Job and Ezekial and My Ministry

Job reveals to me I must never rest on my progress for long. My soul’s journey is a lifelong process and putting it off has its costs. I put off writing this paper until the price I pay in self-inflicted guilt and silent nagging is more costly that the writing of it. Reading Job I understand that who and what I think God is at any given moment is the smallest glimpse of only a miniscule part of God. Any claim to know God exclusively is a display of ignorance beyond measure. Promises given by organizations that their knowledge is complete and exclusive are a clear demonstration of my own desire to stop my own personal search and rest on the progress of another. From this class alone I find that one sentence or one passage in the Bible can reveal so much more than I ever thought about God and each time I read it my perception changes again. On my own soul’s journey I awaken to new truths nearly every day. I believe, today anyway, that my job is to stay awake as much as I possibly can. To stay awake I have to have reminders around to prod me or the lull of the race consciousness can have me snoring before I realize it. The Bible and its wondrous contents can help me do that. Like Job the voices in my head and the voices of the people that I draw into my life can pull me into confusion and doubt. When I participate in confusion or doubt and use intellectual arguments to detain me I drift away and initiate a fear that grows so fast and loud I can lose my way with little effort. Reading the news can send me on that roller coaster ride daily. I will know the strength of my faith when I can read the news and stay in peace. The more I engage in fear the more I become the victim. I give my power away to self pity. I get engrossed in defending my innocence at the expense of my peace of mind. I become self righteous and think I know so much and am so enlightened and undeserving of whatever the condition presenting in my experience. I separate myself from everything. Next I think I am subject to circumstance and have no say at all. After that I just want to give up and I begin to doubt everything I once thought to be true. My logic fails me. Suddenly I firmly believe there are two powers demonstrated in my life. I am persecuted. I lose the use of my intuition and I return to a level of survival. After some time spent in that dark place I finally do give up and turn in desperation to the Spirit within/ the Holy Spirit, and from sincere humility I ask for a new perception, a truer perception. I let go of ego and see that I have never left the union of all that is and I become more compassionate of my fellow man and experience a deep feeling of love. I am teachable again. I am renewed and back on my path which incidentally I never really left. I feel I am at a higher position on the spiral of my growth. This is not the end however as the questions reawaken and the ride begins again. Each time I take the ride it looks more and more familiar and some arguments never surface a second time. This is what growth looks like. It is not a linear path. I find the book of Job very useful in my ministry as I see its expression today. Today I still see it as a teaching ministry and Job’s story is so full of lessons for the soul that it could be taught on different levels forever. It is a story of joy for me now. Before this class it was for me a story of woe and one of anger and a cause for a belief in an unjust and vicious God.

Ezekial still escapes me more than I would like. I understand more from my class notes than from the text. He demonstrates taking the knowledge into the world whereas Job showed us the path of the soul of the individual. My notes indicate he teaches us not to be afraid when trials come. We must demonstrate our Spiritual strength by monitoring our thoughts. We must know that our thoughts are powerful and that good exists and evil does not exist. If we turn to God we are strengthened. Our work is within. We find God within. We must be the message ourselves not just tell others what the message is. As Emerson tells us who we are speaks so loud no one can hear what we are saying. We must create from some other place than experience. We must create from our imagination. This is our job, to create. We create from our intentions, then we let the visions come. Deciphering Ezekial’s visions are still a real challenge for me. Ezekial coming from Babylon where no one understood each other is perfect. I still am in the dark on most of it. He does speak the truth without fear to power though which is courageous. I see that reflected in our country’s political climate. It seems to me that our leader needs to believe enough in his own guidence to speak truth to the lobbyists without fear or dread. Ezekial afflicts the comfortable with his truth. He prompts me to question whom I serve and how much attention I give to my own intuition. This is an important question to my ministry. It can't be wishy washy. I can serve only one path or neither is served at all. I learn from Ezekial that I must eat my sorrows and meditate upon them, address my spirit within with an intention to gain insight. I must do this on a daily basis in order to evolve my own ability to develop my own visions. I must engage in visions of peace and love and abundance clearly. This is how we can all shift the collective mind away from fear and separation. My visions of winning the lottery are ones of fantasy, of rescue and do not serve the collective. I see a need for my own visions to include a change of heart in business and leadership throughout the world. Billy Graham said at the turn of the century that the one most important thing the world needs is a change of heart. I think of that phrase he spoke often. If my ministry continues as one solely of teaching or even if it becomes something else I believe visioning is a very important part of whatever path it takes and will become a very useful and valuable tool to use and teach others to use. Ezekial gives me much to take into the world.