Facet 1: Original Blessing - Transcript
Welcome to the first part of Awake: The Seven Facets… What we’re going to get into here is the Story before our story. Before this video started to play, before there were videos, or books, or civilization, even before hydrogen atoms popped onto the scene, there was something that you could call an “eternal prequel.”
A prequel is a story before a story and usually it gives a lot of background information and explains why things are the way they are in the main story. Now your life, and our current world, is the main story, but we’re going to talk about the prequel.
Because our story doesn’t begin with us, and it’s actually freeing and humbling to know that—to know that there’s something much bigger going on.
So as I just said, this is the first part of this series, which is called Awake because it’s about opening our eyes to see something bigger. To see who we really are, and more than that, who God really is. And each “facet” is a different part of this Bigger Story.
But what we’re about to get into isn’t about mental knowledge, or a good theory, or even religion. This series is an invitation. An invitation into something remarkable.
If you’re familiar with The Lord of the Rings story, this is where the wizard Gandalf shows up at the front door and says it’s time to leave the Shire. It’s time to leave what’s comfortable and embark on the journey that your heart is actually longing for.
Or maybe you’re familiar with the movie The Matrix. This is the red pill scene, where you’re invited to go down a rabbit hole and discover more of what life is really about.
So, back to the eternal prequel… The story before our story…
Before all the energy of our universe burst forth into what we know as time and space, there was a Creator.
However, before that point there wasn’t a creation yet, as far as we know, so the word “Creator” might not even be the best word to use. Either way, there’s a better term to describe this Being who existed before time. And that word is Family.
So, before everything was made, there was Family… And that might sound strange to some of you, but this is what was revealed in the Scriptures. It says there that God is love. And the thing is, love cannot be expressed without another to give it to. Love by nature is relational.
So, if God is love, that means that there is Another within God. He’s One, and yet He’s a diverse relationship. And this is what is known as the Trinity. And understanding the Trinity is the most important part of the spiritual journey.
Now the word “Trinity” is not in the Bible directly, but its reality is everywhere in Scripture, for those who give it an honest look. This word is what describes the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, which we’ll call the “The Divine Family.”
And all of this reveals something very important to us. It tells us that our universe was birthed out of an interdependent relationship. And that make sense when you look at creation. Think about it.
Our universe is incredibly diverse and yet totally united. Everything needs everything else. Everything is so different and yet it functions together as this one giant piece of infinitely intricate clockwork, and if you take away one part, it’s like taking a fragile piece out of a Janga puzzle . . . it all falls.
The reason for that is that everything was birthed from a diverse and yet united Relationship called the Divine Family. So, some people teach God as this single entity in heaven, or this impersonal force, but that misses His divine signature written all over the place.
Now with that said, there’s something else that often gets twisted and wrongfully taught about this Being who existed before time. And that has to do with His personality. With what He’s like.
I’m sure many of you have seen images of God as this kind of white-bearded, angry-looking old man on an ivory throne. That’s a very medieval, archaic image. The reality is, God reveals Himself in creation and in Scripture as One who is filled with happiness.
And I purposefully use the word happy, because it’s important. Religious folk don’t always like that word. They would prefer something maybe more King Jamesy—like God rejoiceth. But God is happy, as in the brimming-over-with-life, smiling, laughing kind of happy.
It takes joy to create you, first of all. And it takes joy to put the sound of laughter in a child, or to make light bounce off of clouds in such a way that a multicolored lightshow erupts on the horizon at the beginning and end of each day. It takes the deep abiding joy of an artist who is satisfied with the work of His hands to accomplish this.
And that’s why, in the book of the Psalms, it says, “In Your presence there is fullness of joy.”
So, within God is the absolute pinnacle of bliss. In the New Testament, God is referred to as the “God of all grace” and that word “grace” in the language that it was first written in; that was not originally a religious word. That was a term had to do with things like kindness and sweetness and joy.
So at His root, at His core, God is the God of all sweetness, goodness, happiness. There is no greater lie out there than this image of God being painted as what some call “mostly mad or mostly sad.” God is infinitely glad.
And He’s glad and sweet and kind, because He’s in love. He is deeply, eternally in love. Because from all eternity, the Father has been in love with the Son, and the Son with the Spirit, and the Spirit with the Father in this great, infinite dance of union and friendship.
