The 5 Pillars of Receptivity: Welcoming Inspiration
“What is the source of inspiration?” It’s a question I’ve been asked several times as a creative professional. Academically, I can answer that question adeptly. But my understanding of what inspires me has increased immensely with spiritual awareness. The answer I personally have been given is “receptivity.” Read on to find out how to be more receptive to God’s divine inspiration in your life in order to authentically and creatively live-out your calling.
I am absolutely fascinated by the spiritual. I have known and followed God for decades but I am I really passionate about the subject now after experiencing a dramatic spiritual calling. Since then I have started to have a clearer picture of how He speaks to us.
After that calling, I really didn’t know where to begin. I had this intense new rush of creative energy and a general idea of the direction to go but the picture was still too vague. I was like the blind man given sight but people only looked like trees walking around. Like a newborn my eyes were open but I couldn’t see clearly.
It makes sense to me that God wouldn’t reveal every answer immediately. To do so would mean I wouldn’t have to rely on Him in faith for the help I needed.
As time has gone on, however, I have begun learning that I can find all the answers that I need to live out my life and call right within myself. The answers, again, don’t come all at once but are just what I need right when I need them. I don’t produce any of those answers on my own. I receive them.
That is what inspiration is—it is the breath of creative life. This divine breath fills me if only I make room for it to enter.
The Need For Receptivity
Receptivity is that ability to be ready and willing to receive input from God in the form of revelation or insight. People who are receptive have no special ability except to put themselves in a tuned-in state that others may not be aware of.
I don’t think receptivity is more or less available based on whether a person deserves it or not. In fact, I think anyone can become more receptive by implementing a few considerations.
Of course, the spiritually-minded person will be more accepting of these points than the one who only trusts in what he or she can see.
The following concepts are what I call the 5 pillars of receptivity:
1- Surrender
Surrender is crucial. At its essence it is humility and with it a person ceases striving for answers. It admits first of all that God has all the answers that I need and that I can stop trying to look for them in others or myself.
I can remember the first year I was preparing to blog. I researched topics for hours and had files of neatly organized notes. I’d read books and peruse dozens of blog articles on any given topic, dictating all of the highlights into Evernote.
At some point, though, I just started writing. I gave up on finding the answers without and went inward to the wealth of understanding that was welling up inside me.
Many psychologists or cognitive scientists would say that the inspiration I was suddenly experiencing was the culmination of all of that knowledge saturating and bubbling to the surface like some primordial evolutionary event. I know because that is exactly the type of answer I kept encountering in all my months of research.
But what is fascinating is that none of the understanding I was picking up had ANYTHING to do with my prior research. All of the research I had done before was logical assessment trying to define this spiritual concept of inspiration.
But this was a giving up on that direction altogether.
Since I have published this blog I have done ZERO research. I catch articles here and there but usually because it is something interesting that I stumble across. I’m not trying to avoid input from others by any means. I know there will be times I need to push my focus in a different direction so God can get past certain mental limits I might erect. I do believe inspiration can be triggered by others as I write about here.
But not relying on others for all my answers has been the most freeing discovery I have ever had. I can authentically create now and God can finally use me to express fresh ideas.
Ironically, that kind of freedom comes through surrender.
2- Desire
We have to be looking for answers if we want to receive them. We have to make an effort to open ourselves up to what God has to say. If we are not actively engaged we will miss it.
Desire in this sense is almost like unspoken prayer. We’re telling God we want it by the fact that we are seeking His input.
But if we are complacent in the matter we won’t even be tuned into it.
When I was young we still had a large, boxy TV with manual tuning. We did not have cable out in the country which left channels 4, 5, 7, 9, kind of 11, and barely 13. That’s it. Analog, through the airwaves, five stations.
If I wanted to switch from Hart to Hart to Dukes of Hazard to Gilligan’s Island I had to GET UP and turn the channel. I had to be an active participant in order to receive what I wanted to watch.
