Job
Excerpt from an Association Address by William Duncan Kilpatrick
The Book of Job is a most excellent portrayal of the arguments of animal magnetism which come to each and every one of us for acceptance or rejection. The various characters portrayed in this Book and the arguments which they presented to Job signify the varying phases of animal magnetism which present themselves to each and every one of us in our every day lives. These arguments as we see here even come to us in the guise of good at times, and unless we are alert and are able to weigh these arguments and determine from our understanding and the standpoint of spirituality whence they come and where they will lead us if listened to, we are likely to get into the same mental state as that in which Job found himself. We find, in the first place, Job as a prosperous, God-fearing man, with money, possessions, standing in the community, honored, looked up to, admired, with a good-sized family and with everything in the world one could wish for from a material standpoint.
Then, as Job is contemplating on all these things, and perhaps doing his mental work in what he thought was a good and righteous manner, there comes the lurking and subtle suggestion that perhaps he is some great man and that he himself had accomplished all of these wonderful things. This was the devil coming along with the Lord to communicate with Job. He, the devil, suggested to Job that maybe he had had a greater hand in all of this getting of good than God had, and because of this, the devil says (the mental argument says), “Suppose all of these good things were taken away from you, then how long would you love the Lord?” Let us see which is the stronger? Your faith in God or your faith in your own human ability? Let us see just how great a man you are with all your possessions and human ability, etc.?
And eventually everything that Job had gained through saving, etc., was swept away from him. Why? Because he believed within himself that he was some great person, some thing separate and apart from God. His own thoughts as to how all of these things came to him were his own undoing. Nothing will bring our downfall quicker and more surely than egotism, and nothing will keep us down longer. One must have confidence in himself as a child of God, as the reflection of all the intelligence, the wisdom, the humility and the ability there is, but he must not let the shadow of his own importance, his own intelligence, and his own past so-called achievements blind him to the fact that he of himself can do nothing.
Read this Book of Job often. It will do you good, much good if you read it with an understanding heart and with a humble desire to learn how to proceed to that success which knows no failure, no hard times, no depressions, etc. Try to get the lesson there for you. Don’t try to figure out how this applies to some one else. You are the one who needs saving, and the lesson in this Book that there is there for you is the lesson you are after. If things are not going well with you, with your business, or your home; if there does not seem to be a constant and steady improvement in all of your affairs; if you feel that you are in a rut; that your Science is not working out things for you as it should; if you are inclined to neglect your mental work, your reading, etc., – if your interest in Science lags at times, and you do not seem to see any results; what is the answer? You need to read the Book of Job or something that will stir you to a new base of thought. You need to immerse yourself in the great heart of God by a constant and selfless communion with Him in prayer. Your salvation, your business, your home affairs, your environment, all exist in your own consciousness, and you can only change the outward manifestation of things by changing your inward convictions.
If things aren’t well with you, you are thinking wrongly, and I don’t know anything easier in this world to do than to change one’s thinking. If you can change from a state of poverty or failure to a state of abundance and success by a change of thought, why not change? Often the most egotistical man recognizes his own shortcomings the least. A man’s egotism and arrogance and self opinion and pride of accomplishment will do more to wreck his career than anything I know. A self-opinionated man, an arrogant man, an egotistical man is an offence not only to God but to his brother man, and he will find it hard to keep close contact with either. The humblest man has the most friends and obtains the most favors from God.
Now, we have not the time to go into the Book of Job here. But if you will take it up once in a while and study it with the understanding that all of Job’s misfortunes were self-inflicted, even though he had been a good man, an upright man, and a devout man, you may get something that will turn the tide in the affairs of your entire life and affairs. We all carve out our own fortunes or destinies just as sure as there is a God and, as I have so often said, if things are not going right with us, it is because of our own individual thinking and not because of our environment, our surroundings, or the activities or misfortunes of others.
For instance, as an example of how one’s self-righteousness will try to argue that he is being sadly and badly abused and mistreated because of all these misfortunes which have come upon him, we find Eliphaz, the Temanite, arguing with Job as follows. Now, Eliphaz simply represents a quality of thought, possibly self-righteousness or self-pity. Eliphaz, or self-pity, says to Job, “Behold thou hast instructed many, and thou hast strengthened the weak hands. Thy words have upholden him that was falling, and thou hast strengthened the feeble knees. But now it comes upon thee and thou faintest. It toucheth thee and thou art troubled.”
And so on through the entire Book of Job. There we find the arguments of the carnal mind which present themselves to us in a thousand different ways. And as long as Job was willing to argue with these thoughts of animal magnetism, just so long was he troubled. But just as soon as he threw off these arguments of the carnal, just as soon as he was willing to listen to no one but God and stop arguing pro and con, he came into his own. And so it is with us, every one of us. We must stop our arguments with mortal mind. Instead of arguing with them, we must put them out of consciousness, and the very fact that we can put them out of consciousness is proof that they not only come to us from without but that they have no real origin or existence. If they were real and came from Mind they could not be put off or out.
Published: Monday, June 14, 2021