It is said, “what does it benefit a man to gain all he wants, if he loses his soul in the process?” It is the same for all of us. What does it gain us, if we save the Earth, but lose our souls, our own selves, our community, our society, our nation, our civilization, our human race in the process? We can do both, but we can only save the Earth, if we save our own Self, as well.

Put another way, the Earth is a reflection of humanity’s consciousness, and we will create in the Earth that which is in our own consciousness. If we are polluted, we will pollute the Earth, as well. If we are destructive, we will destroy the Earth, as well. If we are abusive, we will abuse the Earth, as well. If we are in conflict with each other, we will be in conflict with the Earth, as well.

But, if we are kind to each other, we will be kind to the Earth. If we show compassion to each other, we will show compassion to the Earth. If we are forgiving to each other, or show mercy to each other, we will be forgiving and merciful to all things of the Earth. If we are tolerant of each other, our tolerance will extend to our planet and all life on the planet, as well.

We can be willing to try to save the Earth all we want. But the real issue is are we willing to save our own SELF – our own heart, mind and spirit?

We, human beings, too often, choose conflict over and over and over again. We, too often, choose war and violence towards others, whether in entertainment or in real life. We, too often, choose abuse of others as a way of expressing ourselves.

We may easily condemn those we see as doing this, but if we were to walk in their shoes, we could easily be the ones doing this. We condemn those who sell the weapons of death, those who make the money, those who pollute the world, those who stand on the backs of others to make their own infinitely short life easy and themselves rich, but…. we are the ones who attend movies watching superheroes show us how to use violence to save the world, buy the products to make our lives easier, who buy the stocks in the companies to make the money, who imagine ourselves living easy and suffering-free.

We can and do point the finger at corporations and companies who sometimes make the world a worse place to live, but we are the workers at these places, we are the managers, we are the ones who make money in the offices, and we are the ones who say, “I care about my life first. I can’t afford to save the world. I’ll do something if it’s easy and convenient.”

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If we don’t start with our self – our own hearts and our own beliefs and our own thoughts – changing where the conflict and warring starts – inside ourselves – as individuals – then we will only create the same problems over and over again.  No change will happen externally of ourselves, if no change happens internally within ourselves. We might be willing to work on ourselves or change things in the Earth – for one generation – but without the change inside our own soul, we are simply changing things for others who are just like us – in wanting war, and in wanting conflict, and in wanting the golden calf.

A spiritual life is “building for eternity”. I’m not talking about a constructed “religion-based” heaven of “spending eternity with the angels singing hymns in perfect bliss” – but the eternity where we work on ourselves to change who we are inwardly, how we relate to other people – how we relate to our brothers and sisters at whom currently we throw bullets of every kind.  I’m talking about the eternity of growth, change and possibilities referred to when He said, “With God, All Things Are Possible.”

We are born to come into the Earth, challenging us to learn about our real relationships to others – not our physicality and not our religio-city, but our spirit existence – inhabiting a body for a very short time to grow and learn to find better ways to be among ourselves as people.

God sends us into the Earth to practice Love in every manifestation. God sends us into the Earth for a very short time, to demonstrate the bounty of Love- through Kindness, Compassion, Patience, Service, Mercy, Forgiveness and other fruits of the spirit.

And when this very short life is over, we get a chance to examine how much we learned, how much we extended kindness, compassion, patience, mercy, tolerance, and more. We get the chance to look back and see if we learned anything, and what it is we actually then taught to others.  We get the opportunity to look forward to see what we can work on during our future sojourns.

We get the chance to look back at this life compared to all our other previous lives, try to understand what helped and what hurt our efforts.  We can ask where we used this opportunity to help, where we used this opportunity to harm, or both. Did we change? Did we grow? Did we learn? Did we waste anything of this life ignoring our purpose?

“With God, all things are possible”, includes learning, growing, and bringing forth love.  This includes, learning, growing and practicing changes within our own hearts and minds.  With this, we find encouragement to help us get back up and dust ourselves off when we get tripped up by the billions of things that we thought were important, but turned out not to be, or at least, not to be as much as we thought.

“With God, all things are possible” includes helping change to come into the Earth, and it then to come in via the changes we make in our hearts and minds – bringing real change, lasting change, and the change that is passed down to generations instead of being lost in the next generation.  The external changes of the world are like dust in the wind.  The internal changes are built on that which lasts for eternity.

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“With all that we are within ourselves, right now, are we the person we want to spend eternity with?” (The Rainbow Cards, ©, 1999-2019, Jodie Senkyrik)

“Faith unused, does nothing.” (The Rainbow Cards, ©, 1999-2019, Jodie Senkyrik)

“We tend to think of God being on the outside of us, hoping to get in, when in truth, all along, God has been on the inside of us, trying to come out.” (The Rainbow Cards, ©, 1999-2019, Jodie Senkyrik)