the rope with it's hook

don't know about this one!

mine was hell !

fortunate aren't they?

In the first chapter, the BEGINNING, we learned that some believe we are entering the SEVENTH DAY of Creation, the THIRD DAY of His Resurrection, through the precious seed of Christ's Spirit that is immaculately awakened on the inside of us, our innermost being. This lets us understand why there is so much chaotic news that is seen, heard, and read about on a global scale.

The old way that humankind has conducted affairs, since the beginning of spiritual time - man having the PRIVILEGE of visiting with God - is coming to an end. God's way of doing every thing is finally available to all who earnestly seek His way. We believe that His way, for us, is the New Jerusalem, one of God's seven churches, the body of Christ.

Chapter two, EGYPT, revealed information about people taking an innocent trip based on fear. In time however, future generations found themselves in an undetected state of bondage and slavery, which we think of as the land of limitation. Again, in this book, Egypt represents a spiritual term, and has no reference to geography whatsoever.

Chapter three is devoted to letting us understand how we became the animals that we saw ourselves as. A creature with bedeviled emotions that were all the way down to the core of our being. After a good while into our journey, we began to understand John 12:25; "If you love your life down here - you will lose it. If you despise your life down here - you will exchange it for eternal glory."

That, eternal glory, surely would be a wonderful and miraculous change would it not? Let us hear from one, because of his age, now has an understanding of the secular life and trip that he so clearly enjoyed, until it was at the end. We will let him tell us something that his dad explained to him in his youth.

"In my youth, my daddy gave me a piece of string and asked me to break it. Even though it was strong, because it was made up of many pieces of thread, I was able to snap it into two pieces. Since I was about ten years of age, the string was relatively easy to break.

"Next, my daddy handed me several pieces of string, and asked me to break them. I was determined to show dad how strong I was, so I wrapped the string around each hand and gave it a strong jerk. Finally, the string snapped after a prolonged pull, but upon a close inspection, I noticed blood trickling out of the joints in my little fingers. Then dad gave me about six pieces of string and asked me to break them. No matter how hard I tried, that much string could not be broken by me.

"Following these little exercises, my dad showed me many pieces of string and told me that no matter how long each piece was, the sheer number would make several pieces of twine, and when several pieces of twine became twisted, a rope was automatically formed. In discussing the word habit at length, he told me that even when I became a man, any habit that I had formed, which was the size of rope, would be impossible for me to break."

In today's discussions, especially in recovery circles, we rarely hear the word habit. But we frequently hear about addictions (habitual), and what people are doing about them, with the principles of the Twelve Steps.

We are happy to hear about all of the Twelve Step fellowships that are helping so many people. When people get to the acute or chronic phase of an illness, something has to be done, or they die.

"Finally, my daddy explained to me that the longer I practiced doing a particular thing, any one thing, the thicker the twine or the bigger the habit that I was developing. He also said, 'Today's luxuries become tomorrow's necessities.'"

So that no one will be too concerned, we remember a KJV Scripture in 1 Corinthians 6:12 which states; "All things are lawful unto God, but all things are not expedient." In other words, we have to have God's approval in all of our individual personal activities, if we are to enter His kingdom.

Let us now look at the trip that a few of us have taken that has let the rope develop. In this book, we let eGo represent ease God out. Likewise, we let EgO represent Ease gods Out. Mankind's trip, so that the eGo can be complete, or fulfilled, is generally a rewarding experience.

We formed habits in search of the American Dream. We found that as long as we were fitting into society the way our ancestors and family members went about it, we were accepted, but you had better watch out if you didn't do it like so and so did it. Just about everything we enjoyed was pleasing to one and/or all of the five senses, which meant, we didn't care how ole so and so did it.

We cannot tell a lie, so we have to admit that there were things that we did not enjoy as children, but we had little or no control over them. When things did not go our way, we became angry, and much to our surprise, later in life, we learned that we were just a bunch of tangled and twisted resentments.

At times, with enough provocation, the collected anger turned into absolute rage, which always seemed to end after acts of violence. Our emotions, at times, were volatile, to say the least. Somewhere along the trip, we found something that would let us forget about all of the anger that was in us and we could be different people when we were engaged in or in pursuit of the activity that covered over all of the anger.

In compiling the individual eGo - the subconscious mind, some of us were extremely proud of the homes we owned, the cars we drove, the jobs we had, the family name, the spouses we married, the clothes we wore, the education that we had worked for, the politicians we had voted for, our Religion, and generally, our place in society.

In other words, "Look at me, aren't I the cat's meow." Most people call this conceit. In us however, it was below the level of awareness. The main reason that it was below the level of our awareness was because we were always around people that were doing the same things that we were doing. Needless to say we understand why this type of living is called worldliness or secular, certainly without God.

