ACCEPTANCE, THE ROOT OF THANK YOU

Never seek anything or any condition in prayer. Let harmony define and reveal itself. Let your prayer be letting the IS appear. -- Joel Goldsmith, "The Heart of Mysticism," at p. 790.

We have a defect of character that has finally become an irritant to us...to our friends' relief, I might add. The usual path is that we decide we're going to stop doing/thinking/feeling/being that.

We can't.

We immediately start praying for God to remove the shortcoming, and we discover that anything we ask God to remove then owns us. The problem, of course, is that we are in truth telling God what to do and how to do it. We are binding ourselves to our defect ever more tightly and calling it prayer.

We remember that our prayer must ever be, "Thank you." That is all. As Meister Eckhart wrote, "If 'thank you' is the only prayer you ever say, that will suffice."

The root of our thank you is acceptance...it is that root that we nurture unto full growth that changes all. That is the aligning of our will with God's will, the working with rather than working for...with God, for self.

Our thoughts will go back to our perceived problem. Repeatedly. We welcome them. The instant we resist them, they've won again, and we'll not realize it until we're dragging butt, crying the blues, hoping nobody can tell.

Again, we go to our "Thank you, God, for my everything just as it is right this very minute." We are opening our mind...changing our mind quite simply. Changing our mind from "I know what I need" to "God knows what I need. Knock yourself out, God. And thank you."

Thank you.