This morning as I was in the shower I kept thinking… dude she hates me. How did we get here again?

Awhile later as I checked my email, the message from rejoiceministries.org (107 hits) jumped out. Hard to explain, but sometimes things “jump out” at me. It might as well have a big flashing neon sign that says “read me”. Blink Blink Blink. These days I rarely read the Charlene Cares messages from rejoice ministries, but I clicked on the message this morning. It was talking about why prodigals hate their spouses. Perhaps I was looking for it, but it did seem to answer the question I had in the shower.

If you haven’t noticed, I’ve been going down a bit of an esoteric path and am starting to discover some more interesting things within the scriptures. For example, often when the scripture make reference to adultery/whoring about in some cases that can refer to US and this world.

That is wasting our spiritual energies on things of this world instead of using them to enter the narrow gate that Yeshua had spoken of that is ignored by the vast preponderance of self declared Christians. I know, we all do the best we can, but what I mean is, I’ve been very guilty of pointing the Jesus canon at anything that even thinks about getting a divorce. While I don’t like it, at this point in my life, I’ve come to realize that sometimes 6 million Jews must die before Israel could be established as a country. At this point then, the challenge is in discerning when one is no longer in the “will” of God. Yes, I know where that aligns in the scriptures – at least on the surface, but as we consider the multi-dimensional nature of the scriptures, there are also cases where divorce or death as a catalyst by the most high to bring about bigger things. It happens.

Take this passage for example:

Exo 9:16 But for this purpose I have raised you up, to show you my power, so that my name may be proclaimed in all the earth.

It sounds like ol Pharoah didn’t really have much say so in whether or not he was going to end up at the bottom of the sea.

Many cases in our lives, it seems that there is a push in a certain direction and that the harder we fight something the worse things become, yet at other times the suffering and such is a necessary part of further character development, that is, bringing us to the light. What happened to Pharaoh? Would he have begun to understand as he was getting washed around in the Red Sea? If we expand upon this, what part of us is trying to get out of Egypt and is being pursued by a rather angry king who was raised up for that purpose?

How do you decide if your marriage is worth saving? What if you have been doing this for years and you beloved has remarried and had a couple more kids? What then? What if this is not your first marriage as is very common these days? What then?

What does Jesus say?

Mar 10:9 What then, God, hath yoked together, let, a man, not put asunder.
Mar 10:10 And, coming into the house again, the disciples, concerning this, were questioning him;
Mar 10:11 and he saith unto them—Whosoever shall divorce his wife, and marry another, committeth adultery against her;

God hath yoked together? Hmmmmmmm… that does give some wiggle room no doubt. Perhaps… God didn’t put my marriage together – here we come girls, I’m single again!!! Wait, not one sparrow falls from the sky without God’s hand. Dang.

Maybe I shouldn’t worry about this as much.

The kingdom….. what exactly is that again?

Mat 5:20 For I tell you, unless your righteousness exceeds that of the scribes and Pharisees, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven.
Mat 5:21 “You have heard that it was said to those of old, ‘You shall not murder; and whoever murders will be liable to judgment.’
Mat 5:22 But I say to you that everyone who is angry with his brother will be liable to judgment; whoever insults his brother will be liable to the council; and whoever says, ‘You fool!’ will be liable to the hell of fire.

Does this help define what exactly is the kingdom?

Maybe not, what, but perhaps – where is the kingdom?

Luk 17:20 Being asked by the Pharisees when the kingdom of God would come, he answered them, “The kingdom of God is not coming with signs to be observed,
Luk 17:21 nor will they say, ‘Look, here it is!’ or ‘There!’ for behold, the kingdom of God is in the midst of you.”
Luk 17:22 And he said to the disciples, “The days are coming when you will desire to see one of the days of the Son of Man, and you will not see it.
Luk 17:23 And they will say to you, ‘Look, there!’ or ‘Look, here!’ Do not go out or follow them.
Luk 17:24 For as the lightning flashes and lights up the sky from one side to the other, so will the Son of Man be in his day.

That particular verse. The English Standard Version says the kingdom is “in the midst” of you. Hmmmmm.

It says “is among you” in another version. It is among the Pharisees? Come on, that doesn’t make sense. What the heck is going on here?

