The Cure of Human Emotional Suffering: The Truthful Thinking and Holy Desires of Jesus.
As we saw in Chapter 2, the world of the “ weed” represents the fallen human condition, a world dominated by deluded thinking, disordered desires, painful emotions, and abusive action. It is from this world of misery that Jesus came to save us, and bring us back into right relationship with Him in His world of the “flower”.
The spiritual journey can be thought of as the gradual transformation of the human person by Jesus from the state of the weed to the flower. This encompasses a complete change in our thinking, from lies to truth; a complete change in our willfulness, from disordered desires to holy desires; a complete change in our emotional state, from misery to peace, joy and love; and a complete change in our behavior, from abusive to loving.
Before we look more deeply into the wonderful, saving world of the flower, we must take a moment — the longer the better — to dispose our minds to radical change. This requires a mind that is open not closed. Jesus had no effect on those who were closed minded, sure that they were right when they couldn’t have been more wrong. This requires a heart that is soft, not hardened against all possibility of change. We don’t have to be gullible, but it’s helpful to be ready and willing and even excited to drop any thinking we now have which is not in accord with reality or Jesus’ thinking. Remember as we saw in the weed whenever you feel an afflictive emotion you can be one hundred percent (100%) sure that you believe a lie to be true — so look for the lie. I remember a woman in one of my first workshops who would experience certain afflictive emotions at work and then immediately say to Jesus in her mind “Where’s the lie, Where’s the lie?” Together they would spot the lie and quickly replace it with the truth. This woman made rapid spiritual progress, which changed her life and even her occupation.
With an open mind and an open heart, let us now enter the wonderful world of God, represented by the “flower”.
Truth: The Roots of the Flower
The roots of the flower represent truth, all truth. This includes scientific truths like the law of gravity on planet earth: if you drop a rock off the roof of your house, the rock will fall to the ground, not float up to the sky. And medical truths like smoking cigaretts is bad for your health. And the truth includes spiritual truths, like God provides all that we need (Mt 6:19ff) and the only way to be truly happy is to love others.
For purposes of this book, Jesus is the “way, the truth, and the life”, and everything he says is truthful. Jesus revelation of God’s truth will be the focus of this book. And God’s truth turns out to be very good news indeed.
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