Prosperity Sunday #3

                   This is prosperity Sunday #3. We are looking at a chapter of Eric Butterworth’s book “Spiritual Economies” on the last Sunday of each month. There are 12 chapters in the book.

Very briefly, the first chapter was about substance. Substance is that everywhere-present invisible creative stuff. Substance lays wait in potential; waiting for our thinking to activate it. Last week I put a little baking soda into vinegar and we saw a dramatic reaction. This is a good metaphor to show the power of our thinking when mixed in with substance.

The second chapter is titled, “Your fortune begins with you,” and it does.  According to your thinking, you will experience your life. Because you have the power to choose your thinking, whether it’s a thought that seems to originate with you or a thought in response to what seems to have appeared in your mind from somewhere else, you have the power to choose. That’s why the chapter is titled, “Your fortune begins with you.” You are in charge of what to think now.

The third chapter in this book is, “The Law of Visualization.” The law of visualization is this: “Having seen and felt the end, you have willed the means to the realization of the end.” (Troward)

I’m just going to leave that there because this chapter tells us how we see and how we need to think. These are two very important things to know.

From the book, page 49, “We have been conditioned to believe that life is lived from the outside-in. We see things “out there,” and we react with attitudes and feelings about them. Without question, what we see is as it is.  [and thus we think] Seeing is believing!”

According to that statement, seeing is believing, our eyes tell us what we see. Our eyes report back to the brain what is there in front of us.

Not so fast. ;0) Did you notice that Butterworth is talking about our conditioning?

A paragraph or so later Butterworth writes, “What the mind sees is not this picture that is communicated to the brain, but what your awareness has conditioned you to see. In other words, seeing is not believing; believing is seeing! You see things, not as they are, but as you are.”

Jane once did a drawing experiment with a friend. Our cat Sammie was lying on the back of our couch. Here’s her picture.

 Jane took it when our friend, Bill, sat down to draw. This is exactly what he was looking at.

This is what Bill drew.

How Bill could see something so different from what was in front of him? Conditioning.

Perhaps the basic problem is that we teach children to name things, and then we carry this habit the remainder of our lives unless something comes along to jolt us out of it. E label and then store it away for later reference.

When children are young we teach them A is for Apple. This is what an apple looks like.

B is for ball. This is what a ball looks like.

C is for Cat. This is what a cat looks like.

Now maybe you’re saying to yourself, “C’mon Brad. You can’t show every kind of apple, ball, and cat… those are just generalizations.”

That’s just it! We have general ideas about what things are, what they look like, how they should be, etc.

May I ask you another question? Where do ideas live? Do they live out there or do they live in the mind?

We see not with our eyes but with our mind. If we see with our eyes, why would we ever be confused about anything? Have you ever said to yourself, “I don’t know what to make of that?”  if you saw with your eyes instead of your mind you’d know exactly what you were seeing.

Can you see now how, “Thoughts held in mind produce after their kind.”

This is a cat.

This is a cat.

This is a cat.

“Hey Bill, would you sit down in front of our cat and draw what you see?”

This is Jane and Brad’s cat.

“Thoughts held in mind produce after their kind.”

Now, you tell me what happens when you look out on the circumstances and conditions of your life and you’ve been endlessly hold in your mind, “This is lack, this is lack, this is lack.”

Thoughts held in mind produce after their kind.

What if I give you the benefit of the doubt and I agree with you that your circumstance and conditions do reflect lack.

Well, how did the reflection of lack get there?

Thoughts held in mind produce after their kind.

1.      We see with the thoughts in our mind.

2.      Our thoughts mix with substance to bring forth according to their (the thoughts) kind.

3.      Your fortune is up to you.

Do you see how all this fits together?

I said to you that this chapter tells us how we see and how we need to think. These are two very important things to know.

The first of those two things, how we see, is, “We see with the mind.”

Now, how do we need to think? When things in our life go awry, we generally think, “I’ve got to set this right.”  Butterworth suggests that, “More important than setting it right is seeing it rightly.”

 Generally we want to manipulate “things out there.” But that doesn’t work. Why? What’s out there is a reflection of what’s in our own mind.

I challenge you to go home today, look in the mirror, get out a comb or a brush, brush the hair reflected in the mirror and see if the hair on your had has changed.

In the same way we can’t comb the hair in the mirror and make any change, we can’t try to manipulate our circumstances and condition “out there” and make any change. Again, what’s out there is a reflection of what’s in our own mind.

What Butterworth means by seeing things rightly is recognizing that our experience of what’s occurring “out there” is a reflection of what’s occurring within us.

If we see according to our thinking, the next thing we need to think about is how we think!

