The WORLD

THE WORLD

AS I SEE IT

BY Joshua J Smith

Preface

This is the world as I see. Understand I have zero idea how to author a proper book. I do not know the first thing about grammar or story structure. I have never taken a class or gone to collage to learn anything about the bible or God. I am going to use the tools and resources that are available to accomplish what needs to be done. This, however, is exactly how it needs to be in order to understand. In hopes that by the end it will all come to understanding. Triger warning the things I will say may piss some off, may hurt your fillings, or even make you question If I am all there. The truth as I see it is not for everyone, but I can say it will make you take a closer look inside.

The way I see it, It all starts with an understanding we are all walking a path that starts out with no signs, or even the ability to understand what is going to happen. We are brought into this world without choices or the ability to make a decision on what, when, who or how things will unfold. The most “unfair” part is the ones that may or even may not have chosen to bring us into the world may not even want us and the ones that chose to bring us into this situation of there choosing still have no clue as to what will happen. For some of us these people. From this point on for purposes of this writing I will refer to them as parents/caregivers. Understand that for a large majority calling them that is even more unfair than the unknowns that come with the start of what should be life.

The way I see it, It all starts with a cry. Just so you can let some unknow person know everything is ok. The way I see it that cry is more of a scream stating I will do the best I can even without the choice of what is going on right now. The very next moment according to memory is years later. I mean come on who really remembers their birth. Some people try to say they can remember the feeling of the cold wetness but really I believe this is the mind just filling in the space so these people can have something to talk about that most others they chose to say this to will look at them as something special. Do not get me wrong, there is nothing wrong with this on its face but if this is what you choose to believe the way I see it you are only fooling yourself. I mean really look into why you chose to make this statement if you actually can remember it, then you probably do not need to read this any further. Or is it that you just want to remember something that amazing because of the amount of movies, stories, even the possibility you witnessed birth, or participated in one that makes you believe you can remember this miracle.

The way I see it, it is because of the simple reason you cannot remember the miracle that was your entrance into this world. I will tell you what happens next. The way I see I it your parents/caregivers, without your knowledge or permission, take you to a place that by all rights should be safe, clean, happy, loving, caring, nurturing, and for the most part what should be considered a “home”. The unfortunate part is, again we have neither the choice in, or the ability to say where or what that looks like. The way I see it for a large majority this place will fall very sort from providing what we need in order to understand what a “home” is supposed to be let alone feel like. The other part to this is once again we have no actual memory of this part. It is not until years later that we can actual remember where and how we grew up. Again, another unfair part.

The way I see it, we are already learning. Before we even understand what learning it is happening. Some of us might remember what it felt like to make the choice to stop crawling and take that first step. The truth is we cannot remember that choice. We just somehow intuitively knew that it needed to be done and we did it. The same can be said for the first time you made the choice to use a finger to pick up food and put it in your mouth The simple answer is a monkey see monkey do type of learning. This, however, does not account for the person that made that choice out of pier survival. So, the way I see it you already know how to accomplish the things that would allow you to survive. This Intuitive learning produces memory and accounts for a lot of things and no matter how hard you make the questions asking how this is possible it will all lead to the enviable answer. GOD

The way I see it, No matter how you grow up. Be it in a “home” or in a place no one should have to have been in. There was a something that influenced you in the day to day decisions of life. If you think about there was always something helping you. Even if you grew up in the worst possible place this “something” helped you to make sure you had enough to eat, made sure you slept, made sure you went to the bathroom, and made sure your heart still beat. You would not be here today if that “something” was not there. I know this is where the a lot of you will stop reading. Thinking to yourself, “another book about GOD. It was me that made those decisions. Even the ones that did grow up in a good “home” might stop there thinking to themselves, “I still made that choice”, or my parents/guardian made that choice. My point is the ability to make that choice was still give to you by something. Some call that something GOD. Some call it random. Some call it happenstance. The truth the way I see it is whatever you want to call it, it was always in you. This “something” is what allows you to sift through your memories when making a decision and helps guide you toward a certain choice. This “something” uses both the past decisions from memory and the outcome of that decision to determine what kind of choice you need to make.

The way I see it, It is your decision to listen to this “something” or do the opposite. It comes down to either or. I know some will try to say this is how the mind works. There is no “something” only self. I ask them to genuinely think about how your mind works. I am no brain surgeon and I have never taken a collage class in psychology or how the brain processes. I do however know that it is literally made of energy. All the things we use to understand how the brain works is proven by the way it is measured and analyzed and it is that energy that makes everything work. So is this “something” just energy? Is this “something” beyond energy? If it was just energy everyone would use it the same way. There would be no choice. It would be the same for everyone. This is because energy cannot be anything but energy. This brings the questions into play. What makes us more? Why do we get to make decisions? Why doesn’t everyone make the same choices even when all the actions that lead up to it are the same?