The preceding paragraph is basically the way most of the world and it's people have lived in developed nations, especially in the lawless generations. And we thought that the wild west characters in this nations' pioneering days were lawless. It's like they were at a Sunday afternoon social, as compared to the mass of crimes in today's society, whether we admit it or not. Most of the items that were listed involve self-esteem and even self-confidence. Without these props, we were less than nothing, and we were afraid to give up any of them because of what people might think.

We were always concerned, subconsciously, about what people thought, and were never once concerned about what God knew. We were so focused on our outside appearance, as to the way the world judged us, that we never took time to look on the inside to see what we were becoming. The appearance of the car, clothes, hair, front yard, and the living room were all of the curb appeal that we cared about.

Before we look at a mindful sample of what these strings led to, let us see why the world is changing so much. Let there be full understanding of John 12:30-31; Then Jesus told them; "The voice was for your benefit, not mine. The time of judgement for the world has come - and the time when Satan, the Prince of this world, shall be cast out."

There are other Scriptures that relate the same message, three of which are 2 Corinthians 4:4, and Ephesians 2:2 and 6:12. These are very important Scriptures to understand, so that the Kingdom of God can be experienced on the inside of us. It may be wise for us to read these other three Scriptures occasionally.

We now understand that the eGo demanded that we try to climb to the top of the heap. It was finally at total seeming failure that our mountain was a heap of misery. The problem was that we could not be satisfied with ordinary success.

We were forced by the eGo to keep on blazing new territory. Our worldly desires literally, absolutely, and positively drove us to success. We do understand 1 Timothy 6:10; For the love of money is the first step toward all kinds of sin. We also remember something about not being able to love both God and money.

As mentioned in earlier paragraphs, these very human episodes represent Eden or pleasure. At times we had taken undue pride in our religion, career, education, family, heritage, job, money, nationality, politics, possessions, prestige, and property in order to have our eGo completed.

We had not even thought about the journey to find out about the truth of how we are to be "Highly esteemed in 'His' kingdom." Once we had experienced large debt and a lot of fancy show, we found ourselves still wanting. It was like the old song sung in the fifties, "Is That All There Is," sung by Peggy Leigh.

At this point in our life divine discontent set in and we started seeking much more thrilling human experiences. They really stimulated the emotions. A little bit of something was not enough for us. We had to go to the limit where, too much wasn't enough!

Some people call that ambition. It really seemed like we received the most enjoyment out of the things that we were taught from our youth which were no-no's. Personal triumph over forbidden aspects of life temporarily gave us the greatest sense of achievement, self-assurance and self-accomplishment. Mon, we are really going places now. Let us examine how some of humanity exists on their own merits.

Most of us, as children, started forming habits before we were able to talk. No matter what peer group we were in, as young people not knowing how to stand up for what was right, or how to ward off anything that was wrong, we just went along for the ride. Internally, we rebelled at anything that we were made to do, that we did not like, even though we did what we were told.

Later, we became very deceptive about what we did, in order to block out certain aspects of life that we did not like. This deception let the string start on one bad habit that we would not talk to anybody about.

This bad habit, which is being formed, let us forget about why we were mad in the first place. It was swept under the rug or another skeleton was buried in the closet - more demons were housed. As we pursued these new activities, the former anger and ill feelings seemed to have gone away. The truth for us was that all such occurrences were a part of the memory bank in the eGo. We use the word "bad" judiciously considering that all things are lawful unto God.

It was just that we were told that we should not do certain things. After all these sick capers were collected in the subconscious mind, and we had started a spiritual path of recovery, we began to see the tip of an iceberg of sickness which had become an illness; ill feelings toward others as well as ourselves at times.

Now is the place to reveal the Scripture in John 11:..3-4; "Sir, your good friend is very, very sick." But when Jesus heard about it he said, "The purpose of his illness is not death, but for the glory of God. I, the Son of God, will receive glory from this situation." Talk about miracles; and who would ever have suspected?

If we do not find a spiritual path at the illness stage, the sucker will grow into a di-sease which requires medical attention for a period of time. After a little bit of health is restored, a spiritual path can be started that will bring on about much dis-ease, because of the new way of doing things, but wellness will be its own reward.

From our personal experience, we understand the absolute confusion that is present when it is discovered that a disease is present, even though the individual does not. We had no idea about the darkness that had engulfed us.

