Our Spiritual Walk Through Human Experience

Pierre Teilhard de Chardin was a French Jesuit priest who said, "We are all spiritual beings having a human experience."  I would venture to say that most people would say it the other way around, that "We are all human beings having a spiritual experience."  But I'm in agreement with de Chardin.  Scripture tells us that God made man in His image.  Although human beings have many of the same attributes of each other, we all look very different.  There are many different races, all with varying characteristics that make it so you can definitely tell us apart from each other.  If our human bodies are all so different,  how is it that we are all made in the image of God?

Could it be that when God formed us in His image, He meant His spiritual image and then He shrouded our spirit in a human form?  I remember when my mom passed from this life to the next, I was terrified to walk into the funeral home and see her there for the first time.  I prayed, took a deep breath and linked arms with my dad as we walked into the room together with my siblings.  I slowly moved my eyes towards her, shaking to my very core.  She looked so beautiful and so peaceful.  She looked just like herself, but at the same time, she looked nothing like herself.  I knew in an instant, that my mother wasn't there.  This, before me, was merely the shell that my mother was housed in while she walked on this earth.

I was actually comforted by this thought.  I remember a small smile coming across my lips as I considered that she was now with the Lord.  What if our humanness is just along for the ride, moving us from experience to experience? If we look at the totality of our lives as spiritual beings experiencing humankind, it changes how we see ourselves and others.  And it should, change the way we treat the people we bump up against in life.

When I remember that I am a spiritual being, I'm encouraged that the possibilities of being a light in a dark world are very real.  I'm merely a vessel for the Lord to work through to touch the lives of those around me.  And the Lord also brings others across my path that will help me heal from the wounds of living in a human fallen world.  Our human experience has limits but our spiritual being knows no bounds when it comes to reflecting the love of God, the presence of peace and the power of grace, mercy and forgiveness.

Imagine living a life, where we don't put such importance on people's human looks, failings or limitations, but where we celebrate the Divine in them, the God in them.  I'm not saying that we should let others walk on us or that as a society, we should tolerate & let people get away with evil. But I find that when I celebrate the God like qualities in people, they tend to allow those characteristics to grow and their broken human tendencies to diminish.

It's not an easy way to live and I tend to slip back into my humanness and see people in their humanness,  But I find that when I spend time in prayer and praise and worship and in the presence of the Lord, I'm able to remember that He created me in His image.  He imparted His character to me, giving me the ability to be a "spiritual being having a human experience."  I pray that you are able to allow the Godly traits that were imparted to you when you were created, to shine and grow, causing the things in you that are not of God, to diminish and lose strength.  If you are facing tough circumstances in 2013, my hope for you is that you are able to see the infinite possibilities, in God, that will help you walk through those experiences coming out of them stronger and purer.

From His lap,