The way I see it, It is at this point that a lot of people will stop reading. This is because even though they intuitively know that is the truth and the answer. A large number of people do not want to hear another lecture on how God is the answer to all my problems. There are a lot of people who have been hurt by others using the teachings and words of God as a weapon instead of the keys to unlock the cage we put ourselves into. These people take what was designed to free us and turn it into a way of making us a captive in are own constructed prison. They twist the words and bombard you with images of things that should allow you to think and feel and turn them into weapons that make you hurt, feel small, and forget who you really are.

The way I see it, We have been conditioned into believing that GOD cannot be the answer. That the answer is simply you were taught how to do it. That in order to know how to do something you have to be taught how to do it. In most cases you would correct but the truth is God is not the answer, God is the first question that needs to be asked. As much as I would love to just know the answers to the test, the truth is you do have to take the time to learn the answers. You do need to be put into situations that force you to deal with fear. Situations that will push you to think in order to interstand that no matter what happens you will live.

The way I see it, I have to address the biggest question that will pop up at this point. Why do bad things happen if God is so good? Why did this have to happen to me just so I can live with the memories or constant pain of what happened? If God is so good, why didn’t he stop the situation before it ever happened? Where was God when my parent/caregiver was doing things that no one should have to go through? Where was this God all mighty when that drunk driver hit the ones, I loved? Where was God when I was bullied for mouths without anyone to stand up for me? Where was God when the person who I thought loved me more than anyone decided to throw me away like I was yesterday’s garbage? Where was God when I was laying in bed at night curled in a ball, crying, asking, screaming, and wishing for a different situation? The truth is God was there the whole time.

The way I see it, a lot of you are going to say the same thing as I did in the beginning. Why didn’t he. If God was there the whole time, why does it happen? The truth is I am not God so for me to give you an answer to that question would only be a lie. I will not lie to so I do not have an answer because some of the things people have to go through, I truly cannot understand why God allows them to happen. I do not think anyone can give you those answers because the only one that has those answers is yourself and God. You see how in this situation I put God second to myself. This was done on purpose. It was not however done out of disrespect to God. It was done so you can interstand that in order for God to give you the answers you are looking for you have to look at yourself first.

The way I see it, free will is kind of a bid deal. It is because of free will we all make choices. It is also because of free will some people make choices that affect other people in very bad ways. I truly feel for the person that has to say I did not have a choice in that. Trigger warning, even the sick individual that chooses to go into their child’s room had a choice. You will now ask, what about the child, where was their choice. Even if you do not want to hear this there was a choice. What about the woman that got taken full advantage of, where was her choice. She fought back and it still happened. Where was the person’s choice in getting cancer or some other illness? The truth is the choice sometimes comes after the situation and not before but there is still a choice that needs to be made because of free will.

The way I see it, free will is to blame for everything right or wrong in the world. So, to tackle the biggest and first question, why do bad things happen to good people? The answer is rather simple. It is your own free will to choose and other people’s free will to choose that paves the way for things to happen. It is because of the choices we make and the choices of other people that we have illness and situations that put people through tragedies. The choices we make every day determine the outcome of our future. Free will, however, is not an excuse to do whatever you want. Even though it allows you to do just that. Gods love does not have anything to do with the questions above. God has been used as an excuse for people who do not want to take accountability for there actions.

The way I see it, it is because of the love of God that these tragedies happen. Consider for a moment if God decided to stop free will. Poof you now have no choice but to love God. There would be no hurt, pain, sadness, death, fear, or any other negative outcomes. Sounds good right? Everyone would bow down and worship God. Everyone would always have to same answer, I love God. This is the heaven that they teach in religion. Do good in this world and when Jesus comes back every knee will bow and everyone will confess, he is king. This may be a true statement, but I believe it will happen a little differently. I ask you this question, if that where to have happened, loss of free will, what was the cross for? Why did Jesus even come to this world.

The way I see it, God does not want it to work that way either. If God wanted us to be robots God would not have given us Free will. God does not need us. We need him, and in order for God to show us this Truth God had to give us the option to choose. If God where to step down and start picking and choosing which situations to fix, then we would stop trying and just expect God to fix it. Personally, I have been in that type of relationship, and it sure did not feel all that loving to me. Reminder, God is love. God made the choice to allow us to choose in order for us to be able to choose to truly live in relationship with Jesus there by living in love.

The way I see it, we need to set all that aside for the moment and take a look at how we grew up. Everyone grew up learning things. No matter if you went to school or not. You still had to learn how to interact with everything around you. You learned things that kept you alive. Things that made it possible to grow. We will call them rules for life. For example everyone knows you cannot stand in a fire. You learned this either by seeing someone get hurt by fire or by getting hurt yourself by fire. This in turn gave you the memory of pain. You then used that memory of pain producing a reaction called fear and we expand on it to lean that if it causes pain which produces fear of that pain it should be avoided. This simple thing can be expanded to the conclusion that all negative emotions can be simplified down to fear.