We generally had been walking around loose, not under the personal care of a physician. We had the habit or addiction of prescribing our own medication, with whatever our individual vice seemed to be, but we lost control. After years of letting the rope start to unravel by being willing to let a spiritual cord be created, we gradually began to understand that the sickness was the avenue that made us learn how to turn from all worldliness, to God's Son. Please let us reiterate the word gradually!

Before we get into the real solutions that we offer about receiving the Kingdom of God, on the inside of us, we believe we need to introduce these Scriptures, at this point in our story, which are, Luke 24:45-48; Then he opened their minds to understand at last these many Scriptures! and said, "Yes, it was written long ago that the Messiah must suffer and die and rise again on the third day; and that this message of salvation should be taken from Jerusalem to all the nations: There is forgiveness of sins for all who turn to me. You have seen these prophecies come true."

The truth about this trip is that it might never have occurred had we listened to the wisdom that was taught to us, but we paid no attention to it. We were fearless in a lot of our attitudes. Some told us that we were, too smart for our own good. We found courage, and at times stupidity, to do things that we knew were wrong. But because they were entertaining and even fascinating, we were always in the thick of trouble.

The most pathetic deal about this trip was that we never learned how to be honest with ourselves. If, at any point along the flight from reality, we had learned how to start being honest rather than continuing to cover up our indiscriminate acts, which we only seemed to enjoy anyway, the process could have been reversed much earlier. Now, the following is the strangest aspect of the trip.

All along the trip of having the eGo completed, it seemed that we always got bigger and better worldly rewards because of the opportunities that we were given and worked hard for. The more we were driven by success and achievement, the more our instinctive mind collected, in the way of garbage, the deeper the trip into darkness.

The main reason that we had to be so tenacious in our efforts was that we did not dare let any of our inferiority even be suspected. At least that is what we thought and how we acted. The more success came our way, the more of the worldly life we were able to live.

Bigger homes, better cars, more expensive clothes - this is really living. We would prove that we were better than other human beings by all the toys we had. One of our mottos, in the difference between the grown and the young, happened to be the price of the toys. Some of us had very large nice hobby horses, that have been traded in for little red wagons! A lot of us stayed on our little hobby horse a very long time.

One thing that a lot of us had in common was that we all started at the bottom of our industry, trade, or profession and worked our way toward the top. Let us mention that no matter how long the trip lasts, or how long the rope is, it too, even has divine purpose, because God is complete.

The basic factor in all of our pasts is that there was one major flaw that we had overlooked for years. Because of our refusal to look at this one issue, and deal with it, much heartache was the result. In some cases, it was impossible to deal with the issue because of timing.

Most of the time, it took great calamity, or even tragedy after twenty years of disguising the truth with deception, before an individual could muster the strength and courage to face the truth squarely. When we were able to discuss the entire situation, no holds barred, in confidence with a trusted friend, we finally were able to start the spiritual cord after we had revealed to us the mistakes we made; not other's mistakes. There were no other options available to us.

The result of our telling the whole truth about the past, without fear of reprisal, was that we began to experience a great deal of mental health, which resulted in peace of mind and serenity. It was imperative, however, that these things had to be told in absolute confidence.

It is true that unwise decisions have been made, and things were told to blabber mouths, and much bigger problems developed. To say that we remembered all of our indiscretions in a short period of time would be a terrible falsehood. What happened was that as we listened to other people's mistakes, by listening to all of their life's story too, we were reminded of some of our own, which we then confessed.

Before then, we had never let any skeletons out of their hiding places. It was pride that did not let us air family dirt in any form of public forum. Public to us meant outside the family. It did not mean on national public television.

In the past, we had not even had the courage to tell our closest friends, co-workers, loved ones, bosses, parents, not to mention the rabbis, priests, pastors, or ministers about the actual truth of what we were so ashamed of. We finally understood, that in truth, deep in our human worldly heart, we wanted to keep up the "fun" activities or we did not know how to break the habit, but God had other ideas.

Now, let us continue with our string analogy. As we formed habits, which usually started out very innocently, just exciting, and we reach the mystical number of six, a habit that we are not aware of has formed. We developed a self. Generally speaking, under the influence of the habit, we did things that we regretted. We had experienced guilt, remorse, and even pitiful and incomprehensible demoralization at certain episodes that we barely remember.

We habitually did things that we did not really want to do. We are convinced that some of the things that we did were very wrong, but we had absolutely no control over our actions. We were out of control. Once in awhile, we start trying something different, which is at the moment exciting and we start forming a different habit. We are really on a roll now. At that point in our life, or trip, another no-no gained our enthusiasm and another ill-fated habit, or addiction, was in its infancy. There was a boring aspect of our existence that had been replaced by our finding time to enjoy this new, alluring fascination.

