11:1 God has recognized and acknowledged that humans are flawed, and while our actions sometimes hurt and stun Him, He never abandons us. He never abandons His hope that we will grow and learn and change. He is with us in this journey, never neglects us, and actually never punishes us: we are the ones who punish ourselves when we do not do our best. Ill-action has subsequent consequence, it is simple logic.
11:2 God does not cast away His children. Specifically, He does not cast away His children who He knows have great potential to be compassionate and just. He understands and accepts that we are flawed yet He chooses to remain with us because He also understands and accepts that we are not always accurately defined by our mistakes. Sometimes we truly do grow from them and who better to teach us this lesson than Paul? Had God cast Paul away without ever considering his potential as a productive child of God, Paul would have died never realizing that he could be better than how he was.
11:3 In 1 Kings of the old testament, the prophet Elijah witnesses all of his fellow-prophets lose their earth-lives to adversity and he worries that God might give up on humanity, count as a long and cruel cause. Elijah worries that he is alone after watching his friends die and with them, much of the message and philosophy of compassion that Elijah believed in.
11:4 God reassures Elijah. God knows and never leaves his children who never leave Him. They are never alone, no matter how grim the circumstances around them may seem to be. God knows His children so well, even the specific number of them who He can trust (whether [and I believe it is] this seven thousand is representative of another number is beside the point). God carefully follows His children and He has specific plans for and with each of us.
11:5 No matter how much chaos and injustice fill the world, God promises us that good and compassion have always remained here, and that He has always remained with those people, those souls. Compassionate souls elected to serve with and through His grace (His compassionate wisdom and creation).
11:6 After all, no matter how we behave on earth, our ability to live with and understanding grace has come from Him. After developing a spiritual connection with Him, we grow to understand that our lives on earth are not labor or duty but are a purposeful, instrumental part of life and creation's flow and flourish. We begin to realize that our kindness is not the currency with which we purchase the spiritual life existing beyond and before and along this life on earth, but is actually the frequency of life itself. Compassion is not the destination or the means to a destination but is the way of life. Compassion is the element from which all life stems; rather than work it is life.
11:7-8 As a group, humanity falls short on spiritual awakening. Yet within the population of souls on earth, there are people who have created, maintained and nourished their spiritual connection with compassion and creation, divinity in whichever capacity they understand it. To the rest, God has blessed them by absolving them from their chosen ignorance. They do not hear or see, that is, they do not perceive or understand spiritually and God has made it easy for them. Why? Because if a child does not know something is wrong, you cannot blame them for doing it. God works it out that He can always find an aspect of His children under which they deserve His forgiveness because He is merciful and wise.
11:9 In Psalm 69 David speaks of the human condition. When a soul is not connected to its origin, it becomes vulnerable to the entrapment of adversity. It does not understand itself and therefore identifies with the wrong ideas and emotions and expressions and becomes entangled with self-made mistake and the injustice of and by others.
11:10 David continues: if a person wishes to remain in the dark or neglects to contemplate the light, meaning that they suffocate their spiritual connection, allow them to be strong. Life is hard for a confused soul, for a person not connected to the grander scheme. David hopes for strength for them, for their back, metaphorically, so that they can carry the weight of living without spirituality.
11:11 God opened up His heart and His home to all people and the early generations of humans were indignant. God always planned to reveal Himself (in various and diversified ways) to everyone on the earth. Yet the first generation who made a connection with Him neglected and even denied Him. It was not a punishment to them that God sought to develop relationships with other souls, yet it was often perceived as such. People cling to their superiority complexes, God instructs us to realize ourselves as all equally vital to the family. And yet it woke them up, when people started realizing that they were on an even plain with the rest of the world, they began to appreciate God again. We certainly can learn from our flaws!
11:12 God's work and wisdom comes full circle: People were able to reconnect with Him after realizing what life is like without Him and by watching others receive is love and help in their lives.
11:13-14 Paul is explaining: If it takes making the mistake of living life unjustly, or breaking the connection with God, or living in envy of another's spirituality, for a person to realize and appreciate how corrosively they have been living, well, go through that phase to get back to life. True life, spiritual life with God. Humans learn through experience because we have the tendency to be stubborn, arrogant and ignorant. Paul wants us to use our flaws to learn how to be better.
11:15 An unkind, unjust soul will never have spiritual life. Therefore, when an unkind person becomes kind and an unjust person becomes just, they have awakened from the dead, spiritually.
