We've Been Here Before (or: The Telestial Hamster Wheel)
Sometimes the world doesn’t need better explanations, it needs people who can recognize the pattern they’re standing in.
This Feels Like Progress…. Right?
We’ve been here before.
That idea lands differently depending on what you believe about existence.
Some hear it as despair.
I don’t.
I hear recognition.
Some people hear, “we’re stuck”
I hear, “we’re starting to see it”
Recognition doesn’t erase the weight of repetition; it transforms how we walk through it.
There’s a kind of life that feels like motion but isn’t really progress.
Same patterns, same reflexes, same separations dressed up in new circumstances.
Call it what you want, but I’ve started thinking of it as:
the telestial hamster wheel.
You run. You react. You repeat.
If you never step back and actually see it, you’ll swear you’re moving forward when you’re really just circling the same ground, over and over.
Oh, Yay.... It’s This Lesson Again
This sentence only feels heavy if repetition means failure.
But what if it means exposure?
What if the repetition exists because we didn’t learn the last time?
It may not be punishment, but opportunity.
The pattern doesn’t have to trap you. It can reveal you.
The Great Competition
There’s a parable about a King who creates a competition for His people.
On the surface, it looks like growth.
Strength.
Skill.
Effort.
Improvement.
Everyone participates. Everyone stretches. Everyone learns.
But beneath all of that, something else is taking place.
It’s a revealing mechanism.
Who will step forward.
Who will refuse.
Who will endure.
Who will turn.
And even more deeply:
who will remain aligned when what feels fair begins to unravel.
The Feast
The competition wasn’t the deepest test.
The feast was.
Because at the feast:
Everyone is invited.
The loyal and the disloyal sit together.
No distinction is made.
And suddenly something surfaces that wasn’t obvious before:
resentment.
“Why are they here?”
“Why are we treated the same?”
“What was the point of everything we did?”
This is where people reveal themselves.
It doesn’t happen only under pressure.
It happens when things feel uneven.
The Pattern Christ Already Gave Us
There’s a parable where people work different amounts of time and all receive the same reward.
Some worked all day.
Some barely worked at all.
And when they’re paid the same, the reaction isn’t gratitude.
It’s offense.
“These last have worked but one hour.…”
The problem was never the work.
It was the comparison.
And even deeper than that, it was a refusal to accept that the master has the right to be generous.
What Both Stories Expose
Put the vineyard next to the feast and the pattern becomes hard to ignore:
In the vineyard, equal pay creates resentment.
In the feast, equal invitation creates resentment.
In both cases:
people are fine with the system until grace enters it.
That’s the breaking point.
The rupture doesn’t come from suffering alone.
It doesn’t come from effort alone.
It doesn’t come from endurance alone.
It comes when grace enters the picture.
This is not a rejection of fair process or justice. Both are necessary. They protect truth, ensure integrity and prevent real harm.
In both the vineyard and the feast, justice isn't overturned. No promise is broken. No one is deprived of what was given or agreed.
What unsettles the heart is something different, the instinct to measure worth and belonging by comparison.
Grace doesn’t rank people that way. It welcomes, gives and includes more freely than merit expects.
So the dividing line isn’t injustice, but the soul’s response to generosity.
Justice remains intact.
Grace reveals whether we can live in a kingdom where goodness isn’t hoarded, measured or earned by being more than someone else.
The Wedding Garment
There's another parable that deepens the pattern.
The doors are opened.
The room is filled.
Good and bad alike are brought in.
But one man stands without a garment.
And he is cast out.
This isn’t a contradiction to grace, but another layer of it, the test of what we’re willing to receive.
It’s not because he wasn’t invited.
Not because he didn’t enter.
Not because something was withheld from him.
It’s because he refused what was provided.
The garment isn’t effort.
It’s not status.
It’s not time spent laboring.
It’s what covers you when you stop trying to stand on your own terms.
It’s humility.
It’s repentance.
It’s receiving what is given instead of presenting yourself as sufficient.
Grace brings you into the room.