And our universe was birthed out of that Friendship.
And it was because of that love, that a dream began within the heart of the Divine Family. A dream that was set into motion…
At some point in the realm of eternity, the Trinity—Father, Son and Spirit, in Their dance of ecstatic union and fellowship—They decided They wanted children.
You see, families on earth multiply by nature, right? They grow. And that’s because the family system is designed after the original Family in heaven beyond time and space.
The Divine Family had a burning desire to multiply Their joy and Their love to others—to have children to share Their life with.
I remember when my wife and I knew that we wanted to get pregnant, and the joy of that was so powerful. We wanted to just expand our home with new life, and when my wife did become pregnant, I remember making plans, preparing the nursey, and just making way for this bliss of a new addition to our home.
You know, some people think that God made humanity so that we would be like these graveling slaves who would worship Him and sing Christian hymns all day and tell Him how great He is. And if you don’t do that, well, you get punished.
And that is a tragedy that that image gets painted.
We were made for worship, but worship is a response of a heart that knows it’s loved. We were actually made first and foremost to be loved, and when you know you’re loved, like really know it, you give love back. And that is worship. That’s what it means to be spiritual. To know you’re loved, and give love back, from the heart.
So anyway, God, the Trinity, wanted children. That’s the prequel; that’s the greater story behind the story of our universe. And that actually gives us the context and frame of the whole meaning of life.
See, this universe is so big, and people ask why would we think we’re so special when we’re so tiny on the grand scale of things. We’re basically invisible...
Well, think about this… Did you know that on the micro-scale your body is like a universe within itself, with whole galaxies of organs and powerful forces of blood and other fluids running through it.
And yet there are these tiny little things, almost invisible they’re so small, that are called stem cells, which are the cells that create all other cells. They’re very tiny and yet responsible for so much of what happens in the universe of our bodies. Just because something’s small doesn’t mean it’s not infinitely valuable.
See, God created this vast cosmos, but within it, almost invisibly, was a treasure hidden in the field of space-time. And that is us… His children… God wanted to have kids who would essentially be the younger brothers and sisters of the Son of God, Christ. Christ was and is the eternal Son of God.
And we were made in His image, with His blood flowing through our veins. We were created, every single human, as the royal child of this Triune Family.
We were made for love . . . and we were also made for royalty. And deep down, all of us know this.
God’s dream was to have children who would reign in life, who would be given authority over creation. But this is an authority that was supposed to be rooted in love, not in control or manipulation; an authority that would take care of creation and steward this universe with wonder and grace.
We were designed, the human race, to take the reins of soil and seed, and create agriculture and civilization. We were made to eventually take the reins of gravity and fashion ships that could travel to the stars. We were made to protect the earth and to nurture society into health and vibrancy.
In other words, we were made to reflect the loving, selfless authority of God. That was our purpose, and that was part of the dream within the heart of the Trinity, that we would grow up to be like our Parents.
Now let’s understand something very important here… God didn’t have this dream and then go on to create us because He felt empty; because He felt alone in the house of eternity, so to speak. There was no emptiness, no sadness in God. Creation was very simply an act of joy. It was a desire to share life with others.
Think about how a child is made for a moment. I hope I don’t have to explain that there is pleasure and joy and union involved in the creation of life.
Well, there’s something about the way conception happens that explains the mystery behind our universe’s conception.
God, in a relational union of Love, joyfully planted the seed of the universe in darkness, like a womb, and there was an explosion of energy that came next. That seed germinated into light, and sprouted into different gases and dust, which soon formed galaxies, some of which would spiral out like branches on a tree, and soon would come the colorful blossoms of individual stars and planets, like flowers on a tree.
And within those flowers of creation, the end purpose of it all eventually emerged. The cream of the crop of the cosmos was life. Biological life. And then at the height of everything, something happened that caused the Divine Family to say this is very good. A lifeform came forth that would bear the image of the Divine Family. That’s humankind. That’s us.
Now I’ll bring this all back to what I said just before: God didn’t have to create us… He wanted to.