11:16 Our souls come from a spiritual existence. Our creator is spiritual, an essence, an entity superseding the conditions and elements of earth and life as we know it. We have goodness in us, we have compassion in our DNA, but it is up to us to utilize it. Just as we were born with legs: simply having legs does not make us great runners but having them certainly supplies the potential.
11:17-18 No matter who we are or what we do while here on earth, our life has been given to us by a creator, but a spirit wiser than our own. Everything that we are and have and are capable of has been given to us. We must not become arrogant, as individuals or as a group, because we are not the creators of life. Our ability to think and be curious, move and manipulate things, ideas and people are all gifts we were given. Our root is the origin of everything about us, about our world, about the universe and about everything that exists that we do not yet know.
11:19-21 We must not compare ourselves to others. Another person's journey is their business and therefore we cannot label them inferior. You know the phrase "Holier than thou"? That's exactly how you do not want to act and live.
11:22 We are not meant to delight in others receiving punishment. We should realize that we can trust that God is going to work with each of us fairly. We each can learn from Him and grow in compassion and wisdom and wise and compassionate spirits. Through many methods He helps us to learn concepts and ways of living compassionately, resiliently and justly.
God sheers injustice, arrogance, evil, vengeance right off from His tree. Don't be a hypocrite. Being kind does not mean to be a doormat or to turn your eyes when someone is unkind, it means to be fair, and to always consider that the complexities within a circumstance might be beyond your knowledge.
11:23 Just because a person loses their place in His family (through behaving unjustly) does not mean that they have lost it forever. There is redemption: turning your heart toward kindness welcomes you back in as securely as you ever were, as God always wanted you to be and remain.
11:24 People who were unkind but changed their way are welcomed as kin. The people who were always kindhearted deep down but lost their way are accepted back as kin. It's so sweet for God to welcome back His children who He always hoped He could count on.
11:25-27 Through love, hard-work and determination, God will work tirelessly to reach each of His children. To give each of us the experiences we require in order to learn and become inspired to be our best selves. As a whole and individual He will support us, He will lead us, all we have to do is take His hand.
How will He take our sins away? He will teach our hearts how to be more sincere, more appreciative of all the life and potential around us, more emphatic, more purposeful.
11:28 This life is an instruction! We learn so much from the adversity we walk through. From the adversity we survive, from the adversity we help others through. Enemies are not out stumbling-blocks, they are our fuel to be better, to be kinder, to be more productive against evil. They inspire us to promote and protect compassion. You are loved, so deeply, by God: the circumstances of this life are not happenstance, they are not meant to break us or harm us or hinder us, they are meant to show us how strong we are. How kind. How able. How important. How valued. We learn of love and how precious it is here because it requires our attention, our protection. We learn its value.
11:29 God has established this earth and these souls of ours and everything they are composed of. Our gifts and our potential are not taken from us, they remain with us, waiting for us to utilize them.
11:30 We learn from others. We learn how injustice ruins the world from watching how others' injustice ruins people and families and all forms of life. This experience of earth allows us to learn so much, directly but as indirectly. God's mercy allows us the room for trial-and-error, to learn from our flaws and our mistakes.
11:31 You are a testimony. Your life is a testimony. What you do teaches others: directly and in directly. You are purposeful. You are instrumental. You have an impact on the world, even when you do not realize. Moreover, when you have developed your spiritual connection, people will sense it within you: they will see your patience and wisdom and perseverance and it will inspire them to explore themselves and all life more deeply.
11:32 We are all flawed. God has allowed us the materials and conditions to become our authentic selves and along with those gifts: He gives us the gift of mercy. He understands that with complete freedom, we are going to make mistakes. We are going to have moments of arrogance, anger, impatience, unkindness... He understands that we must have those moments in order to learn directly from them.
11:33 Our creator, the spirituality which gave life to us, is so wise. Wise beyond our understanding, wise beyond our capability. Our creator has placed intricate order to this world. Life has created life. Compassion has created compassion. The power and brilliance and intelligence that has given us life is magnificent, beyond human comprehension.
11:34 Life, compassion, creation, divinity requires nothing to be everything It is.
11:35 Life has given everything: life in all forms, those we understand and know of and those we do not. Life has given life, has given light, has given wisdom, compassion, has given soul and spirit... freely, impartially, with love and justice. Life has burst with life generously, abundantly. Life yields life not because it has to or should or owes anything but because life loves life and because life can.
11:36 Let's let this truth from Paul sink into our hearts, into our spirits: For of Him and through Him and to Him are all things, to whom be glory forever. Amen.
