What are we really looking for?
If we genuinely just want to live better lives, why do we not stop when we already have enough?
Humans are intrinsically masters at masking.
A baby cries when he is hungry or wants to sleep. Crying serves as a means of communicating this desire. Crying “masks” the baby’s true intentions. I am using this analogy strictly for this context. There are medical studies to show why a baby has to cry to communicate intentions.
Someone who doesn’t understand the cries of a baby may begin to pet or probably try to sing the child to sleep when, in reality, the child needs to suck. But the baby doesn’t stop crying, no matter how soothing the pet or sweet the lullaby is.
It takes a skilled mother to look beyond the cry and understand what the baby truly wants.
In the same way, humans communicate their intentions through various masks.
A victim of rape or other cruel forms of trauma may communicate their need for healing by becoming abusive themselves. They may develop hatred for the other gender and believe this is how they get closure. But in essence, they’re saying they need help and want to be loved and healed from their past traumas.
Some people may be pursuing money; you would think they really want to help people so that they could live better lives. If we genuinely JUST want to live better lives, why do we not STOP when we already have enough?
They told us in primary school that the needs of man are INSATIABLE.
The question is, WHY? Why can’t man be satisfied? Why do we KEEP seeking power, fame, wealth, and influence, such that no matter how much we have, we are never satisfied?
WHAT ARE WE REALLY LOOKING FOR?
Why do politicians hoard money that their 5th generation may not even be able to exhaust?
What was the quest for money really?
You want to become a millionaire; you achieve that, and next, you want to become a billionaire. You achieve that and then don’t even know what else to do with your life.
What were you really pursuing?
Someone might want money so badly; meanwhile, what they are really looking for is a way to mask the inferiority and the hollowness they feel in their soul.
If you give money to such a person, you’ve not solved their problems. You’ve only removed one of the masks.
And guess what? He will replace it with another mask. And the search CONTINUES.
This is often the point where religious people say, JESUS is enough for me.
Come on, stop lying. We both know you don’t even UNDERSTAND what you’re saying.
Jesus CANNOT be enough for you because you’re a Christian. He can only be enough for you when you learn and grow in knowledge and control of your human INSATIABLE desires. It’s not a confession.
Someone can build a whole company, start a big business, begin a huge platform or brand, or even learn a skill just to mask a feeling. This is how powerful our feelings are.
ANYTHING YOU DON’T DO FROM A PLACE OF PEACE AND TRANQUILITY IS A MASK OF SOMETHING ELSE UNDERNEATH THAT ACTION.
It is not the action itself that may be wrong; it is what’s driving it.
Money and wealth are not wrong, but what is sponsoring your craving and energy to get wealth? What drives you so madly to learn that skill and begin that brand?
In this kingdom, intentions are EVERYTHING.
In the real sense, none of these external things can give us the peace that we seek within. We can only live from the inside-out when we discover US.
It is in discovering YOU that you live from your SOURCE, where there is no mask.
To tell the identity of a thing, you have to look at its origin or source.
You don’t know YOU because you’re a Christian. You don’t know yourself because you’re intelligent, smart, successful, or influential.
You can be all of those and yet have no CLUE who you are.
To begin the journey of knowing YOU is to travel to your SOURCE.
For instance, to better understand what a word means, we often go to its etymology.
As a case study to understand the word “philosophy,” we need to know that it is a Greek word coined from two words, “philos,” meaning “loving,” and “sophos,” meaning “wise.”
These two Greek words were combined to give “philosophy” its meaning.
These two words are the SOURCE of the word “philosophy.”
You can’t talk about philosophy in isolation from its source.
“Philosophy is its source. Its source is philosophy.”
You had to get the “identity” of this word by going back to its origin or source or ESSENCE.
This same rule applies to everything else. To understand a human’s identity, you must go back to his origin or ESSENCE.
Everything functions from its ESSENCE.
And plugging back to your SOURCE does not mean to be born again or to be a Christian.
There is a reason why I’m always saying this. Because many believers just like deceiving themselves. They are content to think that just believing in Jesus is ALL THAT THERE IS. Farrrrr from it. You can be a dutiful believer and yet not “PLUGGED to your SOURCE.”
For us humans, our source is our creator, God.
You CANNOT understand your essence outside of God.
Rich, poor, president, Asian, Black, red, white, celebrity, politicians, Christians, Muslims, Hindus—you CANNOT understand YOU outside of your SOURCE, unless you believe you fell out of nowhere, and even nowhere is in itself “something” and still has an essence.
Understanding your identity through your SOURCE is the only way to do this.
Doing this is easy. Jesus told us we could directly go to the Father (our source) through him.
So, for the believer, we can go directly to the Father and understand him.
Things have even become more effortless. God has moved men to document the knowledge about him in the Bible.
Reading God’s word naturally helps us understand the Father, and understanding the Father is understanding ourselves because he is our ESSENCE.
He is us. We are Him. When we read about him, in truth, we are reading about OURSELVES!
Yes, “we are God” because of ESSENCE!
A cup of water fetched from the ocean is NOT less water than the ocean itself. They’re both WATER!
You may argue this because of the limitation of our minds and, yes, our results versus our expectations. But remember that knowing God as God will take several layers of transformation in our thoughts, minds, and beings.
It only takes longer for this reality to crystallize in our minds depending on our commitment to our transformation.
If we spend more time in his word, in meditation, studying, and understanding the Father, then the whole process becomes faster for us.
Do you remember the story of the eaglet who lived among the chickens and one day realized it wasn’t a chicken? The eaglet then begins to understand that she is not a chick but an eagle, and therefore she is designed to be high in the air and not on land.
Of course, she won’t automatically begin to fly upon that realization. She has to reject and unlearn all the chicken mentality she has had for years and begin to learn how powerful her wings are.
As she keeps practicing, soon, she will leave the chickens and begin to soar in the sky. She will then begin to learn not to feed as the chickens do. It will take time for her feeding habits to change to what they should be originally.
It is this period of transformation, of waiting, that most believers can’t sit through. Their impatience drives them to begin to mask who they are through several desires and cravings.
The process is always painful, but the end is worth all the wait.
Romans 8:18 — “Yet what we suffer now is nothing compared to the glory he will give us later.”
That peace and glory you seek are all found in your identity as you journey in transformation to discover the God in you and the you in God.
No amount of physical achievement or success can give this.