You were made, because you were wanted. And you were wanted by Someone more stunning and glorious and kind and sweet than you can ever imagine, even though you’ve probably been told differently.
And every person who has felt unwanted, and driven to do horrible things because of the pain involved in those feelings—they are invited to find rest in this truth.
The truth of the Greater Story, and the very reason for the creation of the universe; this universe that even the greatest skeptics admit is fine-tuned down to an unimaginable degree for life to come forth. And not just any life, but intelligent life. And not just intelligent life, but life that is capable of love and authority . . . life that reflects the Trinity.
And that is where we come to “Original Blessing” . . .
You know, a lot of teachings out there about religion, and specifically Christianity and the Bible so often start with something called Original Sin. But as we’ve seen so far, before there was any sin or any problem, there was joy and blessing. That’s our true starting place.
We were made, all of us, as the children of the Trinity. That’s the essence and the core of who we are, no matter our race, our social status, our history, our mistakes or successes—no matter who we are, all of us are the offspring of divine love.
When you read the creation account in the book of Genesis, when it gets to the part about God making man and woman, the first thing it says He does, is He blesses them.
And I love that. God doesn’t create them and then give them a to-do list. He doesn’t tell them to bow down at his feet. He doesn’t even give them a list of rules and regulations. He just blesses them and speaks destiny and purpose over them.
When my daughter finally came into the world, I didn’t ask her to get to work and help me pay the hospital bills, because you know even the headache medicine there costs $25 a pill... No, I expected nothing from her. I just held her and loved her and blessed her as my own. And I was filled with hope for her life.
And that’s what happened with us in our original creation and design.
When we, humankind, opened the eyes of our consciousness for the first time, the first thing in front of us was a Father smiling and beaming over us in love, speaking a blessing of hope over us, that we would be fruitful and multiply and fulfill our purpose.
And by the way, we would have also seen the eyes of a Mother. I might be using the “He” pronoun, but God is neither male nor female. Both actually represent God in different ways. And Scripture shows us that the Holy Spirit very much carries the Mother heart of God. So I could say “She” as well.
The point is, that we were made for family. We were made to be fruitful and to live an abundant life. That’s where our journey started back in a place the Scriptures call the Garden of Eden. And deep down, we know that Eden is what we’re made for.
There are moments in life where this hits us, and we’re reminded of our origin. Have you ever been walking outside and suddenly a certain fragrance or aroma hits you and it draws your attention away from whatever’s going on in the moment? You smell something good, but you may not know what it is at first?
Well, there are “fragrances” in life that hit us and remind us of what we’re made for, though we don’t always know what it is. I like to refer to this as the scent of Eden, where we kind of pick up on the wind this distant aroma from the place where we were originally birthed.
A fragrance might hit you in a moment of hanging out with a best friend, or making a deep connection with another human being.
It might come to you while you’re on vacation in a place of beauty and relaxation and you’re just hitting the sweet spot of your trip. It might hit you while you’re listening to poetry or watching the end of beautiful movie. Maybe it happens when you simply hold your child, or a niece or nephew.
These are moments when the truth of our original blessing knocks at our door and calls us to wake up to something bigger and greater.
Life offers us this in moments—but sometimes it’s hard to pick up, because there’s a stench from other things in this world. Things that are happening in the conflict of our current story that we’re in right now. And those things make us forget, or fall asleep to the Greater Story.
You see, unfortunately, humanity walked away from the place of Original Blessing. We’re going to talk about that in the next Facet, but more than that, we’re going to talk about how the Divine Family came to restore us and rescue us.
God—Father, Son, Spirit—They want us to experience this original blessing again. They want us to recover it.
And whatever your issues are, whatever your struggles in this current story—that is not the main plot of your life. That’s not where you come from and it’s not where you’re headed.
We were made for abundant life. And this is not just for when we die; this isn’t some religious theory about the afterlife. This series Awake is about waking up to reality—true reality—and experiencing everything that our Creator, our True Father and Mother, has for us.
So my hope as we move forward is that you would be like Neo who took that red pill and left behind the illusions. Or that you would be like those Hobbits in The Lord of the Rings story who left the Shire in response to something bigger than themselves. I pray that you would take up the call to leave what might be familiar, because it is nothing compared to the adventure that the Divine Family is calling you to—right now.
