Man is in constant need. He’s in need of food, he’s in need of shelter, he’s in need of companionship, and he’s in need of support. Man is constantly looking to fulfill these needs. And often man thinks of himself as bereft of the things that he needs; without all that would keep him satisfied. So man enters into states of anxiety and depression trying to work out all of his various conundrums of need. Until man discovers the truth of his situation, until man discovers the reality of his position, man is constantly going to be in that same state of need.
How does man go from need to satisfaction? How does man go from the state of being uncomfortable and in pain to the state of being satisfied and being fulfilled? How does man make that transformation? How does he go from the winter of discontent to the spring of flowering and contentment? What is the connective mechanism that brings him into the truth of his own being?
God has created all of us as kings, yet we walk as if we’re barefoot in shrouds without a kingdom. Why can’t we realize the true nature of our existence? Why can’t we realize the true nature of who we are? What separates us from the reality of our existence?
In order to discover the truth of ourselves, and in order to reach a place that is content, there has to be an alteration in our belief system. We cannot think that the world supplies what we need. We can only believe that God supplies what we need, and that all that we are given, will be given, can be given comes from Him. And that kind of faith is difficult to engender. Because of man’s arrogance he believes that he is the doer and the one who provides for himself. And this thought pattern is constantly reinforced.
You have to do this, you have to do that, you have to get your education, you have to be prepared to enter into the world so that you can provide. Somehow one needs to understand that even with all of those things, and the truth being that you do have to do those things in the world, it’s not what you do and how you do it that provides.
God provides, and God is responsible for everything from the smallest thing to the largest thing. And only when you surrender to His provision, and the understanding that everything comes through His provision, is it possible for you to escape the death that comes regularly in this world.
If you look at the world you see a constant cycle of death and rebirth. In the animal kingdom, in the plant kingdom, in the human kingdom there’s constant death and rebirth. And even in our daily lives we have moments of exultation and moments of despair. We go up and down, and up and down. If we are to find a station of equilibrium, a station of contentment, a station where we are in touch with reality, we can only do this through our faith.
My Lord, bring me closer to you so that I may touch you, that I may taste you, that you are intermingled with me in my smallest cell. That I am aware of you constantly and that my thought is always of you. That I separate myself from the world…