Charles Fillmore wrote, “Turn the great (bulk) of your thinking toward ‘plenty’ ideas and you will have plenty regardless of what men about you are saying or doing.” Prosperity page 13 (insertion is mine)

What are men and women all about us saying? “The sky is falling, the sky is falling.” This is always the view of politicians whose party in not in power. When the power switches sides, so does the alarm. Don’t buy into the alarm of politicians. Don’t buy into the alarm of TV news or talk shows either.

Let me reiterate what Mr. Fillmore advises us, “Turn the great (bulk) of your thinking toward ‘plenty’ ideas and you will have plenty regardless of what men about you are saying or doing.”

We talk a lot about the power of affirmations in Unity and I’m here to tell you it’s all baloney.

That’s right, it’s all baloney. 

It’s all baloney unless you believe in the affirmation.  You don’t have to believe in it fully for it to begin to work in your life, but you do have to believe in it, however small you start.

An affirmation is a form. The content of the form, in other words, the belief behind it, is where the power lies.

Hoping and wishing are weak. Belief is powerful.

I said to you that this chapter tells us how we see and how we need to think.

How we see is, we see with our mind.

The second thing is how we need to think. On page 57 of the book, Butterworth writes one sentence that gives us advice on how we need to think. In my opinion it’s the single most important sentence in the book. In my opinion taking this advice on as your living experience is the single biggest step you can take toward turning you life to one of prosperity.

If prosperity has escaped you, this is what I believe needs to be your living experience: “The secret of achieving prosperity lies in so vividly keeping yourself centered in the inner focus of affluence that you literally exude the consciousness of it.”

We have spoken about other aspects regarding prosperity and we are going to speak about yet more aspects. This one sentence is the core. Don’t forget it.

If you have not yet come to live and understand this, you will.

I believe in you wholeheartedly.

Faith and Prayer

Faith is the key to the Kingdom of Power within me. One of the aspects of the Kingdom of Power within me is the ability to create.

          Some sports use a plus/minus system to grade the efficiency of individual players. In ice hockey, for instance, they use a very simple system: if you are on the ice when your team scores a goal you get a plus one. If you are on the ice when the other team scores a goal you get a minus one.

          So let’s say you’re a +35 at the end of the year. That would show you are a positive force for the team; good things happen when you are on the ice. On the other hand a negative number at the end of the season shows you are making negative contributions to the welfare of the team.

          This might be a way we could look at what we give to our lives remembering that our way of thinking creates the experience of our lives.

By your thinking you are either adding to your good or taking away from your good.  This is an inexorable law. It’s another way of defining what I referred to two weeks ago as the “law of consciousness.”

          Failure, or lack in your life is simply the result of “minus-ing” yourself. Conversely, success and prosperity are the results of “plus-ing” yourself. It is wise to occasionally take inventory of yourself. Are you “negatizing” every thing and everybody around your, or are you “positizing” it?

          I want to tell you a story about two brothers who had positive faith in the power of prayer, but before I do I want to preface it with something Jim T. said to me on Friday. We were talking about all they hype and controversy that’s going on around the return of Peyton Manning to Indianapolis after being let go two years ago. Part of the controversy around tonight’s NFL game was fueled by Jim Irsay, the owner of the Colts.  Here’s what Jim Tallman said to me about Jim Irsay, “If his father hadn’t have made a lot of money (His father is dead and Jim now owns the team) he’d be just like us.”

The point is we tend to think of financially successful people as a breed different from the rest of us, but they’re not. So when I tell you this story is isn’t about a special group of people, it applies to us, too.

This is the story about the McViker family and a soap manufacturing company, the Kutol Company of Cincinnati.  Kutol was founded in 1912. By 1927, the company was facing closure. Cleo McVicker determined to save the company and after taking the matter to prayer was led to hire his brother, Noah W. McVicker, to manage the plant. Noah organized the plant, had it running more efficiently, and, the company's prospects improved. Cleo served as the company salesman, while Noah not only managed the plant but helped to develop new products.

          One thing you need to be aware of is this is all taking place during a time when coal was how buildings and homes were heated. Coal heat put out a lot of dust and homes required constant cleaning. If you’re old enough – and I’m not – you’ll remember that walls had to be cleaned regularly.

In 1933, Cleo approached the Kroger Company about manufacturing wallpaper cleaner for the grocery store chain. Kroger officials agreed to replace their current cleaner with one manufactured by Kutol Products. Cleo agreed to provide Kroger with fifteen thousand cases of cleaner. If he failed to do so on time, Kutol Products was required to pay Kroger five thousand dollars in fines ($88,600 to 1.42 million). This amount of money would have bankrupted Kutol Products. Unfortunately for the McVicker brothers, Kutol Products had never manufactured wallpaper cleaner before. Once again, “What do we do now” was taken to prayer and they were inspired to eventually create a product that worked. It was made of wheat flour, water, salt and a sort of petroleum distillate. When you applied this dough-like substance to the wall and peeled it away, the coal dust and dirt came with it, too.

