That I accept myself just as I am is still a wonder to me.
That I believe I am loved...that I know I am loved...is still a wonder to me.
Even more wondrous...I know that I love.
And more wondrous than that: I know that I love whether I am loved in return or not...for it is not love from God and others, but love to God and others, that changes lives, brings peace, soothes the Soul.
God is love.
Thank You.
Sunday, April 15, 2012
Saturday, April 14, 2012
TRUTHS I SEEK TO PROVE
When My disciple sees My purpose ahead, that very sight is the power that clears away every obstacle along that range of vision....People waste so much time in seeking to work out what they see. I declare to you that in the seeing My purpose all is done. -- God Calling, April 14
I will go before thee, and make the crooked places straight. -- Isaiah 45:2
The battle is not yours; it is God's. -- Joel Goldsmith, "Leave Your Nets"
He performth that which is given me to do. -- Somewhere in the Bible.
You meant it for ill, but God meant it for good. -- Genesis 45:8, paraphrased
My "bad" is more important to me than God's "good." -- Personal note dated 5/1/81
To receive miraculous healing and yet to be able to refrain from personal glory in the achievement is most difficult. All that they were entitled to was gratitude that they had been called and that the Power was working through them -- not that they had the power. The Power was working through them, but it could work through them only in proportion to their humility, and the true sense of humility is not any detraction or depreciation of one's self: it is a realization of one's greatness in having been called to be a servant of that power, which is true paradox. -- Copied from unknown source, dated 10/5/78.
There has to be a recognition of an Infinite Invisible...there has to be an inner realization of that Presence.
Now comes the part that makes the "belly bitter"...the living of these truths. -- Joel Goldsmith
Thank You.
I will go before thee, and make the crooked places straight. -- Isaiah 45:2
The battle is not yours; it is God's. -- Joel Goldsmith, "Leave Your Nets"
He performth that which is given me to do. -- Somewhere in the Bible.
You meant it for ill, but God meant it for good. -- Genesis 45:8, paraphrased
My "bad" is more important to me than God's "good." -- Personal note dated 5/1/81
To receive miraculous healing and yet to be able to refrain from personal glory in the achievement is most difficult. All that they were entitled to was gratitude that they had been called and that the Power was working through them -- not that they had the power. The Power was working through them, but it could work through them only in proportion to their humility, and the true sense of humility is not any detraction or depreciation of one's self: it is a realization of one's greatness in having been called to be a servant of that power, which is true paradox. -- Copied from unknown source, dated 10/5/78.
There has to be a recognition of an Infinite Invisible...there has to be an inner realization of that Presence.
Now comes the part that makes the "belly bitter"...the living of these truths. -- Joel Goldsmith
Thank You.
Friday, April 13, 2012
CLOSER, KINDER WORKS
I am proving to myself again (how long, oh Lord!) that my conscience is a power within me, and I am powerless over it. That about half way peeves me...yet, what did I think I was working so hard to achieve when I started out on this path?
I did step on Judd's toes because I chose to be provoked by him who, I know full well, provokes me just by breathing...how spiritual is that? He is reacting in kind...provoked, and I am now mentally justifying, wrangling, resisting Judd's resistance. With my conscience saying, "You can justify till your face falls off...then you gotta do right."
I know him to be a pebble in my shoe, I know to go closer, be kinder, seek to understand rather than to be understood. Yet I went with my ego and virtually slung mud in my own face. I am grateful that I know from my own experience that closer, kinder works...and that that is the only thing that works in getting me over me.
The splinter of good: I know I am the source of all my woes so I'll go to Judd through God and be willing to follow directions.
Thank You.
I did step on Judd's toes because I chose to be provoked by him who, I know full well, provokes me just by breathing...how spiritual is that? He is reacting in kind...provoked, and I am now mentally justifying, wrangling, resisting Judd's resistance. With my conscience saying, "You can justify till your face falls off...then you gotta do right."
I know him to be a pebble in my shoe, I know to go closer, be kinder, seek to understand rather than to be understood. Yet I went with my ego and virtually slung mud in my own face. I am grateful that I know from my own experience that closer, kinder works...and that that is the only thing that works in getting me over me.
The splinter of good: I know I am the source of all my woes so I'll go to Judd through God and be willing to follow directions.
Thank You.
Thursday, April 12, 2012
"GRANT WHAT THOU COMMANDEST..."
I came across a note I wrote in my God Calling on this day in 1980: "...my being ruled by 'slight provocations' has determined my life choices." That's another one of those truths, like "Gossip is the glue that held my family together," a fact I learned in therapy, yea many years ago.
Putting them both down in black and white, I can see the ribbon running through. If gossip is the glue that holds the family together, then slight provocations will become the determiner of what to do or not to do just to avoid being the goat, the one gossiped about. Looking good...appearing well put together...sounding smart. All facade, all ego-driven, all self-based resulting in a totally self-protected life.
I have often thought that I am great in no alternative situations...I can hit acceptance in a heartbeat if I have no alternative. But how many no alternative situations do we get in life? Relatively few in my life...yet, in looking back, it seems like I was forever having options to take and decisions to make. With slight provocations being the determiner, I've quit jobs, dropped friends and loves, made cross-country moves. Some have even been for the better, but it's like the oldie about even a broken clock being right twice a day. A hard way to live one's life.