But only those willing to be clothed in something not their own can remain.
In Case We Missed It the First Time
This pattern shows up again and again.
In the story of the prodigal son, the one who returns is received fully, while the one who stayed becomes unsettled by it. The issue isn't disobedience but the inability to accept that grace is extended without comparison.
In the story of the ten virgins, all are invited and all are waiting. But when the moment arrives, only those who are prepared enter.
Preparedness here isn’t merit, it’s willingness to receive when grace arrives.
Nothing was withheld, but not everyone was ready to receive what was offered.
The pattern holds.
Grace opens the door.
Response determines what happens next.
So What’s Actually Being Tested?
We tend to think the test is:
Will I endure?
Will I work?
Will I stay?
But the deeper question is this:
can you remain aligned when things stop feeling fair?
The moment things feel uneven, some accuse the master, some resent the returning, some reinterpret the entire experience.
They may have passed the first test.
The final one reveals something the earlier one did not.
Round and Round We Go
If we’ve been here before, maybe it isn’t because the test is unclear.
Maybe it’s because we keep passing the obvious parts and failing the deeper ones.
We endure, but still compare.
We stay, but still resent.
We sacrifice, but still demand fairness.
Until recognition transforms response, the wheel just changes color, not direction.
So the cycle repeats.
It’s not that we didn’t try.
It’s that we didn’t become something different.
Maybe this is what leaving Egypt has always required, not just being led out, but refusing to return when the cycle presents itself again.
As I was finishing this, someone shared the preface from The Teachings of Denver C. Snuffer, Jr., Volume 9 (2024–2025). This part stood out to me:
“We are no better than other failed utopians and cannot do better than the past failures until we begin to acquire the necessary traits and skills that allow authentic harmony to thrive and grow.”
That reframes the problem.
It isn’t that we haven’t been told. It isn’t that we don’t understand. It’s that knowing isn’t enough.
There may be a way out, but it doesn’t come from saying the right things. It comes from becoming the kind of people who can actually live differently.
Getting Off the Wheel
There comes a point where something shifts.
You can feel it, even if you don’t have language for it yet.
The tears aren’t really the point.
The pressure isn’t random.
The repetition isn’t meaningless.
It’s revealing something.
And once you see the pattern, you can’t unsee it.
That means staying the same is no longer really on the table.
This is not about escape.
It’s about choosing differently.
This Is Where It Gets Uncomfortable....
Here’s the part that doesn’t resolve cleanly.
The parable suggests that not everyone remains.
My instinct still leans toward the hope that eventually we figure it out.
I’m not ready to let go of that.
But I also can’t ignore this:
what you choose in the moment of testing carries weight.
Even familiar cycles carry weight, because each repetition still asks us to choose.
"I'm telling you, you're only on part of the cycle here. But, you are on part of this endless cycle, here. Now. Today matters a great deal. Therefore what you do here matters, infinitely, eternally, everlastingly. It matters!" (Christ Prototype of the Saved Man)
I think both are true in ways we don’t fully understand yet.
So What Now?
The question may not be, “Is this fair?”
Or “Why is this happening?”
The deeper question is this:
what is this revealing in me?
Because the cycle doesn’t just expose the world.
It exposes you.
When It Finally Clicks
There’s a moment when you realize this isn’t random.
The repetition.
The tension.
The division.
It’s all pointing at something.
Not just out there, but
in you.
And once you recognize it, you don’t move through it the same way again.
Then the question is no longer whether the pattern exists.
The question is whether you’ll recognize it in time to choose differently when the moment of testing arrives
"Just stop your crying.
It’ll be alright.
Welcome to the final show.
Hope you’re wearing your best clothes."
The test of this life isn’t just what we do….
but what kind of kingdom we’re choosing to belong to.
This was his first time performing this song live, one of his first steps into standing on his own after One Direction, and you can sense him stepping into something he’s not fully grown into yet. Not everything meaningful comes out clean the first time. Sometimes you can feel the weight of it in the trying.
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