Kutol Products made the deadline.

Over the next twenty years, Kutol Products primarily manufactured soap and wallpaper cleaner. The company became the largest wallpaper cleaner manufacturer in the world during this period. Unfortunately for the firm, after World War II homes were heated less and less with coal and more and more with natural gas, oil, and electricity.

In 1949, Cleo McVicker died in a plane crash. By the mid 1950s Kutol Products once again faced closure.

Cleo’s widow, Irma McVicker hired her son, Joseph McVicker, and her son-in-law, Bill Rhodenbaugh, to help Noah reverse the company's downward spiral.

Again, this situation was taken into prayer. Our prayers are always answered. With positive faith wee can “see” our answer. With negative faith we become blind to the answers we seek.

Sometimes we have to be open enough to see the answer. Especially when it comes in a form that doesn’t seem to be an answer.

Joseph McVicker sister-in law was a school teacher and she asked if she could take some of the product that was sitting in the warehouse for her – I think it was kindergarten class. She was of the opinion that since the wallpaper cleaner was easier to squoosh for little hands than modeling clay, that her students would have some fun making things with their hands just like the big kids could.

It was a big hit with the little kids and in 1955

the McVickars decided to give some to all the schools in Cincinnati. It was well received but there was a problem, it was a dull kind of grey-white and not very exciting.

In 1956 the packaged their wallpaper cleaner in white along with red, yellow and blue, and called it Play-Doh! (http://www.ohiohistorycentral.org/w/Kutol_Products_Company, modified and used without permission)

There are ups and downs in or lives and taking our circumstances into prayer transforms them.

The McVikers weren’t in a special class by themselves. They’re just like you and me and when circumstances changed they “plussed, or positized” their life with prayer and prospered.

Have you ever thought your faith was weak, or that you had none at all? We all have faith, all the time, and its powerful faith. We may have made the assumption that having faith means being confident in the positive outworking of this, that, or the other thing, and when we aren’t positive we are in a state of not having faith. I would say that when we aren’t in a state of positive faith then our faith lies in the negative. And you can’t cop-out by saying your faith is neutral. That’s a wolf in sheep’s clothing. I guess I’d say it this way, “If it’s not positive faith/thinking then it’s not positive. If it’s not “positizing” your life then it’s “negatizing” your life.”

Faith is the key that opens the Kingdom of Power within me. You have the power and the faith.

God loves everyone; no exceptions. All prayer is answered with inspiration; no exceptions. Sometimes the answers seem to comes through us and sometimes they seem to come to us… but the answers always come.

Have faith in that.

Prosperity Sunday #2

          This is Prosperity Sunday talk #2. I’ll be addressing the principles and process of true prosperity on the last Sunday of each month for a year.

Last month our topic was “substance.”  Substance is that everywhere-present invisible creative stuff. Substance lays wait in potential; waiting for our thinking to activate it.

Spiritual Ecomonics, page 34. “And it is an important moment in your life when you discover for yourself the great Truth that things may [appear to] happen around you, and things may [appear to] happen to you, but the only things which really count are the things that happen in you.

          The second chapter in Eric Butterworth’s book SPIRITUAL ECONOMICS is titled, “Your Fortune Begins With You” and here he shares with us the idea that everything we think about is out-pictured into our lives.  Our thinking determines how much we restrain or release the creative power within us.

          Let’s get right to it.  I need a volunteer to help me demonstrate a point.  Who would like to help?

What I’d like you to do is to climb up the ladder that’s set up outside this window and walk to the peak of the roof. Then walk to the edge of the building and step off. Would you be willing to do that?

(The answer will probably be, “No.”)

Why Not?

(“because I’d hurt myself”)

Why?

(because of gravity)

“Let me ask you this, then, “How many times would you have to step off the roof, roughly, before the odds would give you a miraculous baby-soft, landing?””

(It would never happen.)

Why not?

(Because gravity works the same way all the time)

What about luck or a miracle?

(won’t make a difference)

          That’s the point. Fundamental laws work the same way all the time otherwise they wouldn’t be laws.

Thank you. Please be seated.

There are two points I want to point out from this demonstration:

1.      Laws work the same way all the time. So if you are trying to make prosperity work for you, stop trying to make it work and get into the rhythm of it.

2.      Neither luck nor the idea of miracles has any effect on Laws.

Let’s talk a little bit about luck and miracles here: expecting that luck will help you, or work against you (“With my luck it’ll all go wrong…”), is expecting the laws of the universe to be changed for you. Seriously, are you that special?

The same is true about miracles.  In the strictest sense there is no such thing as a miracle. I realize that I may be treading on some deeply held beliefs here…

To say there are miracles is the same as to say there is luck. Both require, as Butterworth describes it, “…believing in a God that will give you something through a divine sleight-of-hand process.”

That would be spiritual naïveté.

