Synchronicity is the coming together of inner and outer events in a way that cannot be explained by cause and effect and that is meaningful to the observer. -- Carl Jung

Synchronicities are patterns that repeat in time. The word 'synchronicity' references the gears or wheels of time, though the actual concept of synchronicity cannot be scientifically proven. One can only record synchronicities as they occur and watch the patterns of behavior that create them.

Synchronicities are people, places or events that your soul attracts into your life to help you evolve to higher consciousness or to place emphasis on something going on in your life. The more 'consciously aware' you become of how your soul manifests, the higher your frequency becomes and the faster you manifest positively. Each day your life encounters meaningful coincidences, synchronicities, that you have attracted, or in other words created in the grid of your experiences in the physical. Souls create synchronicities, played out in the physical. It is why you are here. It is how our reality works.

Who hasn't had it happen in their life? You think of someone for the first time in years, and run into them a few hours later. An unusual phrase you'd never heard before jumps out at you three times in the same day. On a back street in a foreign country, you bump into a college roommate. A book falls off the shelf at the bookstore and it's exactly what you need. Is it only, as skeptics suggest, selective perception and the law of averages playing itself out? Or is it, as Carl Jung believed, a glimpse into the underlying order of the universe? He coined the term synchronicity to describe what he called the "acausal connecting principle" that links mind and matter. He said this underlying connectedness manifests itself through meaningful coincidences that cannot be explained by cause and effect.

My Own Definition

Synchronicity is also the name of a magazine, and of an album by the rock group Police , by the way, and it has developed a kind of mystical and new-age sort of following over the years.  The way I want to define it is a little different, and a little more spiritual.  To me, it means recognizing God's hand in everything, and trusting His timing.  It suggests to my mind the interconnectedness of everything, since all is God's and all is in His control.  To us, who see such a narrow slice of things, and who each live in our own little worlds, things seem unconnected and random, and coincidences seem to be things of chance.  But to God, who sees all, everything is connected, and all of us are connected to each other and to His grand design and marvelous plan.

The reason I like to combine the word with synergy (see last week's column) is that, together, the combined word synergicity suggests not only that everything is connected and within God's control, but that when we work together with God and with each other, things get better, and both the timing and the results become more in line with His desires. 

Timing

"Timing is everything."  "Being in the right place at the right time."  There are so many catch phrases about timing, because we know, instinctively, that timing is the key to everything.  In sports, the difference between a great player and an ordinary one is timing.  And in life, the difference between success and failure so often comes down to timing.

The problem is that, in the big game of life, we try to control timing, but actually have so little ability to manage it.  A whole, giant industry has grown up called "Time Management" but what it really means is trying to manage ourselves within time, trying to make good use of our time, and to spend it on important things.  Time itself can only be managed by God, and when we are in sinc with His timing, and willing to trust His timing rather than always wishing we could set the timetable, we begin to see and understand spiritual synchronicity.  A person may want a certain blessing right now, like marriage, or a child, or a promotion, or a calling--only to have it come later and in a different way and to find, with hindsight, that it was right, that it was the way God wanted it to be.

Like children, we often want instant gratification, or something to happen just like we imagine it, and right when we want it.  God's timetable is different though, and if we can learn to trust His timing, and to watch for and perceive His will, life becomes so much more exciting and complete.

And with this attitude, little "synchronicities" seem to start to happen to us more often.  Something is just there when we need it--a person or an idea or an answer.  We start to connect the things that happen to us and around us to our needs, and to other's needs.  And we start trusting our impressions and our "nudges" and begin to see them as promptings from God who wants us to notice His ways and His patterns.

Let me give you an example of something that happens to me all the time:  If I think of someone who I need to call and jot it down on a list and try to call him later, he usually doesn't answer or isn't there.  But if I try to call right when I think of it, I always seem to get right through.  For me, that is the value of a cell phone.  When someone comes into my mind, I call, and there they are.  If I look at the impression to call as a "nudge" and act on it, the timing works, the synchronicity occurs.

Sometimes having a too-rigid agenda of our own, and trying to force things to happen within our own timetable and according to our convenience just doesn't work.  We feel like we are always forcing things, always going against the current or the flow.  If we can just slow down a little, have a prayer in our hearts, and look for God's timing, and try to feel His nudges and impressions, we seem to find a channel or a current that brings about what He wants to happen.  This doesn't mean we don't have a plan, we just keep the timing of what we feel we want to do a little flexible, and we stay open to what God brings to us and puts into our minds.

In this light, synchronicity ties closely to serendipity in that our awareness and our perspective (and going slow and watching for God's will) brings them both to us.  And synchronicity also ties to stewardship in that it involves seeing ourselves as stewards within His ownership and his bigger plan.  But always, and paramount, spiritual synchronicity involves looking for the interconnectedness of things and for God's timing in all.

Prayer

T he way to get more synchronicity, of course, like the way to get any blessing, is to ASK for it in prayer.  If we ask to see connections, to feel the links, and to recognize God's timing in our lives, we will become ever more perceptive and in tune and will welcome "coincidences" and understand that they are much more than that.

Praying  for this kind of spiritual synchronicity can open our spiritual eyes.  The Lord's own advice and admonition is "Watch and Pray," and indeed, those are the two keys--ask for it, and watch for it.

Next Week

The concept of "Synergy" that we discussed last week, and the concept of "Synchronicity" from this week are marvelously interesting notions, but each one, by itself, has limitations, and neither is a full or complete alternative to the "deceiver" of Independence.  Next week, and in the few weeks that follow, this column will combine these two words and concepts into the third alternative of Synergicity and will flesh it into a full paradigm or way-to-look-at-things that, hopefully, will make our lives more complete, more trusting, and more in conformity with God's will and with His timing.

Thanks always for your feedback and inputs. Send any observations or thoughts you have on synchronicity to me at richard@meridianmagazine.com

Write to Richard at richard@meridianmagazine.com