There is a lot to be angry about in our present experience of life. Where is the comfort and harmony that I was promised in the Sunday School lessons of my childhood and the teachings of my religious training as I matured and began to live the way I was told to live? I am a good person, I live a good life, I am fair, friendly and generous in my dealings. How come I need to deal with struggle, conflict, sickness, and the other problems of everyday life. Why do I have to deal with the vicissitudes of life? If I am honest with myself, I am deeply angry that life has not worked out the way I thought it would. I have this hidden awareness, deeply buried, that things are not the way they should be, and I know they should be harmonious, loving, easy, wonderful and without struggle. There is a part of me that unconsciously knows that the Garden of Eden experience is a model of how life was meant to be.
That is our struggle as we wake up in the world and recognize that there is more to life. There is a spiritual side to life that we become aware of and begin having faint reminders of that we are more than the human self we see, hear and experience. We are spiritual expressions of divinity that have forgotten how to live our heritage of living in a Garden of Eden lifestyle.
A wonderful model for our life, written by David, King of Israel, is the turmoil that is created by the ego in Psalms 22 and then the creative lessons for awakening to our spiritual nature that are shared in the next chapter, Psalms 23.
In Psalms 22, David starts out complaining that God has forsaken him and does not respond to his groaning and complaining. He cries by day and by night and receives no help or answers from God. Then David acknowledges that God is Holy and has helped others that trusted in Him, but he is like a worm, not human and forgotten by God. David goes on to complain that people mock him and make fun of him for his faith. He says that “many problems surround me, all my bones are out of joint, and my heart is melted like wax within my breast.” King David goes on with a litany of other problems that we don’t need to include here. You get the idea and can surely relate to his list of grievances projected into the turmoil of today’s world.
Miraculously, David wakes up in Psalms 22:19 and realizes that he is a spiritual expression of God, and he has been able all along to correct the imbalances in life that have occurred from living in the ego’s trap of fear and struggle.
King David then goes on to write the famous 23rd Psalm which is the foundation for living a successful spiritual life. He releases all of the past grievances and upsets and starts out by saying, “the Lord is my Shepherd, I shall not want.” He makes me relax and enjoy life. He restores my confidence and belief in myself. He guides me and directs me down the best and easiest paths in life. He feeds me and protects me from harm. I know that I will be safe and nurtured for all the days of my life.
This is the promise that we have been given by the teachings of Jesus the Christ. Our job is to wake up to this fact (yes, we are an expression of divinity) and begin our spiritual journey back to the Father’s House. The Kingdom within. We are told that it is the Father’s good pleasure to give us the kingdom. It is there. To live the Eden existence, it is necessary to accept it and embrace it. David woke up and did it. We can also.