What we think of as luck, what we think of as miracles is the dependable outworking of the law in a way we cannot see, rationalize, or understand; nothing more, nothing less.

If you want to use the words luck or miracle to describe your experience, please do; I’m not asking you to throw them out. All I am asking is that you be aware that luck and miracles are not extra-normal occurrences.

Here is what we must remember, “The idea of what we might call the rules of prosperity are extremely intriguing, but,” Butterworth says, “it really doesn’t make much sense to enable you to make changes in your life until you accept the law of consciousness.” (Butterworth)

Unity would describe it thus: “Thoughts held in mind produce after their kind.”

That’s why Butterworth titles the 2^nd chapter, “Your fortune begins with you,” because it does.

It begins with the thoughts you are holding in mind, and once you really accept that, you won’t wallow in negative or limited thinking any more than you’d choose to step off the roof of this building and expect a baby-soft landing.

In the film Evan Almighty, God tells one of the characters who had prayed with her husband for the family to have more peace, but has more chaos, “When you ask God for peace, God doesn’t give you peace, God gives us opportunities to choose peace.”

By the same token I would say that God doesn’t give us prosperity but that God gives us ideas to make prosperity in our lives.

Faith: let’s go back to that last Butterworth quote. Notice the words, “accept the law.” I believe from my own observation that saying new, affirmative words does have some effect. However, to turn the corner and fire up the prosperity “after-burners,” to really have a new experience of abundance, you have to fully invest yourself in the idea that thoughts held in mind produce after their kind.

Paul said it this way, “As you sew, so shall you reap.” And, “Conform not to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind.” (ROM 12:2)

Jesus counsels us that by our faith we are healed. If you hope to be healed of any experience of lack in your life, commit yourself, invest your faith in the idea that thoughts held in mind produce after their kind.  

Here is one last quote. This one from W. H. Murray, “Until one is committed there is hesitancy, the chance to drop back, always ineffectiveness. Concerning all acts of initiative, there is one elementary truth, the ignorance of which kills countless ideas and plans: that the moment one definitely commits oneself, then providence moves too, all sorts of things occur to help one that would never otherwise have occurred. A whole stream of events issues from the decision, raising in one’s favor all manner of unforeseen incidents and meetings and material assistance, which no man could have dreamt would have come his way.”

If I wouldn’t tempt the law of gravity and step off he roof of the church, why would you tempt the law of consciousness and engage in negative or limited thinking?

Until our next Prosperity Sunday (October 27^th) I invite you to write the statement you find at the bottom of your bulletin, “My Faith is the key to the Kingdom of Power Within Me.”

Have faith in the idea that thoughts held in mind produce after their kind, just like you have faith the Sun will appear in the east tomorrow morning, and the power of the Kingdom within you will pour down on you.

Go To Your Roots

“I can do all things through Christ, which strengthens me.” Philippians 4:13, not “I can do all things through my own individual strength and power.”

Paul is talking about a man and I think he misses the point. He’s talking about a man rather than what the man represents (demonstrates) – what I would call, “God in our soul.” (Soul=sub-conscious mind where divine ideas are present and out-picture into our physical life according to our thinking/belief)

What Jesus demonstrates is, as I said, God in our soul. When God extended Itself (created us), It placed in our soul Its likeness and image – not that we then take It unto ourselves as our individual power. I would say it’s more like the link to that power.  We open the door to that link and connect to what’s on the power that’s “on other side” and together, in partnership, not on our own but in partnership, we have power and can do all things.

How we unlock that door – open that link - I’ll get to in a few minutes.

The road to success, spiritual and otherwise, hasn’t been a straight, easy drive. There is a curve called "failure," a loop called "confusion," speed bumps called "well-intentioned friends," red lights called "enemies," caution lights called “family."  You will have flats called "jobs."

But, if you have a spare called "determination," an engine called "perseverance," insurance called "faith," and a navigator called God, you will make it to a place called SUCCESS.

The day before Mary Kay Ash (Mary Kay Cosmetics) was to launch her cosmetic business, her husband, who was to be the CFO of the business, died suddenly.  Everyone told her to fold her tent
and get a job.  She listened politely to her lawyer, accountant, and friends and then, went right ahead with the business plan she and her husband had envisioned.

Mary Kay cosmetics has given thousands of women around the world the leg up they needed to provide financial and psychological security for themselves and their families.

In 1976, Steve Chandler worked as a sportswriter, a very different field from his current career as a successful motivational speaker.  About 37 years ago, he had an interview with the famous bodybuilder named Arnold Schwarzenegger.

Schwarzenegger had recently retired from his sport, and Chandler asked him about his future plans.  Arnold replied, "I'm going to be the number one
box office star in all of Hollywood.  Chandler wanted to laugh, but he restrained himself.  Here was a guy with the body of Goliath, an accent as thick as paste, and almost no acting experience.  Box-office stardom
seemed an unlikely goal.  But Schwarzenegger had thought it through very carefully.  He said, "It's the same process used in bodybuilding.  What you do is create a vision of who you want to be, and then live into that picture, as if it were already true.”