Of course, as time elapsed and our trip into darkness continued, more pieces of string and twine were added to make the rope stronger. After we accumulated at least six pieces of thread in one particular caper, a string had developed.

After three pieces of string had been twisted together, a twine started. The twine rarely stops at six pieces. Indeed, it can grow to have hundreds of pieces of thread, which forms the string, in the one type of twine. As we let more pieces of twine be added, we let a much stronger rope be formed.

Most of us had at least three pieces of twine that had been twisted together to form our rope. Some of us had four or five pieces of twine that formed the rope. There are a few of us that had six or seven pieces of twine wrapped around each other to form a rope.

The truth that we learned about the rope is that every body owns their own. My rope cannot be tied around your neck, nor can your rope be tied around another person's neck. In hopes of eliminating any confusion that there might be, let us explain the rope process this way.

In our opinion, it takes a minimum of six pieces of single thread to form one single piece of string. This starts a habit or a self, something that has a memory, or recall. Once we humans had a habit, we were hooked. When another habit had been formed, this piece of string started being twisted with the other string (habit-six pieces of thread) to form a piece of twisted twine, if they were mixed or used simultaneously.

As the strings or habits were twisted together - seemingly fatal malady, and the third habit had been formed, and used with either of the other habits, presto, the twine will develop into a rope, if those habits continue. Now here is the amazing secret about the rope. Each and every piece of string that made up the twine had a hook at the end of the string.

Needless to say, we ended up with a hook in us large enough to catch a shark. Most of the time, the bait in the hook was ordinary bait, but we still bit into it and got reeled in. Once in awhile, the bait was exquisitely perfect for our eGo and was irresistible. When these came along, we were willing to risk anything or everything we owned to obtain the prize, but look who got caught, not them but us. Sad but so very true.

Some of the habitual things that we were hooked into, that are still very pleasing to human nature, are as follows; bitterness, bribery, competition, corruption, crime, criticism, embezzlement, gossip, greed, hatred, laziness, loneliness, lust, obesity, prejudice, pride, and revenge.

Space prevents us from listing all of the human ill that humanity is plagued by, but this list should give us some idea of how much was wrong in our human condition. In turn, wellness, which we could not find at the hospital, even though many such hospitals kept us alive long enough so God could get us to a spiritual fellowship, is provided through the suggested Twelve Steps.

One of the main reasons that we stayed on our self destruct trip as long as we did was because we could always find some member of society that was worse than we were. Our attitude was, "Well, if I ever get that bad, I'll do something about my condition." At this point, none of us realized that we were already in a living hell on earth. We now consider that as being in bondage, or enslaved to our own personal eGo, or rope.

Please allow us to continue the noose analogy just a little bit longer. Some of us thought and started believing that we had arrived. We were enjoying housing far superior to what our parents had provided. Our cars sure were much more expensive and nicer, and our friends and acquaintances were the real movers and shakers.

In our consumer oriented society of the western world, many of our generations had acquired fine china, crystal, and silverware. We had bought imported furniture from all over the world. A few of us had bought full length furs on lavish vacations and acquired original art on a modest scale.

We kept a mindful eye on the bank account, and we were always dreaming up different ways to shuffle more money into savings. We rarely missed an opportunity to capitalize on a sure thing in the stock market or any other profitable venture. Basically, we were still acting like children, wanting everything we saw and liked. Again, it was somewhat like the song that was sung, "Is That All There Is?"

We were nowhere near being contented. There was no real joy, peace, or happiness. Finally, the large hook is attracted to the last temptation that will grab our heart and nearly cut it out. Without realizing it, we had entered into a place of extreme danger that threatened our very life. After a period of global searching for what was missing, which we did not find, we found ourselves sitting alone, our head hung very low.

A few of us were near bankruptcy, subpoenas were arriving weekly, foreclosure proceedings had begun, lawsuits were pending, the IRS had begun their process, and no one would return our calls. Family members could offer no help, and our long-time friends would not even speak to us. As we pondered the situation of self-pity we were in, which was excruciatingly painful, we wondered just what we had missed and where we had gone wrong.

It did not occur to us at the time that all of the decisions we made were responsible for the situation that we were in. We could not get a handle on what to do or what to pray. It was almost overwhelming and several of us became couch potatoes. Then some of us learned that it might be better to be a couch potato than a mummified couch potato.

After we started taking the medication that the shrink suggested, like he prescribed it, we did not even move from the couch. Fortunately, some Godly men crossed our path, after we moved off of the couch, and told us what prayers they had prayed in similar situations. Thank God, somebody did understand.

We had prayed those prayers before, but we did not understand the intent. Basically, we could ask for God's help, but there were requirements for us along His way, after we were relieved of our difficulties.