Welcome to the first part of Awake: The Seven Facets… What we’re going to get into here is the Story before our story. Before this video started to play, before there were videos, or books, or civilization, even before hydrogen atoms popped onto the scene, there was something that you could call an “eternal prequel.”
A prequel is a story before a story and usually it gives a lot of background information and explains why things are the way they are in the main story. Now your life, and our current world, is the main story, but we’re going to talk about the prequel.
Because our story doesn’t begin with us, and it’s actually freeing and humbling to know that—to know that there’s something much bigger going on.
So as I just said, this is the first part of this series, which is called Awake because it’s about opening our eyes to see something bigger. To see who we really are, and more than that, who God really is. And each “facet” is a different part of this Bigger Story.
But what we’re about to get into isn’t about mental knowledge, or a good theory, or even religion. This series is an invitation. An invitation into something remarkable.
If you’re familiar with The Lord of the Rings story, this is where the wizard Gandalf shows up at the front door and says it’s time to leave the Shire. It’s time to leave what’s comfortable and embark on the journey that your heart is actually longing for.
Or maybe you’re familiar with the movie The Matrix. This is the red pill scene, where you’re invited to go down a rabbit hole and discover more of what life is really about.
So, back to the eternal prequel… The story before our story…
Before all the energy of our universe burst forth into what we know as time and space, there was a Creator.
However, before that point there wasn’t a creation yet, as far as we know, so the word “Creator” might not even be the best word to use. Either way, there’s a better term to describe this Being who existed before time. And that word is Family.
So, before everything was made, there was Family… And that might sound strange to some of you, but this is what was revealed in the Scriptures. It says there that God is love. And the thing is, love cannot be expressed without another to give it to. Love by nature is relational.
So, if God is love, that means that there is Another within God. He’s One, and yet He’s a diverse relationship. And this is what is known as the Trinity. And understanding the Trinity is the most important part of the spiritual journey.
Now the word “Trinity” is not in the Bible directly, but its reality is everywhere in Scripture, for those who give it an honest look. This word is what describes the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, which we’ll call the “The Divine Family.”
And all of this reveals something very important to us. It tells us that our universe was birthed out of an interdependent relationship. And that make sense when you look at creation. Think about it.
Our universe is incredibly diverse and yet totally united. Everything needs everything else. Everything is so different and yet it functions together as this one giant piece of infinitely intricate clockwork, and if you take away one part, it’s like taking a fragile piece out of a Janga puzzle . . . it all falls.
The reason for that is that everything was birthed from a diverse and yet united Relationship called the Divine Family. So, some people teach God as this single entity in heaven, or this impersonal force, but that misses His divine signature written all over the place.
Now with that said, there’s something else that often gets twisted and wrongfully taught about this Being who existed before time. And that has to do with His personality. With what He’s like.
I’m sure many of you have seen images of God as this kind of white-bearded, angry-looking old man on an ivory throne. That’s a very medieval, archaic image. The reality is, God reveals Himself in creation and in Scripture as One who is filled with happiness.
And I purposefully use the word happy, because it’s important. Religious folk don’t always like that word. They would prefer something maybe more King Jamesy—like God rejoiceth. But God is happy, as in the brimming-over-with-life, smiling, laughing kind of happy.
It takes joy to create you, first of all. And it takes joy to put the sound of laughter in a child, or to make light bounce off of clouds in such a way that a multicolored lightshow erupts on the horizon at the beginning and end of each day. It takes the deep abiding joy of an artist who is satisfied with the work of His hands to accomplish this.
And that’s why, in the book of the Psalms, it says, “In Your presence there is fullness of joy.”
So, within God is the absolute pinnacle of bliss. In the New Testament, God is referred to as the “God of all grace” and that word “grace” in the language that it was first written in; that was not originally a religious word. That was a term had to do with things like kindness and sweetness and joy.
So at His root, at His core, God is the God of all sweetness, goodness, happiness. There is no greater lie out there than this image of God being painted as what some call “mostly mad or mostly sad.” God is infinitely glad.
And He’s glad and sweet and kind, because He’s in love. He is deeply, eternally in love. Because from all eternity, the Father has been in love with the Son, and the Son with the Spirit, and the Spirit with the Father in this great, infinite dance of union and friendship.