 This is precisely what Jesus meant in Mark 11:24 when he said, when you pray – believe that you have ALREADY received!

Sometimes success happens even in spite of ourselves.  Take the case of Elliot Daniel who died recently at the age of 89.  At his passing he was a
very rich man.  He composed the upbeat theme song for "I Love Lucy."

Absolutely convinced that this wacky sitcom would sink, he initially asked that his name not appear in the credits.

I read this week that from the moment Shania Twain’s parents’ car slammed into a logging truck in 1967, Shania Twain never had the chance to fully mourn their deaths.  Just 21, Twain took on a great
deal of responsibility for her entire family.  Her singing paid the mortgage on the house she and her three younger siblings lived in.

Shania Twain has been one of country music's hottest stars.  But back then, she sang for her family's survival.  She said, "Taking care of my family
was a blessing in disguise. It was a total distraction from my grief. If you focus instead on people who need you, you may do yourself the biggest favor." Shania did eventually face her grief, as we all need to do, but in that moment of personal confusion and pain she experienced the healing power of extending love to others.

Many things happen in life that can stop us on our road forward towards success. Sometimes it’s misfortunate events, and sometimes it's self-sabotage that stops the forward movement.

God can help.  God can show the way.  God can re-motivate you.  God can help you get employment.  God can influence others to help.

Trying to travel the road towards success of whatever kind you seek, without God's help is a form of self-sabotage.

Ask for God's help today, believing you have received it, so that you can enjoy a more successful life, whatever that means to you.

There is a lot of truth in a tree. A tree is lush at the top. It has leaves. A healthy tree goes far out and gives you shade. But any gardener will tell you that if you water or fertilize the tree, you have to circle, on the ground, the outermost branch line. This is where the ends of the roots are. You cannot see the roots, but they are there.

Here’s the point: a tree is identical on top to what the root system is underneath.

It is the same with us. There is a root system and a foundation in your life.

What are you rooted in, and what’s the depth and breadth of those roots?

It can be a very real, powerful foundation, if you have a solid root system that is grounded in an awareness of the presence of God;

You will bloom on the top of your life.
You will stand up to the winds of your life;
You will stand up to the winters of your life;
You will stand up to anything that comes into your life;

You will sway merrily with the Sun and the gentle breeze, because you have a strong foundation in God.

          We need deep roots in God. We need to unlock that link I spoke about earlier… to the awareness of the Power and Presence of God.

How do we do this?

1.                              We have to consent to the magnificent power of God coming though us.

2.                              We must also get positive friends who believe in us and believe in what we can, and God can, achieve together… not in what we cannot do.

3.                              Pray believing that you have already received.

4.                              And in the words of Molly Friedenfeld, “Focus on faith and grow your roots strong so no one can make you believe in something that is not good for your soul.”

God’s Continuous Upliftment

This service was delivered on August 11, 2013

Does anyone know who invented radar?  It was, with the help of others, a Scotsman, Sir Robert Watson-Watt. In 1952, Watson-Watt was awarded $140,000, the highest award ever made for a wartime invention. Later in life while driving in Canada, he was arrested for speeding, caught in a radar trap.

He wrote a piece of poetry about it titled “Rough Justice.” Here is a portion of it:

 

Pity Sir Robert Watson-Watt
          Strange target of his radar plot.
          And thus with others I could mention,
          A victim of his own invention.

 

Now there’s a great idea to contemplate for ourselves; are we a victim of our own invention? A victim of our life, or the beneficiary of good in our life?

When you got up, this morning, you were an inventor. You invented who you would be in this new day. No outer circumstance, nothing outside of you, determined what it was going to be. It was you, inside of yourself. You opened your eyes, put your feet on the floor, and you started inventing.

And then you started to think about this week, and the master inventor inside of you thought about how this week was going to be. Was it going to be hellish or was it going to be heaven? Every moment inside of ourselves, we invent.

The point here is: we make our own lives.

The question is: will you be a victim of our own invention, or will you bask in the glory of it?

We are not just a Sunday morning religion. It is my joyous job to be here, every Sunday, and to share my insights based upon my thinking, the choices I’ve made and the outcome of those choices much of which is based upon the teachings that Jesus offers on how to live life on Sunday, and Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, Saturday.

You have the rest of the day and a whole new week ahead of you – in fact, a whole new life to be designed as you choose. Time is a gift when we use it properly.  

What are you going to invent in your life with this power you possess? Is your life going to continue in a downward spiral, if that’s the way it’s going? Or is this morning, right now, going to be the turning point where you climb up and out and stay up with God's lifting help, forever and ever?

