We find ourselves in the midst of a difficult conflict and we are dumbfounded and frustrated.  We take the conflict and we hold it up to the light and look at it from every facet, put it down on the table and walk around it looking at it as if it were going to speak.  We carry it with us, put it away and take it back out only to find that nothing has changed.  Expecting some resolve as though time has any bearing on the difficulty.  These trials and testings we find ourselves in are a part of this wonderful organism called life.  We cannot outsmart them or outrun them; they come without notice most of the time.  They are the surprise visitors at your front door that we are not prepared to entertain.  We ask ourselves why? What is the purpose of this situation?  We blame ourselves for bad choices, fret because we feel unfairly treated and even blame others for these difficulties that we experience.  Only to find ourselves still standing in the midst of the fire without any improvement or wisdom.

We just want a reprieve of this pain even if for one hour but, no reprieve comes.  It’s like banging your fists against the wall at the end of the fight your hands are broken but the wall remains unmoved and without a sound of pity.  We are left with our tears of pain and words of anger like souvenirs to our emotions.  We get desperate thinking and start to create plans on how to escape this prison of conflict.  We try to investigate the solution, inform ourselves on methods and ask advice from others.  Somehow we begin to feel that we must embark on the roads to educate ourselves in everyway possible as though knowledge is the key to freedom.  Knowledge brings a small and very short lived peace in the trials and testing I am discussing.  The cruelty of knowledge in this situation is that it brings a false hope and one finds themselves right to back where they started just more aware of their predicament.

Think about your trial that you are facing what are the symptoms? Emotional pain, financial pain or physical pain these are the symptoms to the problem that exists.  We truly believe that our answers can be found by looking at the symptoms.  Emotional pain tells us that we may be lonely so we must have a partner to make this trial go away.  Financial pain requires us to make more money to alleviate the testing.  Physical pain speaks to us and tells us if we could just find the right medicine or doctor we will find the remedy and our ill’s will be healed.  All these symptoms are true in every respect.  Although knowing the answer to the symptom does not always change the circumstance even a small percentage.  Knowing the answer that makes us feel better and receiving it is two different ideas.  The trial that brought you to this painful destination requires an agreement with its original intent.  We must come to the place where we accept that reason for this is not only to teach us something but, to create a work in us that will change who are and how we think.  We are constantly evolving into a higher intelligence and a more spiritual force.  We never come to a place when this work is finished we must realize that what we gain in this arena stays with us eternally.

The world teaches us that if we gain it’s wealth than we will have security and happiness.  Although, wealth does relieve a lot of problems when comes to what the world requires of you to live peacefully it does not control the unexpected or negotiate with fate.  To be rich not just as the world defines us but, to be rich in spirit this is the destiny of the eternal work.  Many wealthy people are poor beggars in their spirit and do not understand after all their education that wealth comes in many forms, ideas and energy sources.

To be spiritual rich and use the wealth of this world is what God wants for us.  To gain this position we must release ourselves from holding, hoarding and controlling what does not belong to us.  We have to stop thinking with the logical short terms of this lifetime and start agreeing with the spiritual long term effects of eternity.  The spiritual world has a structure that is in constant motion.  To receive you must learn to give, it is a flow of energy that produces purpose for the eternal destiny of others.

Look at your situation what’s the source of contention? Now look at yourself what do constantly defend? What is that you think you know the most? If you can possibly open your eyes and see the problems without the tainted idea and knowledge of your past and present you may just get a glimpse of the truth.  We must be willing to learn again what we think we have always relied on for strength and stability.  This is a very hard endeavor to undertake because many of us hold onto the past as a crutch and then there are others that use the past failures and successes to define them today.  What is your definition?  If we took away everything, the past, the present and the future who are you?  The spiritual process uses revelation to transform who we are.  To gain the revealing truth that can transform us we must relinquish ourselves completely to the work of the Spirit.