The new King James says “within” you. The Greek word behind this is “Entos”, which according to my dictionaries means “inside”.

Interesting.

I WANT to find the kingdom. How then does one access the kingdom? I had dabbled with psychic stuff a bit and confirmed for myself that such things exist, but I left it at that. The questions I now ask are how exactly does one enter this kingdom that Jesus talked about? I looked into Astral Projection and such and it seems rather… dreamy and is only a partial solution, though I feel it is close.

Aren’t we supposed to say “I accept Jesus as my Lord and Savior” and we’re done? From then on we get to live across the railroad tracks in heaven, but at least we’re in right?

Let’s see what Jesus says:

Mat 7:13 Enter ye in by the narrow gate: for wide is the gate, and broad is the way, that leadeth to destruction, and many are they that enter in thereby.
Mat 7:14 For narrow is the gate, and straitened the way, that leadeth unto life, and few are they that find it.

Why does he say few find it?

What is it that we should be doing then?

Mat 6:32 For after all these things do the Gentiles seek; for your heavenly Father knoweth that ye have need of all these things.
Mat 6:33 But seek ye first his kingdom, and his righteousness; and all these things shall be added unto you.

I guess this means do the best you can? Perhaps, but then why does he say only few find it? Something to think about, eh?

I’m starting to change again if you haven’t noticed. I am discovering is that our entire universe sounds like it is just a little dot, maybe even an atom, compared to whatever else is out there in God land and spirit world. I’ve discovered that sometimes, yes sometimes, divorces and separations are part of the process of our development – no different than Pharaoh winding up at the bottom of some ocean simply for being born.

The pain of a divorce, separation, death, dismemberment, or other unfortunate event can be used as a slingshot to propel us to new spiritual heights. Indeed, if we aren’t growing as we should, then such things may occur just to kick it into higher gear for us. Yet like a child receiving a spanking from a loving parent, we can not receive it as love until we become more aware of what is actually occurring. Sort of like the kid that is able to say to his dad – thanks for the spanking Dad! It really taught me a valuable lesson. Yeah right. The kid can’t say that until 20 years later!

Does this mean I am throwing in the towel? No. I am trying to understand the “will” of God better though. It was apparently God’s will that Pharaoh should wind up at the bottom of the sea. It was also apparently God’s will that 6 million Jews should die at the hands of Hitler. Why?

There is a time for everything it seems. One thing I’ve noticed is that there are many scenarios on the question of remarriage etc. and this can become ridiculous at some point. I’ve noted that in some cases, a woman cheated on her husband for years and they could not conceive, this same woman was then “rewarded” after divorcing her husband and marrying another by being able to conceive two children. What the ? Perhaps her husband beat her behind closed doors. Who really knows.

I know that in other cases, a man tried and tried to keep his marriage together, to please his wife, and when he finally ran out of steam, he said a prayer of desperation and instead another woman came along and they have been happily married for some 40 years now. This same man had put a gun into his previous wife’s mouth at one point.

You hear other cases about people never really recovering. Resentment being held for a lifetime.

If all of these stories are true, and one were to conclude that God had a hand in all of this…. then what do we make of our commandments to not commit adultery, and where Jesus says – he who marries another forces the spouse to commit adultery, which seems to be the driving force behind standing for the marriage. After all, Jesus mentioned that to enter life, we must do the commandments.

If this world is merely a fraction of what is actually out there, if we are in fact the walking dead and have not entered into life, then what is the purpose of marriage in the first place?

A spiritual union? Perhaps what we are calling “marriage”, in this country at least, is often no more than mutual masturbation using each other’s bodies? On some levels, is it not just another form of prostitution? Yes, I said that.

As Anthony De Mello had said (paraphrasing) people marry and produce children while asleep! Is this what Jesus meant by few finding the kingdom?

I’ve learned at this juncture, that marriage is to be a spiritual union – and that it is totally possible to have kids with someone and be barely spiritually bonded. Yet on some levels even if the marriage was a flop, you are married due to that weird psychic channel that sex creates. In effect, we perhaps become married to anyone we’ve ever slept with, yet there are higher expectations as we progress in our spiritual development. That seems most logical to me. It would then make sense why Paul said not to judge unbelievers. This ties into the Eastern idea of dharma. This also ties into Jesus’ words about not judging. That doesn’t mean let someone rob you and run off with your children though, right?