Let me tell you a story about a man that was in a downward spiral. He was a baking powder salesman, many years ago. No matter how hard he tried, the sales of baking powder were going down and down and down. Well, he had the same daily challenges that we have. He had a couple of kids, a wife, and bills that needed to be paid. But how could they be paid if baking powder wasn’t selling?

He prayed for ideas. He said, “What will make this baking powder sell?” So he got the idea that what he needed to do was to give a premium with the
baking powder. You buy baking powder and you get chewing gum. Well, everyone loved the chewing gum. They loved the chewing gum and nobody wanted the baking powder.

The man got more and more depressed. He wondered, “What am I to do?” He hit bottom. He got on his knees and prayed to God for new ideas. (When you hit bottom do you pray… ask for guidance… or keep on fighting and scrapping in order to try and make your way out?) This message came to him: “The new ideas are staring you right in the face.” He got the idea to drop the baking powder and start selling the gum. His name was William Wrigley.

Notice that Mr. Wrigley asked again… and again he was given help. God never gives up on us!

Everybody has been in a downtime sometime in their life. The problem is, as a child of God, deciding to stay in that downtime instead of getting yourself up and out, once and for all. God never experiences a downtime, and when you are with God, you are always in store for greater things.

Many years ago, a man was in a severe down period in his life. He was a success at a career that he didn’t like, that he had thought before… was everything that he ever wanted in his life, and then he found out that it wasn’t. He wondered, “What in the world am I going to do with my life?” And that is often something that is very distressing to a man or a woman when they get in that situation. He was burned out.  He was depressed.

He began to realize that when he turned to God, he would begin to feel good for a while, and then he would slip back into worrying. He would slip back into distress almost without realizing it. It is almost as if a spring was on his back. He would walk towards God, and then without realizing it, the minute he let his awareness down, he would spring back into his worries about a seeming mountain of problems in front of him.

He thought to himself: “How crazy. It is almost as if the negativity had a magnetic pull on me.” He wondered, “Why do I keep doing this?” He would pray, and he said, “When I was praying I felt great, but then I would slip back. Then, after worrying and having great anxiety for a while in my mind, I would wake up again and say, “What in the world am I doing?”

Maybe you are like this, right now, in your life. This man started to realize that he was king over his own mind; his mind could not rule over him unless he let it run wild. He could make the choices of what he would experience, of what he was going to invent in his day.

He decided that if I am going to have a magnetic pull sucking me back to something, why not reverse it and have the magnetic pull me back to God
awareness. Instead of doing it consciously, he prayed would be able to automatically go into prayer and automatically feel good again, without even realizing what he had done.

The magnetic pull to negativity can be reversed inside of you. If you are in a downward spiral right now, I want to read you something that greatly helped this man when he read it. It is from a book entitled, “What Are You?” by Imelda Shanklin.

“You will have the right kind of confidence in yourself when you have developed a consciousness of your identity with God and God’s identity with you. Encompass yourself with the certainty of God.” (my emphasis)

Something happened to this man. He said, “I cannot even do it justice, now, trying to explain it to you.” He read, “Encompass yourself with the certainty of God,” He thought, “What a beautiful statement.”

Imagine if you, this minute, would encompass yourself with the certainty of God, knowing that your problems are not your problems alone, that you are encompassed in the certainty of God; encompassed, not separated.

You are encompassed in God - completely sealed in God’s protection and God’s good and God’s love. Maintain that awareness and your life will change.

I cannot help but think that a wise and loving Creator must extend continuous permanent good to It’s offspring.” I believe that God does this; and this same power lies in you to possess and mold your thoughts so that it (the goodness, the love, the peace, the prosperity) can come through.

So, today, as you sit here, and in the constant stream of moments to come, inventing this week that is going to be ahead of you, decide right now, that this is going to be the best week that you have ever experienced in your life. This week. It does not matter what is outside of you or had been going on inside of you, because you have the power to remember and stay aware of being encompassed by God. This is the time, right now. And you are going to invent the best week for yourself.

Next week we’ll talk about what keeps us in negativity and how to allow “positive invention” to flow.

 

Practice Your Best

          Today I want to talk about change, loving, and allowing.

Some people make waves and some people make way for things to happen.

          Some people make waves that slow down everybody and every thing. Some people make the way clear for themselves and others to move forward.

          If you wanted to experience health, would you study disease?

          If you wanted joy, would you study depression?

          If you wanted to have a happy marriage, you’d study divorce, right?

          This is the way the world approaches life. We study weaknesses and try to improve or eradicate them in order to have a positive experience.

          This, it seems to me, is how many of us approach our walk along our spiritual path.

          Is this what you’ve been doing… studying your weaknesses in order to bolster your strength?

          Does knowing what does not work make what does work, work?

          Study/ practice what does work in whatever it is you wish to accomplish. “What doesn’t work” will become evident because it will be in glaring contrast to what does work – you won’t have to wonder.

