is often the case. As we get older, we become more set in our ways and find it very difficult to accept anything other than what we thought was best. Adaptability is usually a quality more associated with youth than with age and it is what enables young people to face up to and overcome challenges that their parents and grandparents may have found impossible. Why should it remain the preserve of the young? Perhaps if we “oldies” were a bit more flexible, we would find our interest in life and what happens, stimulated more often. We might conceivably retain our youthful outlook longer, enjoy life more and be more fun for younger people to spend time with. I seem to remember reading sometime that “age is an attitude of mind,” and I grow more convinced about the truth of that than ever.
One of the great excitements of life is its uncertainty; we never know what is waiting just around the corner and if we are sensible we should leave it that way. Those who consult fortune tellers in order to find out what the future holds for them are making several mistakes. First, they assume that some people have the ability to see or know exactly what the future holds. Second, that we would be a great deal happier and more settled if we knew for certain what was coming. Third they are taking an almost entirely materialistic view of life.
Taking the first point, some people are particularly sensitive and can read far more into situations and emotions than ordinary mortals. However, much fortune telling is obtained by the sensitive being able to detect in the aura of a person certain strong desires or fears. By using these insights as though they were glimpses of the future, they are able either to reinforce the desire or calm the fear. This is not ‘seeing the future’. We create our own future and in my view the fortune teller merely primes the pump so that we create what we desire or avoid what we fear. That is the ‘future’ seen by the fortune teller. In this way such services can of course be very helpful to certain people but it is important for them to know what is really happening.
Would we be happier knowing exactly what was to happen and when? I very much doubt that we should. It would be yet another matter to worry about! Indeed, it can be argued that if we did know exactly what was due to happen, it would so change our mental attitude that what we would in effect change the future. Although I believe in pre-determination, the impact of free will is significant and mental attitude can undoubtedly delay or modify what is pre-determined.
Understanding the way a psychic works is very important and so few who consult them know this and indeed most psychics are in ignorance of it too. Thus a psychic consultation is often a matter of the ‘blind leading the blind”. Learn about the operation of these gifts; learn about your own aura and how it reflects all that is and has happened in your life and above all, learn to accept life’s uncertainties in good faith. In these ways life’s mysteries will become much less mysterious and your need to ‘see what is coming’ will be greatly reduced. You will be happier and more contented. This is particularly so because physical life is but a tiny part of our individual and eternal existence. Sometimes, bad things that happen to us and difficult challenges we have to face and overcome are part of our long term spiritual growth and have little or nothing to do with physical life.
Accept that we cannot see or know everything and that forces are operating around us and within us about which we cannot be aware. Remember the immediate impact of an apparent ‘accident’ is often misleading, as our hero in the story found. Take a longer view and be adaptable. This way lies inner peace.
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