One morning, I was driving down the highway with my family, and I was contemplating various current events and any spiritual lessons that might be buried within them. As some point, I found myself becoming exasperated with the continual blame game that seems to be so prevalent these days. Everyone wants someone else to be responsible for how they feel, specifically, their happiness (or not), and everyone wants someone else to clean up their messes. In short order, inspiration congealed around this thought process, and I asked my daughter to write down, "Eliminate the Middle Man". I also gave her the scripture reference from Hebrews 11:1-6. I highlight Verse 6:
But without faith it is impossible to please Him: for he that cometh to God must believe that He is, and that he is a rewarder of them that diligently seek Him.
If you remember your coming-of-age years and those initial, awkward attempts at courting, you certainly remember feeling self-conscious at some point, perhaps worried about some insufficiency in your appearance or manner that would scare off a potential mate. Perhaps you, at some point, enlisted the help of a friend to help you meet a potential love interest. Perhaps you leaned on the friend to help start and keep a conversation going, or to even fix you up on a date.
The fear of being somehow insufficient, or worse, the fear of rejection has kept many people from meeting someone special (or delayed it longer than necessary). So universal is this concern that a 120-year-old play called "Cyrano de Bergerac" looms large in the Western literary canon, even though most have never read it. While these examples focus our attention on matters of affection and romance, they apply to us in our spiritual development, and specifically in our attempts to build, maintain, and strengthen our relationship with God.
If we review Verse 6, the first part about "believing that He is" seems easy enough. Over 90% of the world's population believes that there is a Higher Power. It doesn't matter what religion a person subscribes to, or if they subscribe to religion at all. That second part, though, is where many people struggle. The struggle is not in accepting that God is a rewarder, or that God can bless us. Usually, the struggle is in feeling worthy--not worthy as in deserving due to our own merit (because we certainly are not there)--but not worthy because of some ineffable flaw within us.
Just like the hopeful but self-conscious teenager who's afraid that a newly erupted pimple makes him look like a monster, too many of us have not shaken the false doctrine of "born in sin and shapen in iniquity" and feel unworthy, even ashamed to try and call upon God.
Too many of us have made mistakes in life that we're still embarrassed about six months or 20 years later, and still haven't forgiven ourselves for. Too many of us have blamed ourselves for being bad or deserving of it when another has unjustly imposed their will on us, and we feel permanently stained or tainted. Too many of us wrestle with internal demons, unanswered questions, and find ourselves struggling to pull away from unhealthy habits or the pull of pop culture; and we live feeling an undercurrent of guilt daily for not being strong and/or righteous. Too many of us feel inadequately versed in religious tradition, teachings, and dogma, or feel clumsy or inadequate when we think of trying to compose a prayer or even engage in simple dialog with the Creator.
And, as we wrestle with our humanity, the events and experiences of life, and those other things that cause us to feel self-conscious and unworthy, some of us have convinced ourselves that even God does not want us in His presence! In fact, some doctrines teach that we are forever unworthy, even if one has lived an exemplary life. Whatever the reason, it seems that we know from Whom to solicit blessings, but often want a middle man to do the asking on our behalf. It is absolutely great when others pray for us, or when we esteem the example of another who seems to have a strong connection with God. However, we must resist the temptation to give up all our power and abandoning the active, daily cultivation of our own relationship with God!
So, why do we keep inserting a middle man? This is how I see it...
We want someone else to approach God for us; we want to hide our perceived insufficiency behind someone "greater" and "more worthy" than us. But then, we want the middle man to move out of the way so that we can receive all the blessings! Conversely, we want to live unconsciously and even hedonistically, but then we want the anonymous, faceless "people" to face the consequences of living in such ways.
It is time that we grow up and face God, meet God, get to know God, stop being afraid of God, and stop hiding behind other people! Eliminate the middle man! God is the Source from Whom ALL blessings flow! All that a middle man can do for you is pray for you and encourage you. The sustenance, the healing, the deliverance, the answers--the Light--come from God! Similarly, all misalignment in our living that results in pain, sadness, confusion, loneliness, dissatisfaction is in our power to change! We can choose to be different, to behave wisely, to live better, and apply our knowledge from day to day. All that's required of us is to eliminate the middle man to whom we look for blessings, and eliminate the middle man that we expect to take the fall for us.