Nov 23, 2014

Pondering’s

 

Jesus said: “seek first the Kingdom of God, and all else will be granted to you.” Matt. 6:13 Matt. 6:13. This approach is what I call abundance. The most common term tossed around today is Prosperity, which to me at least, denotes material richness. By those teaching prosperity, such as the writings of “The Secret”, talk about wealth,, and other physical and material gains in life.

But I have found that peace of mind and soul is far more important to life than wealth. Now gaining abundance could include wealth as well as peace of mind, but a rich life is filled with peace of mind and self-assurance more than wealth. Sure a nice car is good, a larger home is nice, and a comfortable life style is important, as well as good health, etc. but to put it bluntly, having all that and not having peace of mind makes life miserable. Look at Robin Williams. He had everything that could be desired, really big home, fancy cars, fame, etc., but he found life so difficult to live that he eventually was driven to suicide. How sad.

 

Therefore I will not use the term “Prosperity”, but will use the term “Abundance”. I believe, from my 80 years experience, that living a life of Abundance, that is, in acceptance of my life as it is right now, is the peak of living a full life, no matter what the external conditions are.

 

Now, have I lived a life of complete Abundance all my 80 years? No way, far from it. Yet, despite that I have not lived a life of complete Abundance all this time, my life has been filled with Abundance whether I was fully aware of that fact or not. I was always able to live close to the moment, and not be too concerned about the future, while being careful not to indulge and keeping close track of expenses and all. After all, raising 7 children takes care and a certain amount of planning. We always had a nice house, large enough to house all of us (right now we have five bedrooms for the two of us, but even that is not large enough when all come home with families.)

 

The key lies in the first part of that saying of Jesus that I quote at the start: “Seek first the Kingdom of God”, for then, only then, does the second part work “All these things will be given to you“. Now I do not believe that Jesus was speaking of physical wealth, what would be big cars, large homes, etc. No, Jesus was speaking of sufficiency and internal peace, or peace of mind.

 

Now, I will admit, that my life has led to a very comfortable life, much to my amazement. I did not seek what I now have, even though I dreamt and expected to live comfortably by the time I reached my present age of 80. I have worked all my life, and have finally decided to end my daily involvement with my company. I suspect it will take my some time to move even further away, since I own half of the company, and am on the email trail of events, and two of our sons work there. So it will take some will power to prevent myself from becoming more involved than I wish to be involved right now.

 

But all of our married life both my wife and myself have involved ourselves in our search for God. We were usually satisfied where we were at, but always looking, listening, praying, and studying to understand God’s presence in our lives. Somehow we always, always, trusted God would guide us to the next appropriate spot where we were supposed to share our faith and knowledge with others, hopefully being a funnel for the Word of God in our world.

 

Yes, both of us pray, every day. Over the years often the prayer was short (remember 7 children?) but always there. We were aware that God spoke through humans, and would try as well as we were able at any given time to be aware of the working of God in our life. Sometimes we struggled with life, sometimes it was hard, but we always, always, spent time and a few minutes a day immersed into the Spirit of God.

 

And we knew, just knew, that God was with us, guiding us, pushing us, sometimes slamming us on the side of the head (or so it seemed), to follow the path that lay before us. Usually only the next step would appear, sometimes just moments before we took the step, or even after we had taken the step in blind faith, but we always knew that we would be all right. Yes, that is confidence in God, and that is the path to Abundance. Not will power to keep ones desires central in mind, not writing lists and intense concentration, just the confidence in the Will of God to see us happy, to exercise God’s Love to us, to ride the Love of God in every moment.

 

God, in the form of the universe, gives us precisely what lies in our heart. Ok, that sounds faulty, since so much of the time our life is so difficult, but what is the thought, the feeling, that lies in our deepest heart? Not in our thoughts, but in our heart. This is the key to Abundance. Do we believe that we do not have it, and therefore must pray to have it in the future? Well guess what. If we believe we do not have it right now, in our deepest part of our heart, then we will not have it in the next Now, and the Next Now. The universe, or the right hand of God, works to satisfy our deepest thought. In fact, it always, always satisfies our deepest beliefs about Who We Are. If we believe that we are not worthy of the blessings of God, the Eternal Wisdom, the Universe, then guess what — we will “not be worthy”, and we will fail to achieve that goal.

 

The secret of the universe is that it always gives us what we believe. Not what we spout and not what we think, but what lies in our deepest thoughts and beliefs. This is the key to Abundance. Our deepest beliefs must hold to truth: I am worthy. One of the greatest disservice our religions have foisted upon us is that we are not worthy. Yet it says one of the great truths of the bible in Genesis 1:27 is that God “Made man in God’s own image, in God’s Image he made them.” Our religions have pounded into us our entire lives that we are NOT worthy, ignoring that we are made in the very image of God. (I will talk about this in the future sometime, but not now.) and because we believe we are not worthy, we can not believe that God really really loves us, and grants us anything we desire and truly believe about ourselves.

 

Somehow I always knew that I AM worthy, that God really, really loves me, that God can make anything I believe happen in a form that is the very best for me at that stage of my life, that all will be well. That is the goal if Abundance is to be a firm part of your life.

 

What ever is going on, all will be well. All will be well!

 

You must believe that you are worthy. I must believe that I am worthy. It does not matter what I did. It does not matter how much I have strayed. I am worthy, because I am in the image of God. Nothing else matters. You are worthy because you and God are one being, having the same ability to achieve everything possible. I, you, are limited by what we believe, not by what may occur. Jesus said “Greater things than this shall you do.” Jesus preceded that with “if you have the faith of a mustard seed.” Matt. 17:20. How do we deny what is so clear? Because our religions do not want us to truly understand, that we have the capacity to do all the Jesus said we could do, if we but have the faith of the mustard seed.

 

If we have faith, or to more blunt, if we have the knowledge that indeed we are worthy, we can achieve anything that we truly desire, and as Jesus said, Anything we desire.

 

We we ready to try that approach? Our religions do not want us to do that, but are you, am I, willing to try that approach?

 

Meditation

 

O Holy Wisdom, you have given us the gift of Yourself, ensured that all we truly believe is ours. We bow in gratitude for these marvelous gifts, these perfect gifts, for all that we have which reflect all we believe about ourselves. You have blessed us with beauty in our lives, from the breathtaking beauty of the new born child to the fluttering butterfly to the majestic mountains. Truly we live in paradise. Help us to open our eyes as we see the unfolding events of our life, to see the perfection that lies within, from birth to death. Thank you for helping us see Your Wonders of Life as seeing Your perfection in all.