METAPHYSICAL BIBLE INTERPRETATION OF THE OLD TESTAMENT
This is a series of lectures given by Mr. Edward Rabel, member of the faculty of S.M.R.S.
Fall semester 1975 - 2nd. Yr. Class. Lecture given on October 14, 1975
Topic: 35
Gen. 24, pp. 136-138 of transcript.
Topic 34: This positive, optimistic, joyful, satisfying viewpoint for existence becomes not so much a power of doing, but a magnet of attracting other things, which do.
Topic 35: Much of your good can come to you easily and in divine order... but there is a special requirement for this and here is where the discipline is necessary. That requirement is symbolized in Genesis by the character of Isaac - this joyful optimistic outlook based upon the thought of God.
Isaac and Rebekah
Where a servant goes out with the mission to find a suitable wife for Isaac and lo and behold he finds her and with very little trouble - no real complications. He introduces the girl to her future in-laws and her future husband and all is beer and roses. Everything falls into place. The parents like her. They like each other. They get married. It's a real love match and everything is just beautiful, and that's just great and on the romantic level we can rejoice that such things really do happen, but then we want to take it to the level of metaphysical interpretation.
Now remember Isaac represents this new, well not even new, but this developed capacity for real enjoyment and a happy uplifted optimistic viewpoint toward life in general based on the thought of God. This is important - Optimism just for its own sake - there's not much point to that, but if you are optimistic because you are basing your life on the thought of God, that's very pertinent you see. If you have a capacity to enjoy just because you are of the giddy personality and you are pretty, that is kind of pointless. There's not much to that, but if you have the capacity to enjoy because you have a true thought of God, then your capacity for enjoyment becomes spiritual. Then it becomes a real magnet to draw to you your highest good. Now there is no divine law which says you have to work hard all the time for everything good that you need or want. Now true, many of the things we want, we must work for - even work hard for and in my case, harder than I ought to.
Question. Ed, I have found that when I work the hardest that my work suddenly turns into joy and then it isn't work. I receive more than I seem to be giving to it.
if we do the required amount of work we will get the good ... but this does not mean that all good must be the result of hard struggle and work. Much of your good can and should come to you easily in divine orderED. Well this is in specific instances. I can't believe that you or any of us here are leading the type of life now where everything we do turns into pleasure and enjoyment. I think all of us still have the hard work struggle spots in our existence. It's part of our wholeness. What you are saying would hold true in certain areas of work and activities in your life. It's now descriptive of all areas of your life. And if we do the required amount of work we will get the good and sometimes much more than the good we aim for. Now that's fine, that's great but this does not mean that all good must be the result of hard struggle and work. Much of your good can and should come to you easily in divine order, for instance such things as healing.
Healing should not always be hard to get. Do you agree? Yes. Now I have put down in my notes, supply. I'm revising this a little bit. I feel that in the case of supply - most of the time hard work. I've revised my thinking on that - not all my supply, but what I'm talking about is the where with all - earning a living type of thing. Most of the time it is hard work there.
Student. Well does it really have to be hard work? or is it the concept of what Jesus taught? "With what ever measure ye shall mete it shall be measured unto you?" You can just take it easy and get back - that you are going to get back in direct relation to whatever you give in and you don't have to give in real hard.
ED. I think what you are saying would apply if you wanted to zero in on certain specifics. You know this case or that case. It could be that you have alternatives here. You have variations. All cases are not the same, but I am trying to present the overall view of it here rather than zero in on specific cases. What you say now has validity with certain circumstances in certain specifics. There are still struggles in store for us. There are still areas of hard work. Who had it made more definitely than Jesus Christ, and yet in his life was are given, very clear indications of things he had to go through which are for his soul tough going. He groaned in the spirit. He even sweated drops of blood. He even groaned that if it was possible, don't make me go through this, but if I've got to, let me do it with as good grace as possible. But what you are all saying is true, but in specific areas only, not describing the whole fabric of being.
Student. Ed, if I understand what you are saying - Because we are hard work oriented we may tend to spurn a gift or a talent that doesn't seem to be right without hard work.
ED. Right. We may feel guilty, and I have seen people in Truth do this. They feel guilty when some great blessing, some great reward comes to them and they can't figure out where they did the hard work to get it. They have not realized that they have through other kinds of hard work established this wonderful kind of irresistibility to such a blessing and if their life is at such a condition for this moment where they aren't able where it isn't possibly for them to go out and work for this result, they will get it through the law of consciousness, through the magnetic working of the law of consciousness because of their very good-naturedness toward life. They have learned how to enjoy life and so life is in a sense enjoying treating them well. See. Now if it's best for them to get their next blessing from hard work, then life will provide them with the job in which they will be able to do it, you see. Life will arrange the circumstances, and I say life will. Spirit will arrange life so that this is what will happen but what we are trying simply to say and, well let me finish my notes.
Much of your good can come to you easily and in divine order. Such things as healing, certain kinds of supply, happiness, see, happiness should not always be hard to get; peace of mind, friendships, love, beauty, satisfaction - these can come to us through the channel of the law of universal attraction. Friends, I have noticed that sometimes when I work too hard to get a thing I defeat my purposes. If I work too hard to find the right girl some other guy is always going to grab her first, cause I'm working too hard at it, but if I'm taking it easy and let my divine irresistibility do its thing - see. There is a time and place - everything in context. These things can come to you through the law of universal attraction in consciousness, but there is a special requirement for this and here is where the discipline is necessary. That requirement is symbolized in Genesis by the character of Isaac - this joyful optimistic outlook based upon the thought of God. Isaac was born as the fulfillment of a promise - not from the get rich teacher of positive thinking, but from the result of a promise of God, the true joy capacity, the true optimistic viewpoint. In order to accomplish spiritual rewards and blessings for you it must be based on your knowledge of God, of what God is and where you are in relation to God. This is the way of consciousness.
In consciousness, like attracts like, like begets like. Love based on the thought of God is a mighty magnet which uses the law of attraction to bless the one who has faith in it.
Transcribed by Margaret Garvin on February 23, 2015.