This seems to beg the question… besides producing children, what the heck is sex for, and why is it fun? In various Eastern paths, I’ve noted that it is used on some levels to open what are called “chakra” or spiritual centers within the body. Edgar Cayce, a well known psychic, noted that the 7 churches in Revelation had to with the chakra as well.

I guess it is fun to continue perpetuation of our species. Imagine if sex were like having to take out the garbage or was about as pleasant as pregnancy each time? We’d still be living in caves.

Think about this for a minute. Why does cleaning something leave us feeling better? What is the message being sent here?

Still not getting it? I’m trying to speak of energy. Energy is in all things, much like Einsteins’ famous equation.

Think of this. A kajillion galaxies with a kajillion planets, and the only one with inhabited life is …….. earth. Does something sound a little fishy about that after combining my previous post, with various Near Death Experiences, and perhaps considering a more esoteric understanding of a spiritual book instead of historical, and when considering the idea of parity in the scriptures? Nah……

Are you still not getting it?

Have you ever been around an “energy vampire”. This is a person who sucks the life out of you with their constant problems, complaining, etc. You want to listen and you try to carry their burdens, but it drains you of life. While it is good to listen to someone’s soul into existence, you may understand with some folks how tiring it can be.

Why is that?

What I am attempting to get at, is the idea that there are things occurring that we should seek to understand.

Energetically, we need a spouse to complete ourselves, in that a spouse, can serve as a catalyst for growth. In reading about Saints who did not have a spouse, I learned that many remained very closely attached to their parent of the opposite gender. Perhaps drawing on their parent’s energies to compliment what they did not have. If as the scriptures say, we become like angels, then do angels have a gender?

So back to the impending cross roads. At present, I’ve had some weird things happen. I still can’t figure out what that dream was about where I awoke driving my car but the dance with my wife was a nightmare. In other dreams, my wife and I made love together again. The cross-roads is in understanding that the further down into hell we go, as the pendulum swings back in the other direction…. there is more room for positive if we embrace the negative while we are in it. The negative promotes change. If the that stove is hot – don’t touch it, yet how do we learn not to touch it? Is it because Mamma told us not to touch it, or because we got burnt? I didn’t believe Mamma either.

The positive keeps us sleeping in a warm cozy bed. Fat dumb and happy.

I feel like me and my wife are in a karmic loop, but I have no knowledge of past lives at present. I also know that I need a wife to progress further spiritually. I also know that each time I have prayed for something that was on target, it was delivered almost instantly and in the EXACT manner that I asked for it. Curb side service. Something that I guess I wasn’t going to get…well, still waiting on my college ring to show back up after I lost it.

My prayer seems to have changed to… speak to my wife if it is the Lord’s will, otherwise send me who you really want me to be with. About a week later, a spiritually gifted friend of mine contacts me and lets me know that she had a dream about my situation and an “impression”.

In the dream, it closed with “Shohn and Sarah”. I found this curious. Trying to work out the puzzle, I get analytical. I found that Sarai was Abraham’s wife’s name. It meant “dominative”. Hmm, that sounds familiar. Then it became “princess/noblewoman”, Sarah. After all, the dream could just be something to do with the “vibration” of a particular name. By vibration, try to think of it like this – the reason I am probably a bit different from most is because my name is spelled weird. If it were Sean, or Shawn, you’d probably never even heard of me hence, each name has a vibration.

Back to Sarah – Perhaps. Perhaps it is a Sarah I have yet to meet. Perhaps this is a “sign”. Perhaps it is just the vibration and this ties back to my wife’s dream (34 hits)some two years ago. In that dream, the number 140,000 came up. I had interpreted that to mean that both of us were going to have to be torn down and built up again at the time.

The entire life’s review would have been emotionally destructive, and would have left me a psychotic person, if it hadn’t been for the fact that my friend, and my friend’s friends, were loving me during the unfolding of my life. I could feel that love. Every time I got a little upset they turned the life’s review off for awhile, and they just loved me. Their love was tangible. You could feel it on your body, you could feel it inside you; their love went right through you. I wish I could explain it to you, but I can’t.

