I had an interesting conversation with a Christian not too long ago—someone who I admire and respect—about the verse in Job where he states that what he feared most came upon him.
Job 3:25 states:
“For the thing which I greatly feared is come upon me, and that which I was afraid of is come unto me.”
Notice how job mentions what happened to him twice, emphasizing its importance. This will have a lot more meaning later when we break down what is going on with Job. For now, I want to share more about my conversation with my friend. Keep in mind that this friend has a traditional outlook and does not believe in the God within.
In our conversation, my friend emphatically stated that we should always watch what we fear, because it’s likely to happen. I then asked them if they realized that they were essentially preaching the same message as The Secret by Rhonda Byrne. To the best of my memory, I have recorded the dialogue below.
“What do you mean? What’s The Secret?
“The Secret is a teaching explaining how our conscious thoughts create our reality,” I said.
“Well, it isn’t we, ourselves, who attract this experience, but rather God,” they replied.
That was interesting to me. “Why would God act upon our fears? That doesn’t sound like a traditional Christian message to me.”
“Well, God wants to refine us to be more like Him. We have to confront and conqueror our fears in Christ.”
“I agree that we have to conqueror our fears, but you’re saying that God refines us by using our fears against us.”
“What I mean is that God himself is not necessarily playing on our fears. Ultimately it is Satan, but God lets him do it, just like he let Satan do it to Job. God allows it because he knows in the end it will be for our good.”
“So what you are saying then is that Satan is omniscient like God. He knows everyone’s fears and he always plays upon them?”
There was a lot of back-peddling after I stated this and the rest of the conversation is history. It doesn’t really matter anyway. After agreeing to disagree, I began to reflect more on the conversation. Then I asked myself:
Do Christians sometimes essentially believe the same thing taught in esoteric circles without even realizing it?
I think the answer is yes. The conversation with my Christian friend above isn’t the only place I’ve heard the above message about Job’s fears. I actually heard it preached from the pulpit many years ago.
The other day all this came back to mind and I decided to look at that verse in Job again. Let’s review it one more time.
“For the thing which I greatly feared is come upon me, and that which I was afraid of is come unto me.”
We have already stated how Job mentions what happened to him twice, emphasizing something important. This meaning becomes more apparent when we look at the next verse as well. It sates:
“I was not in safety, neither had I rest, neither was I quiet; yet trouble came” (Job 3:26).
Verse 26 lets us know that what Job feared most was all the trouble that came to him. His children died, he lost all wealth, and he became sick.
Is Job essentially saying that his fears manifested his reality?
Absolutely. I was perplexed by why the translators added the word “yet” to verse 26. The syntax isn’t right. It doesn’t make sense. After looking in Strong’s Concordance for the meaning of all the words in the original, I think verse 26 would better be translated:
“I was not tranquil or secure, neither had I rest within, neither was I content; and trouble came.”
In essence, Job was affirming that his own thoughts manifesting a negative experience.
In retrospect, let us always remember the awesome scripture from Philippians 4:8:
“Finally, brethren, whatsoever things are true, whatsoever things are honest, whatsoever things are just, whatsoever things are pure, whatsoever things are lovely, whatsoever things are of good report; if there be any virtue, and if there be any praise, think on these things.”
Paul is giving us the secret to manifest more positively in our lives. And we shouldn’t forget it.
Personal Updates
I apologize for not writing on Spirit of the Scripture for a while. I’ve enjoyed my little sabbatical, but I am starting to get the itch to write more again. I want to thank everyone who has contributed while I took some down time.
My wife and I are still waiting for the house to sell. We had settled on a house in Wake Forest, but our contingency contract is almost up and it doesn’t appear that we are going to sell our current house before it does. If so, I am completely content with whatever happens. My wife and I were even talking about looking more toward Raleigh if we don’t sell before our contingency contract is up on the house in Wake Forest. It may work out better than way.
New Blog
In my downtime from Spirit of the Scripture, I started a new blog. I was inspired to do something different, and I acted on it. I was going to incorporate my new blog ideas into Spirit of the Scripture, but it just isn’t the place for it. My readers have come to appreciate the current format and style of SOS, and I decided not to change it. My new material isn’t about dissecting scripture or discussing esoteric thought. It’s a personal blog sharing little tidbits of wisdom I’ve learned about living life more abundantly. No research. No breaking down meanings of words. Just writing from the heart. The blog will still be spiritual in nature, but also includes personal development topics in all areas. If this is something you think you might be interested in, you can find it at the link below:
You will be taken to the homepage where you can discover more about my vision for the blog. To actually view blog posts look at the links on the left; there’s no navigation menu at the top like most Word Press sites. I did this on purpose. It’s a very minimalist style blog with a simple layout. No pics, no bells and whistles. Just simple writing to help you enjoy life more. You can sign up for e-mail blog post updates on Content from Within at the end of any post if you so desire.
I will be maintaining both blogs this summer since I will have plenty of time being off work for two months.
A special thanks to all my readers at SOS for helping to make it an inspiriting blog.
