Forgetting your true essence / by kevin murray

According to gallup.com, "89% of Americans say they believe in God," but this belief in God seems to be a belief that for many people treats God as a Supreme Being to petition to only in times of trouble or for a simple grace at meal time, and rather as an afterthought when all is going well, though, truth be told, there really are a significant amount of people that do take the tenets of brotherly love and loving God as the foundation of their life and live lives that reflect this in their interactions with society. 

 

The test of any true belief is in whether the actions that people take on an everyday basis, fundamentally are different from those that do not believe, and for many so-called God believing people, the difference from those that believe as compared to those that do not believe are rather cursory, so that if in an angelic court of law, with all those accused of being a God believer being judged, how many, really, would be convicted of such, by a truly neutral court, which while reviewing all the evidence of a given person's life, would find that their belief in God, especially considering their interactions with others, as well as their thought processes, whether they would have demonstrated a true positive impact for having been a God believer.

 

The very first issue that all those that believe in God must assert to is the recognition that material things and material appetites are temporal, and thereby because these are worldly, cannot now and will never be the foundation that God believing people should consider as their primary purpose or focus in life.  Instead, those that believe in God, in their actions and in their thoughts, will concentrate instead on the attributes that reflect well of eternity which consist of: faith, hope, generosity, love, fortitude, justice, prudence, and temperance.

 

While it is true that we are humans and that as humans we have a human body, of which, that body in order to function properly, requires food, water, and rest to maintain its physical health, those that put the needs or the perceived needs of the body as if it is the be-all and end-all have made an error in judgment.  For it follows that those that see their body as their true essence, when it is not, are the very same people, that will concentrate wholly on seeing that their creature comforts as well as their material desires are met, believing that by doing so, that they will be happy and find joy, which they very well might, for a period of finite time.

 

The problem with this mindset though, is that it is never ending, for those desires and those comforts, become the controlling influence upon one's life, never completely satiated, but only just for a while, so that the physical and the ego comes to dominate the spiritual, continually lured in by the physical gifts, pleasures, gratifications, and treasures on this earthly plane.  Yet, those that have the wherewithal and wisdom to rise above the carnal plane, recognize that there is a world well beyond this world, of which, the very false sugary fruits that so many lust so heavily for have been replaced, instead, by the true treasure freely available to all by God, if only we would concentrate fully and still ourselves long enough, to comprehend the immensity and brilliance of our God, and thereby recognize wholly the purity of His water, that quenches fully the thirst that actuates us.