The Bible is, in my mind, the best witness the Western World had to the evolution of human consciousness. That is a story in itself – I’m working on the book. However, what is true on the grand scale of one tradition’s journey toward wholeness is also true as a map for our personal growth. We can see the ages and stages of our own lives against the background of the biblical story. I will touch on some main points.

“So God created humankind in God’s own image . . . male and female God created them . . . and God saw everything that God had made, and indeed it was very good” (Genesis 1:27, 31).

We are all enthralled by the birth of a baby. It was not until our fifth child that I was actually there to watch a new life emerging from the womb. Birthing, which for me as a male is an enthralling experience, must be for a mother a consuming involvement of body, mind and spirit crowned by a love “that passes understanding.”

This ancient creation myth conveys an intuitive awareness that we are an embodiment of the purpose of the Universe, and that we are fundamentally good. Seeing a new-born, we know in the core of our being that this is true. We, in contemplative moments, see in this child a glorious being, the creative result of a universe that has been evolving for nearly fourteen billion years. “You are a child of the universe.”

Then comes the Garden of Eden story, and Eve eating the forbidden fruit. The ever-helpful serpent, the first biblical Sophia image, tells Eve that “your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil” (Genesis 3:5). Consciousness enters the picture. Eve is every two-year-old stamping her/his foot and saying “no.” The terrible-twos may be annoying for parents, but this is the first step toward becoming a whole and mature adult.

Consciousness has a down side. In becoming conscious we become aware that we are separated within ourselves, (they knew that they were naked); from one another, (Adam blames Eve); from the earth, (in the sweat of your brow you shall eat bread); and from God, (they are evicted from the Garden of innocence). In the very next story Cain slays Abel, and this has been the human story ever since. Healing our divisions and growing in oneness is the story of our personal gradual transformation throughout life, as well as the human story. Learning how to be human is our personal and communal goal.

If we are lucky we may get a glimpse of what our life is to be about at an early age. It happened to Abraham and Sarah on a grand scale. The promise is that they will become “a great nation.” As an individual it means that you will be a person of worth, and “in you all the families of the earth shall be blessed” (Genesis 12:2-3). It is the purpose statement of the Bible, and a worthy goal for any person or group, including religions and nations.

When I was eleven or so, our minister preached a rousing sermon on arguments for the existence of God. It occurred to me that if he was so fired up about God’s existence there must be the chance that God doesn’t exist. I didn’t realize it then, but my life has been dictated by trying to make sense of it all after the death-of-God theology of the 1960’s.

To grow and become one’s own person means leaving home. As the teen years move on, home can come to feel like a prison. The Exodus is the great leaving-home experience of the Bible. It was fraught with fear and tension. There is the lure of the “Promised Land” – freedom from rules and nagging parents. But who will make the meals and do the laundry?

Rites-of-passage help us to move from one stage to the next. It was at the moment of leaving that, according to the record, the Passover was introduced. It gave the Israelites identity as a people, and has so ever since. Graduation and the all-night parties are something, but we need to work on better rituals.

Leaving home is often followed by “the Wilderness.” Hopefully, it does not take one forty years to get our act together enough to move on. However, entering whatever our vision of the promised land might be rarely happens immediately or easily. Taking on the responsibilities of adult life is a giant step in the transformation toward wholeness . Eventually the walls of Jericho come tumbling down and we enter adult life.

Now comes the time of the Kingdom. Under Saul, David and Solomon, Israel became one of the nations and flirted with significant political power. So we take our place in the world: career, perhaps marriage and family, and the many responsibilities that descend upon us.

After a time cracks may appear. The Kingdom became divided. North and South spent much time and energy fighting with one another. The tensions and divisions of life can take their toll.

The great spiritual tension of the Kingdom era was between the one God and the many. The Yahweh, male, sky god was trying to take over from the mostly female earth gods. The classic confrontation took place on Mount Carmel between Elijah and the prophets of Baal and Asherah. Elijah wins, but is terrified of Jezebel and flees. Only after he hears “the still small voice” does he go back and straighten out the political situation (1 Kings 18ff).

One of the major tensions of life is aligning our inner life with our outer life. In career, marriage or wherever, tensions may appear between your situation in life and the needs and dreams and urgings of your inner self. In our psyches the tension between the one and the many represents the tension between what we believe to be our central focus, or even an inner calling, and the multitude of joys and responsibilities that make up our lives. As Joseph Campbell says, “There is perhaps nothing worse than reaching the top of the ladder and discovering that you’re on the wrong wall.” This can lead to a mid-life crisis, another transformative step on life’s journey.

The Exile was the great mid-life crisis of the Hebrew people. “The Assyrian came down like the wolf on the fold”, as Lord Byron put it. With country overrun, temple destroyed, and the elite of the land carried off to Babylon, they were a people without a country and without a God. The meaning and purpose of their lives was taken from them – much like the treatment of the Natives in the Americas. (Assyria conquered Israel in c621 BCE and Babylonia destroyed Judah in two waves around 500 BCE.)

There comes the morning when you look in the mirror and realize that the face you see is aging. Youth is gone and the end, though a long way off, is in sight. If your ladder is really against the wrong wall it can be a major crisis. Reassessing one’s life becomes a necessity. Who am I? What is my life about? What do I really value? What am I in this world to do?

