Why did we write this book?
Because, if you are like I was, you are tired of hurting whether physically or mentally. You are tired of having to start over again – over and over and over. You may be exhausted from your efforts to keep up, or just survive. Maybe you are tired of the world, political, economic, or religious systems that never seem to deliver what they promise. Maybe you live under the cloud of knowing you are responsible for your future yet realize, with sinking despair, that you won’t/don’t have what it takes..
Multitudes crave answers and don’t know where to turn. Everything, everyone, has let them down. It matters not if you are in a position of prominence or an unknown individual just wanting to live comfortably and peaceably. Even the rich seek for better, as do the poor. All people have a distant, flickering memory of a time when things were better.
Deep inside we sense that somehow life could be better. We all have a knowing… yet don’t quite remember what that knowing is. We just want… what is it we want? Commercials tell us what we want. But no, that’s not it. We go ahead and buy, but the results don’t satisfy. Surely the government knows what we need and will provide it. But, no. It has yet to deliver real life for anyone. Capitalism, socialism, communism, totalitarianism, isms, isms, isms. “I know they work for some people. Maybe if I try hard enough it will work for me.” “Maybe the right religion is the answer.” But for most, even that has not answered the cry of the heart.
I wanted security and peace. I wanted to know that if I failed, or the economy or society failed, God is a Father Who will really take care of me, without me having to first jump through hoops. I wanted to know that I am important to someone who is greater than me. I wanted to know I am important to God in a way that brings rest from all of my fears and concerns.
It was around the year 1992 when the content of UNSEEN began coming together. It took over two more decades before it was ready for publishing. 1992 was a very difficult year, but I came to realize God was teaching me. I remember the day! Suddenly, a messenger from God appeared at my door, in the form of an acquaintance. I knew within seconds that he had brought the answer I sought. And I got angry! So angry that I refused to speak to God for two weeks. “Why did it take until now for You to give me this knowledge?”
I became angry because I felt God could have taught me much sooner. Surely, He could have saved me from over 40 years of suffering! Why was God so cruel? A great man once said, “Since you think you can see, you are blind.” That was a perfect description of me. It took extreme pain from holding on to a searing hot iron with all of my might before I was willing to admit that maybe, some things I believed were not true. Maybe I didn’t know as much as I thought I did. Remember that old saying, “Let go and let God”? I didn’t know anyone that could explain how to do that. Eventually, my pain did it for me.
Very quickly I learned much that I knew to be true was not. It took a couple more weeks for me to realize that I was being “retrained” to know what I already knew but in a different way. If someone had told me this is what was going to happen to me, I would not have believed it. I was beginning to see God in a wonderful new way. I was beginning to see Him as the Father I had always needed and wanted. Yes, sometimes it was emotionally trying, but every time I gained a new perspective, the better my life got.
God was using words and phrases I had heard before, but differently. He was redefining words. The definitions were often in trusted, popular lexicons but for some reason not used. He would tell me, “This is the meaning I intended for this word. God was teaching me using common terminology used by everyone but showing me His meanings were different from the ones I had used. I liked what I was learning because decades of turmoil began to leave.
From the First Century until today, many meanings of words, phrases, and concepts have changed radically. Were the epistles (letters) of the New Testament as confusing to early Christians as they are to readers today? No! Because many of the words meant something else to them.
Most of what I have learned is self-evident. It is so simple that most people respond to me with, “I know that.” Unfortunately, the whole world has been duped into many understandings that are not scientifically or philosophically logical. God is the source of human ability to reason and has invited us to reason together with Him. (cf. Isaiah 1:18) If that is true (and we know it is because God cannot lie [cf. Titus 1:2]) does it not make sense that our reasoning should be consistent with what is right and good?
Throughout the following years, I discovered that I have not been alone. Others wonder if God will ever help them, or they may think His help is only for special people and those who have already gone to Heaven. UNSEEN contains a door into understanding why we have missed God’s simple message of how to have an abundant life. The truth is, we don’t really know what “an abundant life” is. Many think it is about having enough money. If you have been taught that it starts with getting financial prosperity or healing, then you have been taught incorrectly. You can have those and still not experience the abundance, safety, and security that God has promised. This website as well as our books will lead you to realize what you already know and why you haven’t been able to trust what God already put into your heart and mind. The problem has not been what you don’t know but all you have thought you knew that is not true. What we know that is not true confuses us about what we know that is true leaving us frequently unsure of what we really know.
Though you may know the traditional definitions of God’s grace, I suspect you may have never learned the one that will change your. God’s grace is His gift of His self and all He possesses to His children to live His life with us, inside us, for us. As we learn what He knows like He knows it, our lives increasingly look like His, because that is what He gave us – His life. You have no other life but Christ’s, which is why the Apostle John said, “As He is, so are we in this world.” (cf. 1 John 4:17)
Truthfully? God’s focus is not to give you prosperity or healing. From the beginning He has always only wanted to give you Himself. God is love (cf. 1 John 4:16) and that is what love does; it gives itself to the beloved. Whether you know it or not, you are God’s beloved. His Presence inside you is more prosperity and health than any of us can yet comprehend. He Himself is the health and prosperity you seek. As you learn to cooperate with His life inside you, you will increasingly experience dimensions of life about which all mankind dreams. Some occasionally dabble in areas of those dimensions, but Jesus said we can live in them. God is a good Father and has always intended on His children enjoying His reality. The UNSEEN series of books, along with this website, are intended to help you understand what God is really doing so you can enjoy all that the Messiah, Jesus Christ, has accomplished for every human being. You cannot take what God has given if you do not know what He has given nor how to take it.
James E. Campbell, Jr.