          Sometimes we make the same old decisions that are driven by our weaknesses.  It seems easier, but is it? Is it easier to make the same old choices and stay where we are in awareness when we long for a different experience?   

          Some people say it’s easier to make the wrong decision than it is to make the right decision. In other words it’s easier to do the thing I want to do even though it’s not the thing I know I need to do.

          Really? Is it really easier to do things the same old way that bring the same old results to you in your life… when what you really want is to have a different experience? 

We never get anywhere keeping on with the same attitudes and actions… and we never get anywhere with a defeatist attitude, either.

          I want to share a story with you about the great poet Maya Angelou. When she was young, her grandmother raised her in Stamps, Arkansas. Her
grandmother had a particular routine when people who were known to be whiners entered her store. Whenever the grandmother saw a complainer
coming, she would call Maya from whatever she was doing and say, “Sister, come inside, come.”

Maya said, “Of course, I would obey. My grandmother would ask the customer, ‘How are you doing, today, Brother Thomas?’”

“The person would reply, ‘Oh, not so good.’ There would be a distant whine in the voice. ‘Not so good, today, sister Henderson. It’s this summer heat. I hate it so much, it frazzles me up and it frazzles me down. I just hate the heat. It is almost killing me.’

“Then my grandmother would stand, her arms folded, and mumble, ‘Uh huh, uh huh.’ She would then cut her eyes to me to make certain that I heard the lamentation.

“Another time, a whiner would moan, ‘Oh, I just hate plowing. That packed down dirt, it ain’t got no reasoning; the mules ain’t got no good sense.  It’s killing me. I can never seem to get it done. My feet, my hands are sore; I get dirt in my eyes, and I get dirt up my nose. I just can’t stand it. It is killing me.’

“My grandmother again with her arms folded would stand there and say, ‘Uh huh, uh huh.’ Then she would look at me and nod.

“As soon as the complainer was out of the store, my grandmother would call me to stand in front of her and then she would say the same thing she had said a thousand times before. ‘Sister, did you hear what brother complained about?’

“I would nod, ‘Yes, Grandma.’

“Grandma would continue, ‘Sister, there were people who went to sleep last night, all over the world – rich and poor, black and white – they will never wake up again. Sister, those who expected to rise did not. Those dead folks would give anything for just five minutes of this weather, or ten minutes of plowing the person was grumbling about. You watch yourself about complaining, Sister. What you are supposed to do when you don’t like a thing is change it. If you can’t change it, change the way you think about it. Don’t complain.’”

I recently was counseling someone who said it was hard for them to change because they were stubborn.

Let me tell you how I see “stubborn” in that context: stubbornness is not weakness, stubbornness is misused strength.

It takes a lot of strength to dig your heals in and fight against the pulls and pushes of life and other people (not to mention our own inner struggles). Stubbornness to move off your position when deep down inside you want to is the misuse of strength. 

So, if you’re stubborn, please know that you do have the strength to change. Redirect that strength and it will work for you instead of against you.

In the book of Mark there is a story about the disciples following Jesus on the way. “Then they came to Capernaum; and when He was in the house He asked them, ‘What were you arguing about on the way?’ But they were silent, for on the way they had argued with one another about who was the greatest. He sat down, called the twelve, and said to them, ‘Whoever wants to be first must be last of all, and servant of all.’ Then He took a little child and put it among them; and taking the child in His arms, He said to them, ‘Whoever welcomes one such child in My name welcomes Me, and whoever welcomes Me welcomes not Me, but the one who sent Me.’”

They were not enjoying the way, they were arguing on the way. Can you hear them now? “Well, I’m the greatest because Jesus likes me best.”

“Oh no,” another says, “I’m the greatest because Jesus said this to me three weeks ago.”

Another one said, “Well, I’m the greatest because last night at dinner it was Jesus who asked me to sit next to him.”

Jesus was saying you must love others. I interpret the idea of the first being last and being the servant of all this way: you know that I like to suggest we have the “human being” thing backwards, that we put emphasis on our humanness and our personality as our primary identity. We think we are our bodies. I think the instruction here is that we put the idea that we are primarily human behind the idea that we are Being. In other words, put what was first (human) last and let our personalities and our bodies carry out our spiritually inspired direction/ instruction.

The child represents innocence (purity, incorruptibility, virtue, blamelessness, i.e. God’s Love). Whoever welcomes God’s Love welcomes God, and the way you do that is by extending Love… by living from your Being first.

Rather than exalt yourself; express your gratitude to God. Again, we do this by living from our Being first. This is living from strength first.

I have an “earthly” story here that represents how living from strength serves us best. Leo Hauser tells it in the book, “Five Steps to Success.” The story is about Jim Kaat. Kaat traces his success back to spring training in 1966. The Twins had acquired a new pitching coach, Johnny Sain, who silently watched the pitchers perform. One by one, he called them in for a personal chat.

