Ask the Author: Question and Response
 

My question is this, if God is so close, why is God so hard to find?

- Bernadette, England

Imagine a very good friend that you have not seen for a while. Imagine all the fun times you have had together, all the laughs. These memories are always within you, yet if you choose not to focus on them, you will not feel or experience them. Regardless of how great your relationship is, you can go days, even weeks without thinking of her. Yet, if you for one second thought of her, all those emotions would begin to return, and the more you focus on them, the more experiences and emotions you would feel and recall.

Imagine your heart. It works every day, every hour, every minute, and every second to keep you alive. During the day, how often do you think of your heart? You could say you owe your life to your heart. Yet, how often do you thank it? How often do you send it love, or are loving to it? Regardless of what little focus you put on your heart, how close is your heart to you? How hard is your heart to find?

God, as is your heart, is within you now. God has gifted you with free will. Thus, you are free to place your focus on what you choose to. God has never, nor will He ever leave you. In the moment, you have the choice of what to focus on. Focus on feelings of loneliness and you will experience its expressions. Focus on God’s love for you and you will experience this energy flowing through you. In the moment, focus on judging a brother or sister and you will feel the heaviness of judgment weighing you down. Or focus on having compassion for and serving your fellow brother or sister and you will feel love lifting you up as it flows through you.

My friend, you have been inadvertently brainwashed by your family, friends, peers, and society in general to focus on so many other external things that you barely give yourself any time to think of God, or what your deepest and truest desires are. This is in large part why you perceive God as hard to find. You follow one treasure map after the other; all the time on an external physical journey for what is truly an internal spiritual desire. Regardless of how shiny, large, important or essential others tell you this external treasure is, it will never bring you true everlasting peace of mind and joy. The realization that all your external journeys have not gotten you to where you desire to be, awakens you to your true journey. The journey you are secretly requesting to remember is not an external journey but an internal one. It is a journey to a place you have never left, but simply forgotten. Bringing yourself back to the ever present moment is the door you are seeking. This door opens to a place where judgment is replaced with compassion, worry with trust, and an anxious mind is replaced with a peaceful and joyful mind. The moment in and of itself remains the same, what changes is your interpretation and participation in it.

My friend, lets take any ordinary moment in your daily experience. Now instead of focusing on the noise, every day concerns, distractions or worries that usually consume us, take those same moments and try focusing instead on God's absolute love for you. For just one moment, let's focus on what you have truly been desiring to focus on. Imagine walking on your way to work through a park or street. Focus on one tree that you'll be soon walking by. Instead of doing what you have been trained to do, such as focusing on the past or future, and thinking of what you have to do once you get to where you are going, put those and any other distracting thoughts aside, and focus on the strength and beauty of that tree. Ask God to fill you with His love. Feel white light entering you from the top of your head and filling your body like a sponge, until this energy begins to overflow. Then visualize, see yourself sending all this love to this tree. Feel your offering of this energy to this tree. Feel the tree absorbing all this beautiful and powerful energy. From deep within your heart and soul, thank the tree for its shade and magnificent beauty. Then as you get closer and closer, feel this tree returning, gifting all this energy back to you. Feel this tree's gratitude for your acknowledgment of it. Feel the tree loving you back. Truly allow yourself to be open to this energy. Before the tree's gratitude comes back to you in the form of this white loving light, visualize yourself opening the door to your heart and soul, truly feel yourself open and willing to receive this light; do this and you will feel it. This is the choice the moment offers. Spend the moment drowned in the hundred heavy thoughts, concerns and worries that you continually allow to pollute your mind and pass by that same tree you have walked by a thousand times without even noticing it, or invite this same tree to assist you in focusing on God's eternal gift to you, the eternal present moment.

The eternal present moment is free from all past or future imaginings, free from judgments and ego-based illusions. It is that deep breath you take in and then let out with the knowing that God has His arm around you and is in your corner. It is when you lay aside all your stresses and worries and instead choose to trust God's plan for your life. It is the laying down of that heavy invisible bag of anxiety you secretly carry with you and thus allowing it to dissolve in God’s eternal love for you.

My dear friend, God is as easy to find as your desire to focus on Him. There has never been, nor will there ever be a moment in your life where God is not. There will be moments in your life that you will forget Him and choose to focus on something you deem more important. That is fine. There is no judgment by God in what you choose to focus on. He forever patiently waits for you to look His way, and every single time you look His way, you will feel His hand lovingly and peacefully held out to you. You have temporarily forgotten Him, yet He rests patiently within your heart and mind simply in wait for you to focus on His love for you, and on your love for Him.
 

Note:  To read more about God, you may want to read Chapter Six Overview: Trusting God.
 

View larger images of front & back cover 
of the great spiritual / self development book You Have Chosen to Remember: A Journey from Perception to Knowledge, Peace of Mind and Joy by James Blanchard Cisneros.