When we started praying, we had no idea of what to expect. Things did not seem to change. They certainly did not change the way we wanted them to. As a matter of fact, as the way the world judges things, they got worse, a lot worse.

It is vital for all to understand what it means to be with God. Here, it may seem that we are a little narrow minded on this subject. The only explanation that we can offer is that God was manifested in Jesus - with God. The next chapter will deal with this topic thoroughly, but now we are still concerned about understanding the creature that we had become, and what it took for us to get turned around.

We have heard that being saved means to be made complete. It was important for us to understand that God is not going to change His Mind, so we had to be given ways so that our minds could be changed. To get things turned around, we had to pray earnestly and sincerely, and then learn how to sit back and let things happen in God's time, not ours.

We understood that in our early years, we watched and learned how to make things happen. We were then qualified to make things happen. Finally, we just sat back and wondered what in hell has happened. The Old and New Testaments suggest, "Be still and know that I am God."

The gift that we needed most was the Heavenly Living Water from God, which is finally available to all, in His Last Day of Creation. There is only one catch however, which is explained in Luke 20:42-43; "For David himself wrote in the book of Psalms: 'Sit at my right hand until I place your enemies beneath your feet.'"

Along this path, we learned about the way God's Son lived in order to have God's Spirit, love, harmony, wisdom, power, and knowledge available to Him. And even though Jesus had all of God manifested inside of him, he could not make it do what he wanted it to.

God's Love and Spirit are always activated because of the faith that is created on the inside of people. The enemies that had to be conquered for us, through the grace of God, for His purpose and plan, were jealousy, envy, resentment, anger, and fear, symbolized by JERAF - a very long neck. Some of these traits went back to the beginning and were all the way down to the core of our being! Many tears were around some of the cores!

Again, before we go any further into faith, let us return to our string and hook theory for a little more understanding. Because of the good teachers and supervisors that we had, even though we were terrible students at times, we were finally able to manipulate our way into using all of our past experience to our advantage, for our own selfish selves, rather than helping all of those people that we had worked so long and hard for.

It was truly the most rewarding and enjoyable period of our entire life. At times however, there was adversity. Ultimately, when we had our collision with self-will - always doing things that we wanted to do, and our train had jumped the tracks, so to speak, we spent a lot of time contemplating why we wanted to board that train anyway. Some of us even traveled high in the air, while some of us traveled by bus, but they too had flats or lost engines.

This is when we began to study the iceberg theory, because we were around other people that were worse off than we were. After years of working with others in a common cause of trying to get one debilitating habit behind us, we finally began to understand our own human nature. We, as little children, like little minnows, had bitten into a tasty morsel that had a concealed hook.

Generally, the bait attracted our curiosity at first, when the tiniest of threads were being formed. What we now understand is that our anger and selfishness were being pacified. No matter how much we tried to resist, the eGo was bound to have it's way, and we just got jerked around. We were out of control.

Now, after years of introspection, we did finally look back to the beginning and see that the thread, when used six times, formed into a piece of string and when twisted with other string formed twine.

After we had been hooked at least six times, and mixed one string with another string, twine was formed, and when twine was twisted together, a rope had to develop, which was a noose around our necks. We often wondered about our New Years's resolutions that failed us utterly.

We need to remember that the threads always had a hook, the twine had a bigger hook, and the rope had the biggest of all! The hook that we had at the end was big enough to catch a whale. Along the path of this trip, some of us tied a knot in our twine. Some of us even tied a knot in our rope, but we never found any one that tied the knot before the thread of anger was formed.

There were even a few of us that tied knots in our ropes all along the way, after each divorce. Let us reveal absolute truth; each person's rope is tied around each individual's neck.

In addition to this truth, we hung ourselves with our own rope. The other end of the rope was piled high in a coil behind us in our very own little red wagon. Even though the rope is an illusion to God, thank God, the new life is already created in the Being of Christ, but the rope has to be replaced with light and then cleansed with water.

This seems to be the appropriate place to reveal the Scripture in Matthew 17:...20; "For if you had faith even as small as a tiny mustard seed you could say to this mountain, 'Move!' and it would go far away. Nothing would be impossible." Well, so much for religious faith of once or twice a month, there is much recovery ahead!

At some point in time, usually by divine providence, we are required to start finding out, learning, and understanding that the rope is our subconscious mind and forms the individual eGo. At the end of the human trip, or at the end of the rope, and at our wits end, we had nothing left to do but to start praying.

