The Two Pathways
Read: Matthew 14:15-17
In the world's practice, teacher and student appear to be separate, one who temporarily has more knowledge, skill, etc., giving to the other who temporarily has less. Normally this is done in a formal setting, at specific times and in specific places. In a larger life context, however, aren't teacher and learner actually the same? What we teach and demonstrate to others reinforces what we believe about ourselves. If we feel the love of God within us, we will teach this to others. If we find fear within, we will look out on a fearful world. As within, so without.
All through our lives we make choices. Some seem automatic and are like programmed responses. Others are very consciously considered. All are consequential. Making choices may seem like a complicated process; it is actually a simple one, but very fundamental.
There really are only two choices in life. We either walk the path of light, awakening to our true nature as the creations of God (and all that this implies), or we walk a fearful path, dark, and ruled by the ego, a false concept of ourselves that we made (an idol, if you will). Everything we think, say, and do teaches others and reveals the thought system we have chosen, the one we want to be true. Truth, however, is of God and is eternal, needing no defense. It simply is. All else will fail with the passing of time and become meaningless, having arisen out of meaninglessness.
Following the world's curriculum is an attempt to convince us that we are what we are not and can never be, a closed and hopeless learning situation. Our worth was established by God in our creation, and not subject to any of the world's evaluations, which constantly shift and have no basis in truth.
If we take an honest and completely open-minded look at the state of affairs in our world today, we readily observe the effects of following the dark path of the ego—the children of God suffer, and at the hands of their very brothers and sisters. No elaboration is necessary to illustrate this point. Such is an ill-conceived attempt to refute the oneness of God's creation and establish another, illusory order.
Empires and their emperors have risen and fallen, and will continue to do so as worldly glory and power are sought after. We see such insanity, in scales large and small, here and everywhere across the globe. It arises out of one's deep-seated feeling of lack, limitation and unworthiness, which is a denial of the fatherhood of God and an acceptance of a substitute reality. Or have we been mistaken and in need of correction?
Psalm 25:4 states: "Make me to know your ways, O Lord, teach me your paths." And in his farewell discourse Jesus says: "But the Counselor, the Holy Spirit, whom the father will send in my name, he will teach you all things, and bring to your remembrance all that I have said to you." Having been called down, the Holy Spirit is the inner voice that speaks to us of God and illumines our path with a light not of this world. Having been so enlightened, the teachers of God represent another choice, the call to return, to awaken and be glad.
Prayer: Dear God, this world is in such great need of the love and light that has its source in You. I would like to be part of the answer, perhaps become one of Your teachers. I realize that the need of my brother/sister is my own need, too. Your teachers come from all walks of life, my own included. Let your light shine through me, and make me an instrument of healing. Please bless me in my work. And thank you. Amen.
Doug Dykstra
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