“Jim,” said Sain, “I’ve been watching you pitch. What are your four best pitches?”

Kaat, knowing his pitching ability well, responded, “Well, my best pitch is my fast ball, then it would be my curve, my slider, and my change-up.”

Sain said, “What pitch do you spend the most time practicing?”

“My slider and my change-up,” said Kaat. “If I could improve those two pitches, I know I could have a good season.”

Sain looked at Kaat, pondering his comments, then he responded, “I see it a little bit differently, Jim. I want you to take a different approach. Work on your fast ball. I know it is your favorite pitch, so go out there and practice and warm up during the games concentrating on your fast ball.

Throw your fast ball 80% to 90% of the time, all year long, and you are going to win a lot of games.”

Kaat left Sain’s office stunned. He had expected expert tips on improving his change-up or his slider. At least Sain could have provided technical advice on smoothing out his curve ball. Telling him to do more of what he already did best didn’t make much sense.

That season, Kaat threw fast ball after fast ball. He thought his arm was going to fall off, but he heeded the advice. That year, 1966, Jim Kaat won 25 games and went on to become pitcher of the year in the American League.

(As an aside. Only 87 other pitches have won more than 25 games in a year since 1900. The chance of a pitcher winning that many games this year is less than 1%!)

My friends, we tend to practice what we are not good at. Practice instead the easiest thing in the world. That is loving yourself, and loving other people. You will realize it is your greatest strength. Even if you’ve underutilized it to this point, or you think you’ve never utilized it, it always has been your greatest strength. If you do this one thing, you will become God's way-maker.

Kathy Lamancusa (Kathy Lamancusa, a nationally known trend strategist, inspirational speaker, She is the founder and editor of the annual magazine "Quilts Are Forever,” and a frequent visitor on HGTV, etc.) tells of her son Joey. When he was born, his feet were twisted upward with the bottoms resting on his tummy. As a first time mother, she thought this looked a bit odd, but she didn’t really know what it meant. It meant that Joey had been born with club feet. The doctors assured her that with treatment he would be able to walk normally, but would never run very well. Joey spent the first three years of his life in surgery, casts, and braces. His legs were massaged; they were worked and exercised. By the time he was seven or eight years old, you would not even know he had a problem when he walked.

If he walked great distances, like at amusement parks, or on a visit to the zoo, he complained that his legs were tired and that they hurt. They would stop walking and talk a break for a soda or an ice cream cone and talk about what they had seen, what they had to see. She said, “We didn’t tell him why his legs hurt and why they were weak. We didn’t tell him that
this was expected due to his deformity at birth. We didn’t tell him so he didn’t know.

“The children in the neighborhood ran around as most children do during play. Joey would watch them play and of course, would jump right in and run and play, too. We never told him he probably wouldn’t be able to do
that, to run as well as the other children. We didn’t tell him he was different. We didn’t tell him so he didn’t know.

“In the seventh grade, he decided to go out for the cross country team. Every day, he trained with the team. He seemed to work harder and to run more than the others. Perhaps he sensed that the abilities which seemed to come naturally to so many others did not come naturally to him. We didn’t tell him that although he could run, he probably would always remain at the back of the pack. We didn’t tell him that he shouldn’t expect to make the team. The team runners are the top seven runners of the school. Although the entire team runs, it is only those seven who have the
potential to score points for the school. We didn’t tell him that probably he would never make the team. And so he didn’t know.

“He continued to run four or five miles a day, every day. I’ll never forget the time when he had 103-degree fever. He couldn’t stay home
because he had a cross country practice and I worried about him all day long. I expected to get a call from the school asking me to get him and
take him home. No one called.

“I went to the cross country training area after school thinking that if I were there, he might decide to skip practice that evening. When I got to school, he was running alongside of a tree-lined street, all alone. I pulled up alongside of him and drove slowly to keep pace with him as he ran. I asked how he felt. “Okay,” he said. He had only two more miles to go. As the sweat rolled down his face, his eyes were glassy from his fever, yet he looked straight ahead and kept running. We never told him that he couldn’t run four miles with 103-degree fever. We never told him so he didn’t know.

“Two weeks later, the day before the second to the last race of the season, the names of the team runners were called. Joey was number six on the list. Joey had made the team. He was in seventh grade; the other six team members were all eighth graders. We never told him that he probably shouldn’t expect to make the team. We never told him that he couldn’t do it, so he didn’t know. He just did it.”

Friends, as humans, we have a tendency to give others our opinion. How much better to give others a piece of God's opinion - which is always optimistic, always positive. God would say to Joey, “Yes there is a WAY! No matter what you have, no matter what obstacle you have faced, no matter what block has come in your life, through My power you can do all things.”

And so it is.