And our universe was birthed out of that Friendship.
And it was because of that love, that a dream began within the heart of the Divine Family. A dream that was set into motion…
At some point in the realm of eternity, the Trinity—Father, Son and Spirit, in Their dance of ecstatic union and fellowship—They decided They wanted children.
You see, families on earth multiply by nature, right? They grow. And that’s because the family system is designed after the original Family in heaven beyond time and space.
The Divine Family had a burning desire to multiply Their joy and Their love to others—to have children to share Their life with.
I remember when my wife and I knew that we wanted to get pregnant, and the joy of that was so powerful. We wanted to just expand our home with new life, and when my wife did become pregnant, I remember making plans, preparing the nursey, and just making way for this bliss of a new addition to our home.
You know, some people think that God made humanity so that we would be like these graveling slaves who would worship Him and sing Christian hymns all day and tell Him how great He is. And if you don’t do that, well, you get punished.
And that is a tragedy that that image gets painted.
We were made for worship, but worship is a response of a heart that knows it’s loved. We were actually made first and foremost to be loved, and when you know you’re loved, like really know it, you give love back. And that is worship. That’s what it means to be spiritual. To know you’re loved, and give love back, from the heart.
So anyway, God, the Trinity, wanted children. That’s the prequel; that’s the greater story behind the story of our universe. And that actually gives us the context and frame of the whole meaning of life.
See, this universe is so big, and people ask why would we think we’re so special when we’re so tiny on the grand scale of things. We’re basically invisible...
Well, think about this… Did you know that on the micro-scale your body is like a universe within itself, with whole galaxies of organs and powerful forces of blood and other fluids running through it.
And yet there are these tiny little things, almost invisible they’re so small, that are called stem cells, which are the cells that create all other cells. They’re very tiny and yet responsible for so much of what happens in the universe of our bodies. Just because something’s small doesn’t mean it’s not infinitely valuable.
See, God created this vast cosmos, but within it, almost invisibly, was a treasure hidden in the field of space-time. And that is us… His children… God wanted to have kids who would essentially be the younger brothers and sisters of the Son of God, Christ. Christ was and is the eternal Son of God.
And we were made in His image, with His blood flowing through our veins. We were created, every single human, as the royal child of this Triune Family.
We were made for love . . . and we were also made for royalty. And deep down, all of us know this.
God’s dream was to have children who would reign in life, who would be given authority over creation. But this is an authority that was supposed to be rooted in love, not in control or manipulation; an authority that would take care of creation and steward this universe with wonder and grace.
We were designed, the human race, to take the reins of soil and seed, and create agriculture and civilization. We were made to eventually take the reins of gravity and fashion ships that could travel to the stars. We were made to protect the earth and to nurture society into health and vibrancy.
In other words, we were made to reflect the loving, selfless authority of God. That was our purpose, and that was part of the dream within the heart of the Trinity, that we would grow up to be like our Parents.
Now let’s understand something very important here… God didn’t have this dream and then go on to create us because He felt empty; because He felt alone in the house of eternity, so to speak. There was no emptiness, no sadness in God. Creation was very simply an act of joy. It was a desire to share life with others.
Think about how a child is made for a moment. I hope I don’t have to explain that there is pleasure and joy and union involved in the creation of life.
Well, there’s something about the way conception happens that explains the mystery behind our universe’s conception.
God, in a relational union of Love, joyfully planted the seed of the universe in darkness, like a womb, and there was an explosion of energy that came next. That seed germinated into light, and sprouted into different gases and dust, which soon formed galaxies, some of which would spiral out like branches on a tree, and soon would come the colorful blossoms of individual stars and planets, like flowers on a tree.
And within those flowers of creation, the end purpose of it all eventually emerged. The cream of the crop of the cosmos was life. Biological life. And then at the height of everything, something happened that caused the Divine Family to say this is very good. A lifeform came forth that would bear the image of the Divine Family. That’s humankind. That’s us.
Now I’ll bring this all back to what I said just before: God didn’t have to create us… He wanted to.
You were made, because you were wanted. And you were wanted by Someone more stunning and glorious and kind and sweet than you can ever imagine, even though you’ve probably been told differently.