The therapy was their love, because my life’s review kept tearing me down. It was pitiful to watch, just pitiful. I couldn’t believe it. And the thing is, it got worse as it went on. My stupidity and selfishness as a teenager only magnified as I became an adult – all under the veneer of being a good husband, a good father, and a good citizen. The hypocrisy of it all was nauseating. But through it all was their love.

When the review was finished they asked, “Do you want to ask any questions?” and I had a million questions.

I asked, for example, “What about the Bible?”

They responded, “What about it?”

I asked if it was true, and they said it was. Asking them why it was that when I tried to read it, all I saw were contradictions, they took me back to my life’s review again – something that I had overlooked. They showed me, for the few times I had opened the Bible, that I had read it with the idea of finding contradictions and problems. I was trying to prove to myself that it wasn’t worth reading.

I observed to them that the Bible wasn’t clear to me. It didn’t make sense. They told me that it contained spiritual truth, and that I had to read it spiritually in order to understand it. It should be read prayerfully. My friends informed me that it was not like other books. They also told me, and I later found out this was true, that when you read it prayerfully, it talks to you. It reveals itself to you. And you don’t have to work at it anymore.

My friends answered lots of questions in funny ways. They really knew the whole tone of what I asked them, even before I got the questions out. When I thought of questions in my head, they really understood them.

I asked them, for example, which was the best religion. I was looking for an answer which was like, “Presbyterians.” I figured these guys were all Christians.

The answer I got was, “The best religion is the religion that brings you closest to God.”

Asking them if there was life on other planets, their surprising answer was that the universe was full of life.

Because of my fear of a nuclear holocaust I asked if there was going to be a nuclear war in the world, and they said no. That astonished me, and I gave them this extensive explanation of how I had lived under the threat of nuclear war. That was one of the reasons I was who I was. I figured, when I was in this life, that it was all sort of hopeless; the world was going to blow up anyway, and nothing made much sense. In that context I felt I could do what I wanted, since nothing mattered.

They said, “No, there isn’t going to be any nuclear war.”

I asked if they were absolutely sure there wasn’t going to be nuclear war. They reassured me again, and I asked them how they could be so sure. Their response was: “God loves the world.”

They told me that at the most, one or two nuclear weapons might go off accidentally, if they weren’t destroyed, but there wouldn’t be a nuclear war. I then asked them how come there had been so many wars. They said that they allowed those few to happen, out of all the wars that humanity tried to start. Out of all the wars that humans tried to create, they allowed a few, to bring people to their senses and to stop them.

Science, technology, and other benefits, they told me, had been gifts bestowed on humanity by them – through inspiration. People had literally been led to those discoveries, many of which had later been perverted by humanity to use for its own destruction. We could do too much damage to the planet. And by the planet, they meant all of God’s creation. Not just the people, but the animals, the trees, the birds, the insects, everything.

They explained to me that their concern was for all the people of the world. They weren’t interested in one group getting ahead of other groups. They want every person to consider every other person greater than their own flesh. They want everyone to love everyone else, completely; more, even, than they love themselves. If someone, someplace else in the world hurts, than we should hurt – we should feel their pain. And we should help them.

Our planet has evolved to the point, for the first time in our history, that we have the power to do that. We are globally linked. And we could become one people.

The people that they gave the privilege of leading the world into a better age, blew it. That was us, in the United States.

When I spoke with them about the future, and this might sound like a cop-out on my part, they made clear to me that we have free will.

If we change the way we are, then we can change the future which they showed me. They showed me a view of the future, at the time of my experience, based upon how we in the United States were behaving at that time. It was a future in which a massive worldwide depression would occur. If we were to change our behavior, however, then the future would be different.

Asking them how it would be possible to change the course of many people, I observed that it was difficult, if not impossible, to change anything on Earth. I expressed the opinion that it was a hopeless task to try.

My friends explained, quite clearly, that all it takes to make a change was one person. One person, trying, and then because of that, another person changing for the better. They said that the only way to change the world was to begin with one person. One will become two, which will become three, and so on. That’s the only way to affect a major change.

I inquired as to where the world would be going in an optimistic future – one where some of the changes they desired were to take place. The image of the future that they gave me then, and it was their image, not one that I created, surprised me.

My image had previously been sort of like Star Wars, where everything was space age, plastics, and technology. The future that they showed me was almost no technology at all.

