We are conditioned to look outside of ourselves for answers. We attend training sessions, buy self-help books, and listen to the news on the radio. We think that the answers to what we should be, how we should act and what is really happening in the world are outside of our knowing, outside of our expertise. So, we turn to experts; authors, psychologists, religious leaders, politicians and even our favorite bloggers, looking for answers to those things that we cannot explain by ourselves.
This conditioned response to look outward, makes it all the more difficult to grasp that God is within us, not outside (In fact, I'm not even sure if there is an inside/outside, but that is for another discussion). We don't need to go find God in a church, in nature, in music, in the bible, or in our favorite spiritual anthology. It isn't that God is NOT in these places, it is that we don't need to go anywhere then right where we are to find God.
If we find God in a church, it is because we are projecting our inherent Godness into the experience of church. If we find God climbing through wildflowers in the mountains, or dancing at our favorite club, it is because we have brought God with us. God is where we are, not because of the nature of God, but because we hold God in our centers.
Conditioning presses us outward to find God, but God calls from within. We give God a window, a door, a space to enter the world. This is our gift to God.