And every person who has felt unwanted, and driven to do horrible things because of the pain involved in those feelings—they are invited to find rest in this truth.
The truth of the Greater Story, and the very reason for the creation of the universe; this universe that even the greatest skeptics admit is fine-tuned down to an unimaginable degree for life to come forth. And not just any life, but intelligent life. And not just intelligent life, but life that is capable of love and authority . . . life that reflects the Trinity.
And that is where we come to “Original Blessing” . . .
You know, a lot of teachings out there about religion, and specifically Christianity and the Bible so often start with something called Original Sin. But as we’ve seen so far, before there was any sin or any problem, there was joy and blessing. That’s our true starting place.
We were made, all of us, as the children of the Trinity. That’s the essence and the core of who we are, no matter our race, our social status, our history, our mistakes or successes—no matter who we are, all of us are the offspring of divine love.
When you read the creation account in the book of Genesis, when it gets to the part about God making man and woman, the first thing it says He does, is He blesses them.
And I love that. God doesn’t create them and then give them a to-do list. He doesn’t tell them to bow down at his feet. He doesn’t even give them a list of rules and regulations. He just blesses them and speaks destiny and purpose over them.
When my daughter finally came into the world, I didn’t ask her to get to work and help me pay the hospital bills, because you know even the headache medicine there costs $25 a pill... No, I expected nothing from her. I just held her and loved her and blessed her as my own. And I was filled with hope for her life.
And that’s what happened with us in our original creation and design.
When we, humankind, opened the eyes of our consciousness for the first time, the first thing in front of us was a Father smiling and beaming over us in love, speaking a blessing of hope over us, that we would be fruitful and multiply and fulfill our purpose.
And by the way, we would have also seen the eyes of a Mother. I might be using the “He” pronoun, but God is neither male nor female. Both actually represent God in different ways. And Scripture shows us that the Holy Spirit very much carries the Mother heart of God. So I could say “She” as well.
The point is, that we were made for family. We were made to be fruitful and to live an abundant life. That’s where our journey started back in a place the Scriptures call the Garden of Eden. And deep down, we know that Eden is what we’re made for.
There are moments in life where this hits us, and we’re reminded of our origin. Have you ever been walking outside and suddenly a certain fragrance or aroma hits you and it draws your attention away from whatever’s going on in the moment? You smell something good, but you may not know what it is at first?
Well, there are “fragrances” in life that hit us and remind us of what we’re made for, though we don’t always know what it is. I like to refer to this as the scent of Eden, where we kind of pick up on the wind this distant aroma from the place where we were originally birthed.
A fragrance might hit you in a moment of hanging out with a best friend, or making a deep connection with another human being.
It might come to you while you’re on vacation in a place of beauty and relaxation and you’re just hitting the sweet spot of your trip. It might hit you while you’re listening to poetry or watching the end of beautiful movie. Maybe it happens when you simply hold your child, or a niece or nephew.
These are moments when the truth of our original blessing knocks at our door and calls us to wake up to something bigger and greater.
Life offers us this in moments—but sometimes it’s hard to pick up, because there’s a stench from other things in this world. Things that are happening in the conflict of our current story that we’re in right now. And those things make us forget, or fall asleep to the Greater Story.
You see, unfortunately, humanity walked away from the place of Original Blessing. We’re going to talk about that in the next Facet, but more than that, we’re going to talk about how the Divine Family came to restore us and rescue us.
God—Father, Son, Spirit—They want us to experience this original blessing again. They want us to recover it.
And whatever your issues are, whatever your struggles in this current story—that is not the main plot of your life. That’s not where you come from and it’s not where you’re headed.
We were made for abundant life. And this is not just for when we die; this isn’t some religious theory about the afterlife. This series Awake is about waking up to reality—true reality—and experiencing everything that our Creator, our True Father and Mother, has for us.
So my hope as we move forward is that you would be like Neo who took that red pill and left behind the illusions. Or that you would be like those Hobbits in The Lord of the Rings story who left the Shire in response to something bigger than themselves. I pray that you would take up the call to leave what might be familiar, because it is nothing compared to the adventure that the Divine Family is calling you to—right now.