Your Faith is Your Fortune
| Chapter 20 |
THE BREATH OF LIFE
Then the LORD God formed man of dust from the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living being. – Genesis 2:7
As thou knowest not what is the way of the spirit, nor how the bones do grow in the womb of her that is with child: even so thou knowest not the works of God who maketh all/Just as you don't know how the breath of life enters the limbs of a child within its mother‟s womb, you also don't understand how God, who made everything, works. – Ecclesiastes 11:5
And it came to pass after these things, that the son of the woman, the mistress of the house, fell sick; and his sickness was so sore, that there was no breath left in him. 1Kings 17:17
And he (Elisha) went up, and lay upon the child, and put his mouth upon his mouth, and his eyes upon his eyes, and his hands upon his hands: and stretched himself upon the child; and the flesh of the child waxed warm. 2Kings 4:34
But after the three and a half days, the breath of life from God came into them, and they stood on their feet; and great fear fell upon those who were watching them. – Revelation 11:11]
Did the Prophet Elijah [and/or Elisha] really restore to life the dead child of the Widow?
This story, along with all the other stories of the Bible, is a psychological drama which takes place in the consciousness of man.
The Widow symbolizes every man and woman in the world; the dead child represents the frustrated desires and ambitions of man; while the prophet, Elijah [and/or Elisha], symbolizes the God power within man, or man’s awareness of being.
The story tells us that the prophet took the dead child from the Widow’s bosom and carried him into an upper room. As he entered this upper room he closed the door behind them; placing the child upon a bed, he breathed life into him; returning to the mother, he gave her the child and said, “Woman, thy son liveth” [“See, thy son liveth”, 1Kings 17:23 and 2Kings 4:36].
Man’s desires can be symbolized as the dead child.
The mere fact that he desires is positive proof that the thing desired is not yet a living reality in his world.
He tries in every conceivable way to nurse this desire into reality, to make it live, but finds in the end that all attempts are fruitless.
Most men are not aware of the existence of the infinite power within themselves as the prophet.
They remain indefinitely with a dead child in their arms, not realizing that the desire is the positive indication of limitless capacities for its fulfillment.
Let man once recognize that his consciousness is a prophet who breathes life into all that he is conscious of being, and he will close the door of his senses against his problem and fix his attention – solely on that which he desires, knowing that by so doing, his desires are certain to be realized.
He will discover recognition to be the breath of life, for he will perceive – as he consciously claims himself to be now expressing or possessing all he desires to be or to have – that he will be breathing the breath [sic!] of life into his desire.
The quality claimed for the desire (in a way unknown to him) will begin to move and become a living reality in his world.
Yes, the Prophet Elijah [and/or Elisha] lives forever as man’s limitless consciousness of being, the widow as his limited consciousness of being and the child as that which he desires to be.