Again, let us reiterate that we did not know what to expect. Some of us could go so far as to say that we did not think that prayer would work for us in the condition that we were in. Much to our surprise, and looking back over years of hardship and tribulation, we can begin to identify the similarities of the feelings that slaves must have had - God's people the Israelites, while being drawn out of Egypt through the desert and wilderness, with all of their worldly possessions.

Before the Israelites were to enter the Promised Land, however, there where many battles which had to be fought, to claim the land. To enter the Kingdom of heaven, or the journey through the wilderness that we found our-selves in, all of our needs had to be provided through faith, not through our efforts. But now we are aiming at PARADISE, the last destination, that we know about, at this writing!

The only difference that we can detect in entering the Promised Land, as compared to entering heaven, is that even though there is spiritual warfare going on in the heavens - spiritual oppression - everything is conquered in love, made available through the Holy Spirit, rather than violence, or brute force.

At the end of our rope, we now understand that there was, and will be for everyone, a tiny filament of spirit that is strong enough to get us turned around to start repentance, and the spirit is connected directly to the Throne Room of God.

That is the good news, and this is the bad news, which is best described in Matthew 3:...7-8; "You sons of snakes!" he warned. "Who said that you could escape the coming wrath of God? Before being baptized, prove you have turned from sin by doing worthy deeds."

Most of us were taught that, we had to learn how to be a Good Samaritan every day, if we could detect someone's need. Another way of stating this motive for living is as follows: We had to faithfully and constantly think of how to help meet the needs of others; not necessarily their wants.

We hope that no one gets the idea that we are made acceptable to God through deeds, but this however is what allows the first comforter, the Living Water, to get us through the repentant life. Our willingness to help others lets us understand altruism.

Several principles that now need to be mentioned about being a Good Samaritan, in the altruist state of being, are as follows:

d.) The inn keeper was told to provide all of the person's needs, and that on the return trip, any additional resource that was needed would be reimbursed.

It is important to remember Matthew 22:14; "Many are called, but few are chosen." Had it not been through the grace of God and the Gift of the First Comforter, none of us could have been able to begin the first journey, which involves repentance.

This was really an easy part of life because the grace of God did enter our lives to expel our destructive obsessions, which were always routed in hatred of our-selves. There were a lot of trying moments when we had to face enemies and learn how to be willing servants as we best understood the first comforter, at that time, never knowing but always believing.

Yes, there were a lot of mindless mistakes, but we were willing to keep trying. There were even a few times when we did not obey the inspiration that was received, but the ensuing lessons taught us quickly that we must be obedient, or be killed. Serious risks are not necessary.

Had it not been for earnest, sincere, and desperate prayer, we are sure none of us could have even started. The longer we pursued the journey, the more we began to understand Matthew 6:8; "Remember, your Father knows exactly what you need even before you ask him."

We came to rely upon His Word, in the Good Book of our own choosing, rather than our own prayers. This seemed extremely wise since we could not forget the mess that we had gotten ourselves into. This was especially true of those of us who had always been in religion and had dutifully prayed the prayers requested of us.

It was at this time that many of us were led to a different type of religious service where spiritual worship was evident. There were loud trumpets, trombones, and tambourines being played, like Psalm 150 describes. There was another mentality that was common among us as well.

The truth for us was, since we could not pray like the Rabbi, minister, priest, or pastor, we simply did not pray at all. Heavens, we could not even begin to think thoughts like those people. Later in our manual, we devote an entire chapter to prayer. Considering that you are still with us, we believe that you might still be aboard when we reach the chapter on prayer.

When we received the first gift of the first awakening, we understood nothing, and many of us went around for years in spiritual intoxication, even though we had not been using any mood changing or mind altering substances. We were pleased with ourselves, but as life continued, we began to experience visions of God's will, and as we look back, it seems like that they were an eternity away. Man's patience is worlds apart when it comes to the patience that is in Christ and is God's to bestow, which is mentioned in 2 Thessalonians 3:5.

The first comforter's sole responsibility is to get information to us that will let "the wreckage of our past be cleared away," which means letting the rope of darkness be replaced with a beam of light. We receive this complete process or are given this free gift when and only when God judges us to be willing to make things right from His point of view. Certainly, we mourned as we were learning how to live a different way. Matthew 5:4 confirms the first comforter, and the Sermon on the Mount (Matthew 5, 6, & 7) was the starting point for us to learn how God wanted us to live.

The main problem for us was that we finally understood that only the Spirit can truly live like God wants it to! We perfectly understand that we originally were hooked by things that pacified our anger.

We diverted our attention to things that were more pleasing to the human nature, so we just went along for the ride. Along this trip, we always took the bait, and we always got hooked. Finally, the bait got so big, with the hook still concealed, the world perfectly had us in it's grip no matter what our religious training.