By mid-life you are not without resources. You have established yourself and have gained much life experience. The prophets before and during the Exile distilled the human experience into the basic values that undergird human life. “Do justice, love compassion, walk humbly”, proclaimed Micah (6:8). “You are responsible for your life” said Jeremiah (31:27-30) and Ezekiel (18:1-4).

And again Jeremiah (31:31-34); the time will come when we will follow the law written in our hearts and not be dominated by external laws.

This is a good time to pay attention to “the still small voice” that is always there, if we pay attention. It can help us sort out what is important to us and the direction our life needs to take.

This can also be a time of a great expansion in our awareness and understanding of life, world, universe, and God.

Isaiah of the Exile (40-55) brought a whole new message and understanding of God. No longer are they being blamed for their situation.They are forgiven. “Comfort, O comfort my people, says your God (40:1). And the traditional tribal God, Yahweh, one of many gods, becomes the one God of the Universe. “It is he [still male] who sits above the circle of the earth (40:22). (Isaiah introduced the theistic god-image, important at the time, to which we are now saying farewell. That, too, is another story.)

After about forty years in exile, Cyrus , a “progressive” dictator, allowed the Israelites to return to their country. Nehemiah and Ezra recount the story. They did re-establish in their homeland, but it was never the same. It was, however, a time of gathering up the spiritual and practical wisdom of the ages. Psalms gives us a summation of the spiritual wisdom and understanding of the time. Proverbs provides practical wisdom, and introduces Wisdom (Sophia), the creative feminine energy of the Universe. The Song of Songs eloquently explores the mystery and beauty, and the tribulations, of human love. Job embodies innocent suffering, and the confusion of relating to a God who seems to want to do him in without cause – we might call it the fickle finger of fate.

Armed with the wisdom of our lives and the inner drive to be and do what we are uniquely able to do, we move on. It may be a mere ripple in our lives or a time of major transformation, both within ourselves and our situation in the world.

For generations there had been a yearning among the Hebrew people for a new King David and then a Messiah who would deliver them from external powers, like the Babylonians or Romans. At a more profound level there was a yearning for a Messiah who would fulfill the destiny of Israel to be a people through whom all the world would find blessing. This is reflected in our lives by the desire to be successful in the world and be a quality person.

“And Jesus increased in wisdom and stature, and in divine and human favor” (Luke 2:52). The miracle of Jesus is not that he was a superhuman, divine, figure, but that he was a mature and whole human being. To ponder upon his integrity and compassion, his acceptance of women, his confronting of the political powers in the world of his time, is to be awed beyond measure. He is a model of what it means to be fully human.

Not much wonder he was called Christ, an embodiment of the archetype of wholeness that is at work within each one of us and permeates the universe. The goal in the fulfillment of our lives, and ultimately the collective life of humanity, is to “come to …. maturity, to the measure of the full stature of Christ” Ephesians 4:12). And the Christ energy is at work, under various names and images, in every religion.

Jesus’ life makes it clear that following the inner integrity of our lives can come at a price. We need to follow Paul’s advice to the Philippians to “work out your own salvation with fear and trembling, for it is God who is at work in you, enabling you both to will and to work for God’s good purpose”(2:12-13). God can be understood as the creative energy of the universe that is calling you to be your unique self.

The New or Second Testament, from the gospels to Revelation, is the attempt of the Church to live out in the world what Jesus was about. They made a start but could not maintain the maturity of Jesus. It is a long journey that still has far to go. The same is true for most of us, but hopefully we are on the way. Transformation is a life-long process “until the shadows lengthen, and the evening comes, the busy world is hushed, the fever of life is over and our work is done” and we sink into the bosom of eternity.

The Bible ends with the book of Revelation. It is a mythic extravaganza of the human journey of transformation from the innocence of Eden to the wholeness of the New Heaven and New Earth. In horrendous scenes it pictures the great contest between the forces for life and those against life, which has been the story of humanity. In learning how to be human we are dealing with tensions of cosmic proportions. It is an Armageddon struggle, an ultimately serious contest, that is very real for us in this age. Will we carry on and grow as a human species or will our greed, our materialism, our disregard for the earth and one another bring an end to our earthly sojourn? The game is now for keeps.

Revelation is ultimately a hopeful book. After all the visions of mayhem and destruction, it ends with a magnificent vision of a new heaven and a new earth. “Then the angel showed me the river of the water of life, bright as crystal, flowing from the throne of God and of the Lamb through the middle of the street of the city. On either side of the river is the tree of life with its twelve kinds of fruit, producing its fruit each month; and the leaves of the trees are for the healing of the nations” (22:1-2).

May this , and all visions of a humanity at one within themselves, the earth, one another, and the spiritual, urge us on to be what is in us to be and give what is ours to give for a world of wholeness, justice, peace and joy. From the Garden to the New Heaven and New Earth, the journey of transformation is complete. For us, “The goal may ever shine afar, the will to win it makes us free” (William Hyde).

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Don Murray is a retired Minister of The United Church of Canada, educator, columnist and author: The Death and Resurrection of God: From Christianity to the New Story.