Take the trial and testing you may be enduring right now and look at it again.  Start over and lay down everything you may have realized to be the standard and truth that you relied on in the past.  We keep trying to dress the problem up with different clothes thinking that if we make it look different it will change.  It must be seen in its raw rudimentary form and that is exactly where the revelation exists.  Truth does not have any icing or window dressings.  It is clear and sharp and at the moment it is seen it brings clarity to our minds and emotional frame that causes a change from within and without.

There are spiritual laws and formulas that create energy in the spiritual realm.  They are constant forces that bring reaction to actions, they can create or destroy it all depends if we are in agreement with these laws and formulas.  Of course, these laws and formulas do exist do not dictate the Mind of God or the Universe’s intent they are formed for our well being.  There is one constant in the unseen realm and that is presence of NOW.   This NOW is the connecting factor to very axis in the spiritual realm.  The revelation is perfectly balanced in the middle of the axis of past and the future as well as the axis of your present symptoms and your solution.  Revelation is not knowledge but a spiritual action that is moved by our desire to seek beyond what we know and what we can see and that moment when it as though someone has turned the light on in the dark room where we have been.  Although the light comes it does not remain.  Revelation is not knowledge although, it may bring a new though or action it remains the mysterious work of the Spirit.

We pray for help and help appears to be conflict.  If we are going to grow spiritually we must be willing to learn through change.  We as humans don’t like change it takes us out of our comfort zone.  We would rather live with the devil we know than the devil we don’t know.  Change can be quite painful for many of us.  The motion and flow of Energy of the Universe is in the state of constant change.  When we get stuck spiritually we begin to feel that we are being pulled behind a tractor down a rocky road.  We experience pain and conflict because even though we are still moving forward we have no control over the situation or movement.  Prisoners of change are the dichotomy to spiritual apprehension.

Revelation brings freedom.  What a beautiful thing when we experience that release in a second at the moment we are changed.  What we have been striving and beating ourselves up over for days, months and years is removed.  The path is clear and it appears as though the winds of the Universe are blowing with us instead of against us.  We perceive that  the heaviness we have experienced for so long has lifted and we are light and our vision is simply clear.

You may ask are we at the mercy of the learning experience or can we be taught to agree with God’s intent and the powers that be?  Or do we just evolve through every experience?  Must we continually endure the school of spiritual hard knocks to learn what we need to know or is there a more spiritually civilized intention to this transforming process? Are we victims to the abuse of conflict and crisis that causes us to stumble to every mark of spiritual maturity?

This poses the question is every problem a spiritual issue? When we move beyond what we thought we knew and what was such a priority to us and into the unknown we also experience a void of knowledge.  We are in unfamiliar territory and like explorers in a new world we cannot recognize what we see, we become apprehensive and on guard spiritually.

Now we begin a new process where all the theology we have been taught and knowledge of what we knew God to be in our lives in the past is on the spot.  Here is one the trickiest places to be because how does one release what they believe their spiritual foundations and experience.  These attributes have become our sacred interest and we will protect them with our lives.  We become highly offended and deliberately private because this is our sacred “stash”.  It is what I call the “ I know, that I know, that I know” barricade.  Can truth create an argument against experience?  This is the place so many of us remain because we are not willing to lay down “Our” faith, beliefs, experiences, theology and even to the extent of trust to move forward on this journey.

If this does not stop you in your tracks and send you running in circles then you may get caught into the trap of self righteous addictions.  Begin to inspect ourselves our short comings, our expertise, or lack there of, our failures, or successes and our weak human nature.  We begin to judge ourselves and find ourselves on the fence of the positive or negative side of self righteous conclusions.  In this arena we become our own worse enemy.  It appears that someone let the lions out and we are being chased down by our own fear.  Pride comes in many disguises and is one of the greatest barricades to receiving.  Pride has many disguises from the humble beggar to the relentless evil ruler.  It is an animal that transforms itself to fit the occasion with whatever face it needs to remain self preserved.  You may say I don’t have any pride because I am a failure.  But, even in that statement pride remains because you have concluded that pride and failure are enemies.  But nothing could be far from the truth.  Many of us stay in a cycle of failure because we have agreed that it is better to be a victim of circumstance and character than to be an overcomer through accepting the responsibility of actions or lack there of.