We now see how stupid that we were, constantly living like we could conquer everything along the trip by ourselves, single handedly. Finally, thank God, the trip, rope, and hook perfectly conquered us!

The main reason that we could not understand ourselves was that there were too many of them. A look at large dictionaries will list over a hundred types of the human selves, from self-abasement to self-worth. Friends, please understand that God is aware of what a long and tedious process it is to place the divine Spirit into all of the voids that the human self developed. What we do understand is that all of our defectiveness has to be cast out and replaced with the internal love of God, not love of the things that this world offers.

This might be the most important paragraph in our small book. We cannot describe the pain and humiliation that it took for us to learn how to love people, especially our enemies, by being their servants, and using things, rather than our old life of loving things and using people. The other attitude that almost killed us was that we thought a human relationship could satisfy all of our human desires.

We finally understood how competitive we humans really were. Even the least of our activities, at times, were competitive in nature, where the victor only seemed to win. Some of us were good at playing games or sports.

Ultimately, there came a joy indescribable. We were in a position of utter defeat. God started filling us with the Spirit of His Son, the Son of Man. Then the power of God's love could flow through the seed of His Son's Spirit, which had been awakened in us, according to other people's faith on the inside of them.

We, as humans, did enjoy the thrill of victory in the way the world operated. What superiority that let us feel! All of us worked hard so that we could live an exciting life. The bigger the victory, the better the prize. As we look back on spiritual recovery, we can see the new habits of harmony, unity, peace, serenity, joy, usefulness, and helpfulness that had to be created to cast out all of the little gods that were in us which were our little demons. At last though, we had to learn how to enjoy the agony of defeat. No, this was not a pleasant part of the journey. We simply accepted it.

We had to start finding out about self-assertiveness, telling people how bad certain things made us feel, rather than the aggressive behavior of telling people what they had to do! One of our major character flaws was wanting to punish people. The best way for some of us to do that was to hire attorneys. We even had to be shown how to walk away from lawsuits. Walking away from financial ruin was not easy, but it was the only option we had.

All of us had perfect guidance from people on the path about the restitution we had to be involved in for this process to be complete. Still, many of us at times were unable to stop making the same mistakes, even though we knew better. But if we are unwilling to find out what is really causing the problems, they will never stop.

One of the most important aspects of spiritual teachers was their perfect willingness and honesty in order to try to help anybody on the path leading to God. They were always delighted to help meet the needs of others in order to be shed of their own selfish, self-centered ways. The more we tried to help others, the more we made our-selves available to God's Spirit.

What we understand today about divine order is this. Each of the people that God sent us, or that we were led to, happened to be in a lesser hell than we were in, which was always caused by our worldly and carnal mind. All were in the process of being led out of and being delivered from their own Egypt, or slavery.

To be truthful, we can now look back and see that there was more spiritual life in those teachers than there was in us. All of their efforts helped us endure our misery, and, most times, our spirituality was increased. They had fewer demons than we had.

The best part of these experiences was that we were so impressed with what we did understand, we passed it on to several more people along the path so that it actually became part of our new being, and is now a part of our memory. The old adage of practice makes perfect may or may not be true, but it did help us form new habits.

Considering the mystery that humankind might have been cursed when Adam and Eve where kicked out of the Garden of Eden, we believe that now is the right time to introduce the Scripture in Deuteronomy 23:5 . . . Instead, he turned the intended curse into a blessing for you, because the Lord loves you.

For this to be truth to us, we quickly learned that our personal business had to be put on the back burner, and stay there, until such time that we were comfortable with the new way of living that had presented itself to us. For us, it is generally about how to be helpful to other people on the path leading to God.

We had to be shown how to be sensitive to the needs of others, no matter how unpopular we became. The only requirement to be met to receive help from us was their enthusiasm, which had to be evidenced by their gratitude. Gratitude was expressed in their actions of trying to help still others, who had a similar tale of woe.

Meditating on the thought of so much face to face work with other people in need, we believe that this is the perfect place in this book to reveal the Scripture in Matthew 11:27-30; "Everything has been entrusted to me by my Father. Only the Father knows the Son, and the Father is known only by the Son and by those to whom the Son reveals him. Come to me and I will give you rest - all of you who work so hard beneath a heavy yoke. Wear my yoke - for it fits perfectly - and let me teach you; for I am gentle and humble, and you shall find rest for your souls; for I give only light burdens."

We often wondered what it meant to be "equally yoked," so we looked up yoke in a dictionary: a wooden bar or frame by which two draft animals are coupled at the heads or necks for working together. We accepted that we had been human animals at times, and we sure did remember the shame. We were truly glad to admit, after years of investigating and understanding ourselves, that we despised our past secular life.