The way I see it, with all things there is an equally opposite action to fear, it is love. I used fear first because unfortunately some people cannot relate to love. It Is a sad truth, but the fact of the matter is love is something that need to be learned. If you think about it every time you learn something there is some kind of fear before you find love. Think about your first memories. I will use spelling for example. I remember having a very hard time remembering the way the letters went together to produce the words that need to be spelled. I would then be afraid every time I had to go to school and participate in learning how to spell. I used this fear as an excuse to be mean, act out, pretend to be sick or other negative emotions. All due to the fact I could not face that fear and find the love for spelling. If you think about it every situation in your life is about overcoming fear in order to move forward.

The way I see it, this is the reason it is so much easier to live in fear than to find love. It takes moving past fear in order to accomplish anything. This in turn begs the question, if God is love why did he put fear first? The answer to that question is not as complicated at we make it out to be. It is simply so we can love him without fear. In order to accomplish anything in life you have to overcome fear. This completely removes fear from the equation all together. This removing of fear is what allows you to fully and truly LOVE GOD. This full love of God allows you to live a life free from all fear. This removal of fear in turn makes everything possible. The problem comes not from a lack of love for God but the lack of love for yourself. This lack of love for yourself turns into fear that you can not love God because you can not truly love without fully removing the fear.

The way I see it, fear is the roadblock preventing you from understanding the true potential of God. So, this brings up the question, how to overcome fear? The simple answer is faith in God. This is where you’re going to ask, how to have faith in something I can not see let alone be close to without overcoming fear? The funny thing is that it is faith that allows you to overcome fear. So, the next question would be, to have faith? You gain faith by overcoming fear. Now you’re scratching your head thinking this guy is talking in circles. It is more and infinitely more complicated loop with the ending being God. Let’s see if I can break it down in steps for you.

The way I see it, things happen in life due to free will. Thes choices teach you to love or fear the outcome of any given choice. Knowing that we do not need to change anything that produces love because the goal is to be with God and God is love. That only leaves the choice that has produced fear. A person can either choose to face those choices or get so busy doing other things that we choose to ignore those choices. This is sometimes called pushing them down. Some people will actually choose to live in this fear and start making choices based on that fear thinking it will give them power to move on when unfortunately, the outcome to two negatives is only negative.

The way I see it, you have to understand for me to sit here and write about overcoming fear makes it seem easy like a simple snap of the finger. The truth is much more complicated than that. In order to overcome fear, you have to take the time to face that fear. Think about your worst fear and realize how hard it is to face that fear. To face that fear you have to be able to forgive yourself for being afraid. To accomplish this, you have to look to the reason you are afraid. For this example, I will use one a crime society place rather hi on the list of crimes, murder.

The way I see it, murder is a done out of fear. Regardless of the justification the person puts on doing it. It was done out of fear of something the other person did, had, has, was, was going to be, or any number of justifications. It still amounts to fear. After the person commits this crime out of fear. They may feel empowered because they actually believe they overcame some other fear. The truth goes back to the same thing as above two negatives only produce a negative. This empowerment may last for some time possibly years but it will be because of this fear this person will never be able to be with Jesus in heaven. This person may confess his sins and ask for forgiveness but unless this person truly believes he is forgiven his confession is meaningless. A person cannot believe he is truly forgiven unless they forgive themselves first.

The way I see it, it is as this point I have to address the controversial part of what I am going to say. God can not forgive you unless you first forgive yourself. The reason is not because God can not do something. All things are possible through God. The reason is because you cannot believe you are truly forgiven unless you first forgive yourself because there will always be a fear that you are not forgiven because you have not forgiven yourself for it. As I stated above God, love, can not work through you if there is fear. You need to make the choice to forgive yourself. God will not intrude on your free will to choose. If God just forgave you then you would just go and do the same thing again knowing he will just forgive you. At that point what was the point.

The way I see it, it starts with the feeling of wrong. A person can ignore this feeling, but it will never really go way. that feeling most people would call guilt. Will show up in every aspect of your life. It will slowly destroy every aspect of your life. Think of it as a rot. It will start to spread and grow. No matter what you try do to about it. This is where most people will start using coping mechanisms. Drugs in today’s age is the go-to. A person should realize this but unfortunately most will not.

The way I see it; in order to start forgiving yourself you need to take the same steps no matter how big you may think the thing is that needs forgiving. Fist you start by realizing the thing that needs forgiveness. Ask yourself, self why did I do this thing? Answer that question by asking these questions. What put me in the situation that caused this thing? What was my motivation for doing this thing? it only takes finding the answers to those questions. Once you know those answers. Then you can ask God to help you forgiver yourself for do this thing.

The way I see it, God already has the answers. God would not be God if he didn’t. The thing is God will give you the answer. It just won’t be in the way you think it will be. God will put in situations that will allow you to realize the answers for yourself. That is how amazing our God is. In these situations, you are going to find the answer that will allow you to not only forgive yourself. Which in return allows God to fully forgive you for that thing. making it no longer show back up in you again. It will also give you the wisdom to not make the same mistake again.