Like that mammoth TV, our minds are like receivers, too. In the same way, if we don’t get up and tune in we will never get to see what it is we are looking for.
If we want to hear from God He has to know it is our desire.
3- Quietness
Speaking of television, without the ability to shut out all of the noise and distraction in life a person simply cannot make out the signals coming through.
The impressions of inspiration can be subtle. They are also sensitive meaning if you don’t pay attention to them, they will fleet away.
With something so powerful as inspiration available to any of us who want it I am amazed at how many people choose to drown it all out with television, Facebook, sports, and video games.
A recent survey about how much time people spend in various activities revealed that men watch an average of 5.5 hours of television daily, women 4.8 hours. Beyond work and sleep, this represents nearly all of the waking hours available for real concentration.
Chicagonow.com reveals that
“The average 8-12 year old plays video games for 13 hours per week.”
Our mind has no significant ability to receive the impressions of God’s inspiration when it is being bombarded with all of this data, useful or otherwise.
All of the written Word of God was given to its authors by divine inspiration. Can you imagine if these writers were addicted to Facebook instead?
4- Belief
Belief is the acknowledgment that God does answer to those who ask Him and are receptive to it.
Belief can overcome the restraints of that academic sacred cow, “logical thought.” It was that manner of thinking that told me the “logical” way to proceed with my calling was to research the ideas of everyone else who came before me.
Logical thought kept me from being free to be who I am supposed to be. By accepting logic I was constrained in a box of how I thought I should do things or how I thought everyone else thought I should act.
Logical thought can even be an excuse to relieve ourselves of the weirdness of spiritual life. It might not feel real comfortable yet so it’s easy to run back to what is known and accepted.
But that’s not what God uses.
He uses faith which is acknowledging the unseen as real. This is essentially belief. I don’t see my answer yet but I know it’s coming. I haven’t achieved success yet but I believe that God will yet provide the way.
Belief is inherently spiritual and it is a mindset necessary to be receptive to inspiration. Can you imagine inspiration without belief?
Belief is the seedbed of divine inspiration. It’s a nourishing and welcoming soil that God knows His seeds will successfully take root in.
5- Trust
Trust is making belief personal and active.
I can believe that buses run a particular route and trust says I will unwaveringly expect that one of those buses will show up at my stop.
I can believe in inspiration but when I trust it for myself, things happen.
Trust in this sense is about expectation and that is the crux of receptivity. When we genuinely expect the answers to come, guess what?— they will.
Take Away
Inspiration can be the source of all your creative power—it is of mine. It’s never-ending because it’s source is infinite. It has it’s own energy so it never saps yours.
If you believe God has awakened you to a divine calling your next step is to rely on Him wholly. Of course, if your calling is technical in any manner, you are going to need to do research. But God can give you understanding as to how it all goes together and give you specific insight into how to administer or present it.
Take my word for it as someone who has been there, your ultimate answers don’t lie in the logical arguments of others.
You are human. You are unique. And God has called you to share your unique, human experience.
Take these five pillars of receptivity and begin to apply them for yourself. As soon as I did my world opened up. My insight mushroomed and yours will too.
The level of your inspiration will be dictated by the degree of your receptivity.
Hello, my name is Aaron Force. I’m a blogger based in Seattle, Washington. I’ve been spiritually-minded for most of my life. Unfortunately, I’ve been carnally-minded for at least as much. I felt a seed of greatness hidden somewhere deep down inside but was blinded from it. That is until I experienced an honest-to-goodness calling and moment of awakening. I would be lying if I told you I had it all figured out. But I’m here to tell my story and maybe, just maybe, help you become aware of an even more amazing universe than the one your rational mind already knows.
Aaron Force is a blogger from Seattle, Washington. He writes to educate others about the nature of an expanded consciousness to evolve humanity. Aaron unexpectedly experienced his own profound awakening and ego transcendence in 2015 and soon understood that the qualities of his own experience (a greater expansion and evolution in his life) could be applied to mankind collectively.