What everybody, absolutely everybody, in this euphoric future spent most of their time doing was raising children. The chief concern of people was children, and everybody considered children to be the most precious commodity in the world. And when a person became an adult, there was no sense of anxiety, nor hatred, nor competition. There was this enormous sense of trust and mutual respect.

If a person, in this view of the future, became disturbed, then the community of people all cared about the disturbed person falling away from the harmony of the group. Spiritually, through prayer and love, the others would elevate the afflicted person.

What people did with the rest of their time was that they gardened, with almost no physical effort. They showed me that plants, with prayer, would produce huge fruits and vegetables. People, in unison, could control the climate of the planet through prayer. Everybody would work with mutual trust – and the people would call the rain, when needed, and the sun to shine. Animals lived with people, in harmony.

People, in this best of all worlds, weren’t interested in knowledge; they were interested in wisdom. This was because they were in a position where anything they needed to know, in the knowledge category, they could receive simply through prayer. Everything, to them, was solvable. They could do anything they wanted to do.

In this future, people had no wanderlust, because they could, spiritually, communicate with everyone else in the world. There was no need to go elsewhere. They were so engrossed with where they were and the people around them that they didn’t have to go on vacation. Vacation from what? They were completely fulfilled and happy.

Death, in this world, was a time when the individual had experienced everything that he or she needed to experience. To die meant to lie down and let go; then the spirit would rise up, and the community would gather around. There would be a great rejoicing, because they all had insight into the heavenly realm, and the spirit would join with the angels that came down to meet it. They could see the spirit leave and knew that it was time for the spirit to move on; it had outgrown the need for growth in this world. Individuals who died had achieved all they were capable of in this world in terms of love, appreciation, understanding, and working in harmony with others.

The sense I got of this beautiful view of the world’s future was as a garden, God’s garden. And in this garden of the world, full of all beauty, were people. The people were born into this world to grow in their understanding of the Creator. Then to shed this skin, this shell, in the physical world, and to graduate and move up into heaven – there, to have a more intimate and growing relationship with God.

[Webmaster note: In Howard Storm's book, "My Descent into Death" (2000), Storm describes the future of mankind as given to him by light beings he encountered during his NDE in 1985. Storm tells how they told him, in 1985, that the Cold War would soon end, because "God is changing the hearts of people to love around the world." Storm states, "Since the time in 1985 when I was told these things about the future the Cold War ended with little bloodshed due to the hearts of people being unwilling to tolerate oppressive regimes."

Storm described what the light beings told him concerning the way things will be on Earth in about 2185. He asked the light beings the question: "Will the United States be the leader of the world in this change?"

The light beings replied, "The United States has been given the opportunity to be the teacher for the world, but much is expected of those to whom much has been given. The United States has been given more of everything than any country in the history of the world and it has failed to be generous with the gifts. If the United States continues to exploit the rest of the world by greedily consuming the world's resources, the United States will have God's blessing withdrawn. Your country will collapse economically which will result in civil chaos. Because of the greedy nature of the people, you will have people killing people for a cup of gasoline. The world will watch in horror as your country is obliterated by strife. The rest of the world will not intervene because they have been victims of your exploitation. They will welcome the annihilation of such selfish people. The United States must change immediately and become the teachers of goodness and generosity to the rest of the world. Today the United States is the primary merchant of war and the culture of violence that you export to the world. This will come to an end because you have the seeds of your own destruction within you. Either you will destroy yourselves or God will bring it to an end if there isn't a change."

Storm states, ".... I don't know if the richest country in the history of the world is doomed to lose God's blessing or if the people of the United States will become the moral light of the world. How long will God allow the injustice to continue? The future lies in the choices we make right now. God is intervening in direct ways in human events. May God's will be done on Earth as it is in Heaven!"

Howard's light being friends told him more about the new world to come. According to them, God wished to usher in the kingdom within the next two hundred years. In order to do so, God had rescinded some of the free will given to creatures, in favor of more divine control over human events. This new world order, according to Howard, will resemble some near-death descriptions of heaven. People will live in such peace and harmony and love that communication will be telepathic, travel instantaneous and the need for clothing and shelter eliminated. The lion will indeed lie down with the lamb.]