Please keep in mind that even though God has forgiven us for the past life, we nonetheless have to categorize it. By putting it on shelves in the storage room, and being ready to use it to help another wayward soul that happens by, in order for them to feel like a part of the human race, is recovery. We truly hope and pray that your rope, twine, or string is as long and as numerous as it has to be.

But we know that only God know's how long and thick each rope must be. Only God is truly fair and just. All of our garden of worldly deeds had to be replanted with deeds that are in the Risen Christ Jesus, if we are to be reborn into the family of Christ Jesus. Another way of saying this is to state that in spirituality, Christ is risen indeed.

This is a good place to introduce the Scriptures in Romans 7:21-25; It seems to be a fact of life that when I want to do what is right, I inevitably do what is wrong. I love to do God's will so far as my new nature is concerned; but there is something else deep within me, in my lower nature, that is at war with my mind and wins the fight and makes me a slave to the sin that is still within me.

We have heard, but do not know whether it is true, that Saint Paul wrote this Scripture when he was ninety-nine years old, so we hope that no one gets into a real big hurry!

Along the path of being reborn, replacing the rope around our neck with light in our heart, God knows how long all of our threads are. Take profanity as an example. There is a world of difference in using a word to get a point across, that most everybody understands, and being in a conversation with someone using the same word or words to be filthy, vulgar, or harassing.

Another of our habits was, when we were in a position of authority, to use the most profane words that we could think of in order to get people's attention. In the past, we had used profanity in hopes of manipulating people with fear tactics. The best policy that we can practice today, however, is that the absence of profanity offends no one.

One crucial aspect of access to the certainty of God's Spirit, through the seed of his Son, that has been awakened in us however, was to start letting our emotions above the neck develop, grow, and mature, after many failures to the contrary.

As we close this chapter, let us simply report that there is a lot of work that is spiritual in nature and origin, which has to be done while the rope is being unraveled, and it is not about making money at all! The size of the rope determines the size of the beam of light that must be created to let God's Way, Truth, and Life shine through the spirit of His Son's Spirit that is awakened in us.

But let us offer one more Scripture, as a word of caution, to any one that thinks that they can do this thing alone. Repeatedly, we have seen scores of people stop doing one habit that they understand is trying to kill them, but fail to earnestly proceed in numerical order with the twelve suggested steps of the anonymous programs.

When anyone delays the action that the steps require, the awakening never arrives. What does arrive inside of them? We have witnessed this Scripture many times, to the point of suicide, and we are deadly serious about this absolute truth.

Let there be full understanding of the Scripture in Matthew 12:43-45; "This evil nation is like a man possessed by a demon. For if the demon leaves, it goes into the deserts (passes through waterless places) for a while, seeking rest but finding none. Then it says, 'I will return to the man I came from.' So it returns and finds the man's heart clean but empty! Then the demon finds seven other spirits more evil than itself, and all enter the man and live in him. And so he is worse off than before."

We are glad that God let us be willing to go through with the change of heart process! All of us want and need a pure heart. One last comment about the rope that we almost forgot to mention. At the opposite end of the rope that is tied around our neck, like a noose, we found a neat coil piled real high, almost as high as a mountain, in our very own American Flyer little red wagon, complete with handle and white wall tires. A few of us needed the deluxe model which included side rails!

We remember Matthew 17:19-20; Afterwards the disciples asked Jesus privately, "Why couldn't we cast that demon out?" "Because of your little faith," Jesus told them. "For if you had faith even as small as a tiny mustard seed you could say to this mountain, 'Move!' and it would go far away. Nothing would be impossible. But this kind of demon won't leave unless you have prayed and gone without food." Yes, we will address fasting in the next book of this manual.

The most critical fact for all of us was that we finally understood that since the carnal mind did not want to know anything about truth, we concluded that our eGo was part of the anti-Christ. We had to concede that we were mental defectives, maladjusted to real Life, and were in full flight from the reality of God's Kingdom.

We believe the hard part is behind us as we finish the third chapter. Needless to say, it takes perfect balance from God's point of view for us not to fall into religious pride or spiritual intoxication, which was common for us in early recovery. The point is, our religion is what we do every day, not just one or two hours a week or month. If anyone is still letting their rope develop, all we have to say is, just hang in there. We do understand. Circumstances had to make us willing, too.

editor's note: but it is still your choice. you can get off of the down elevator, anytime you chose, and start reaching for god in his heaven, through prayer.

The above is chapter three, in Fulfilled Mansion's published book, HIS FATHER'S TEMPLE.