Blessings.
I believe in the law of love which is the law of Grace. And that’s something which is rarely and hardly understood by man. It may be true that we draw unto ourselves that which we direct our energy towards, but there’s a divine flow, control and balancing of Grace along with our energies that, at least most of us are unaware of. As the law of attraction IS the active mind of God, God is not separate from man, or man from God. The law of attraction is a favorite theme of many metaphysicians, but who rarely underscore the divine guidance of Grace. To believe greatly in one’s self is a way to guard one’s heart. Fear can be in the mind, and yet not in our hearts. Thus it isn’t really fear that we have. Perhaps it’s respect and reverence for the almighty. And He will love us back the same.
Vernon,
Good points. Divine grace flows from the higher self, which is really also who we are, veiled from the ego. But this is where the manifestation comes in, once we implore faith. It’s not as easy as many law of attraction teachers state, only because we look at it the wrong way. An understanding of grace and an application of complete faith must be applied.
Absolutely, I love the expression “the higher self.” That is synonymous with the Pentecostal sentiment “The Upper Room,” i.e. the level of superconsciousness power, (our God within.) The more we are led by it the more faith-power we induce into our selves. I like how mcgees Magregor explains “Faith as inductive Gnosis” in his book Gnosis. Up there is our mirror of God . Our manifestation and God’s manifestation are the same.
Thanks, Vernon.
Minor point. You make much of Job “emphasizing” by repetition of the verse; however, this is quite common in the OT, especially in Psalms. One of my favorites, the 91st, starts out: “For those who dwell in the shelter of the Most High, who abide in the shadow of the Almighty:…etc. I believe it is called Hebrew parallelism. Good luck with the new blog!
Patrick, very true. In scripture we should pay attention especially when this happens. Thanks for your comment. Blessings.
As human beings, uniquely among the species of the Earth, we seem to have inherited this organ of abstraction; the human mind. As a result, we inhabit two worlds, not just one. Like the other creatures, we inhabit this external world of stimulus and response; what we may call reality. Then our second world is composed of our abstract thoughts and interpretations of this external world and what we intend to do in it.
One powerful mediator between these two worlds is our language, which has now taken over our perceptual apparatus (eyes, ears, etc) to the level of a perceptual blindness. It now takes the trained eye of an artist to really see an external view at the level of the individual pixels within our eye. In the everyday world, perception now means words and ideas. Think of observing a face. Do we ever contemplate the parts or do we move straight to an abstract interpretation of the whole; that this is a face and then straight on to other more abstract questions like friend or foe, etc.
In other words the face actually exists far more in our mind than it does as a set of pixels in the outside world, waiting for our retina to detect them. We have evolved way beyond such pedestrian rates of perception.
However, human abstraction does come at a cost; the cost of no longer really seeing what is out there. Instead we now habitually see what our abstracting mind tells us should be there, according to our inner map of reality.
This tendency to see what we expect to see, is something that the scientific discipline works very hard to resist. Hence all the somewhat tiresome questioning of the evidence and the interpretation within scientific practice.
Belief seems to me to be the polar opposite, as a way of perceiving reality. Essentially, all faith requires in the way of evidence is a mantra to the effect that “it is so, because I believe it to be so.”
Things like fear and hope seem to lie somewhere in the middle of this dichotomy, with ideas like “just because I am paranoid, does not me the enemy is not out to get me.” In other words, we make half hearted attempts to examine our beliefs rationally, but convictions of absolute truth can be elusive.
Although the Church and certain other classes of Guru, as a business strategy, seem to peddle a rather hopeful optimism. I think Marx or someone called it the opiate of the people. And it is not such a bad way to go, is it? Everything in the future is a fantasy (because it is yet to happen!) So why not make it a happy fantasy?
Personally, I like the prayer of the 12 Steps, contained in step 2. God, help me regain a sane relationship with the external world (reality, if you like.)
In this context, many within the Hope and Optimism Industry, do tend to overdo it a bit. Sorry Dearie, but in spite of what you just heard, it is hard work to make a million bucks while still in your pyjamas. Life is tough, isn’t it?
And for me anyone who claims that the Bible is the only book you need to read in a post-Enlightenment world; well he might also be telling porkies.
Ok, so the Bible has made it through a few thousand years, although not without an occasional makeover from the powers that be. But at the same time as these myths were being recorded by the poets of the day, people like Euclid were writing equally influential books on mathematics, anatomy, etc. Why do we not read those books with an equally naiive faith, in their inherent truth and effectiveness.
Why has religion taken such a hold on our imagination?
Is it perhaps as simple as the fact religion is hopeful (there is a next world after this?) and pehaps also because maths is rather difficult and tends to make your brain hurt. But for me, it never hurts as much as my backsdie does, when I have to listen to yet another Guru, or parson, tell me how simple it all is.
However, we do need some way to fill the 70 years we know we have here on Earth, don’t we? So why not spend it in serious contemplation of the next world? But give me mathematics any day.