Of necessity, this is where I lived when there was no spiritual guidance in my life. I always believed in the existence of God in the universe, I just had no knowledge of a personal loving higher power.
Today, one of my favorite quotes is Saint Augustine's prayer: "Grant what thou commandest and then command what thou will." That's the ultimate security in the turning over of oneself...which is essential if one is ever to leave the ego-driven, self-protected life.
Thank You.
Putting them both down in black and white, I can see the ribbon running through. If gossip is the glue that holds the family together, then slight provocations will become the determiner of what to do or not to do just to avoid being the goat, the one gossiped about. Looking good...appearing well put together...sounding smart. All facade, all ego-driven, all self-based resulting in a totally self-protected life.
I have often thought that I am great in no alternative situations...I can hit acceptance in a heartbeat if I have no alternative. But how many no alternative situations do we get in life? Relatively few in my life...yet, in looking back, it seems like I was forever having options to take and decisions to make. With slight provocations being the determiner, I've quit jobs, dropped friends and loves, made cross-country moves. Some have even been for the better, but it's like the oldie about even a broken clock being right twice a day. A hard way to live one's life.
Of necessity, this is where I lived when there was no spiritual guidance in my life. I always believed in the existence of God in the universe, I just had no knowledge of a personal loving higher power.
Today, one of my favorite quotes is Saint Augustine's prayer: "Grant what thou commandest and then command what thou will." That's the ultimate security in the turning over of oneself...which is essential if one is ever to leave the ego-driven, self-protected life.
Thank You.
Wednesday, April 11, 2012
LET GOD SHOW ME
Again, I ponder the quote from my season of lent book: "Bring out of the shadows those parts of me that have been put under a ban or kept out of the light. Let God show me what they mean to Him and how He is redeeming them."
It is not for my reasoning mind to understand for it will analyze to justify and then analyze the justifications. It is for me to let God show me what they mean to Him. For me to let God show me how He is redeeming them.
Thank You.
It is not for my reasoning mind to understand for it will analyze to justify and then analyze the justifications. It is for me to let God show me what they mean to Him. For me to let God show me how He is redeeming them.
Thank You.
Tuesday, April 10, 2012
GOD'S GRACE RUSHES OUT FROM WITHIN
To "sow to the Spirit" is to place all reliance, all trust, all hope in a higher power deep within. That is to turn from our ego-victory reasoning mind and reap the things of the Spirit.
It was only by divorcing myself from my own opinion that I realized that truth. It was my opinion that I could or should be able to get my self-determined needs met by thinking, by analyzing, plotting, planning. This is arm wrestling with God, a no-win proposition.
Our very problems, through our own reasoning-mind efforts to overcome them, only grow bigger and uglier...until we experience that grand and glorious sensation of crashing and burning. Only then do we reach for help from an unknown, unseen source. Only then can God's grace rush out from within to save us from our own self-determined fix-it objectives...in Its own way, in Its own time.
It's a whole new way of thinking to be grateful, and sincerely grateful, for all my worries as they are happening...a loved one's health, my petty peeves, my I'm right/you're wrong mental games. It is when I achieve that, that I am free and do know a complete reliance on God.
Failure of aid from outside sources opens me to my "complete reliance on that which heretofore has never been experienced...the Infinite Invisible" which brings the realization that "My grace is sufficient for thee."
Thank You.
It was only by divorcing myself from my own opinion that I realized that truth. It was my opinion that I could or should be able to get my self-determined needs met by thinking, by analyzing, plotting, planning. This is arm wrestling with God, a no-win proposition.
Our very problems, through our own reasoning-mind efforts to overcome them, only grow bigger and uglier...until we experience that grand and glorious sensation of crashing and burning. Only then do we reach for help from an unknown, unseen source. Only then can God's grace rush out from within to save us from our own self-determined fix-it objectives...in Its own way, in Its own time.
It's a whole new way of thinking to be grateful, and sincerely grateful, for all my worries as they are happening...a loved one's health, my petty peeves, my I'm right/you're wrong mental games. It is when I achieve that, that I am free and do know a complete reliance on God.
Failure of aid from outside sources opens me to my "complete reliance on that which heretofore has never been experienced...the Infinite Invisible" which brings the realization that "My grace is sufficient for thee."
Thank You.
Monday, April 9, 2012
THE GREATEST OF ALL PRAYERS
To be completely caught up in fretful prayer for any righteous reason is to be completely caught up in self...there is no God there.
It becomes fairly easy to understand that being caught up in praying for one's self, be it for power, glory or security, is self-centered and not of God.
It becomes trickier when we allow ourselves to believe that God will approve and grant our prayer if it's for a just or noble cause, or a dear one's health, or our country. That, in fact, is simply a wish...there is no God in wishes either.
What makes that particularly hard to comprehend is that occasionally our so-called prayer is answered and answered exactly as we asked for it. That may be the human condition or it may be karma whichever you choose to go with. I doubt anyone has ever kept track of the unintended consequence of those answered requests, but it would make for interesting reading.
Today, prayer to me is based first in my accepting unto walking around truth that God does know each and every person's needs, does have each one's back, has already taken care of any perceived problem and taken care of it for each one's own personal benefit.
If we are ever to do God's will, or to even want to do God's will, our job is to accept that God's idea of fixing a problem beneficially is not our idea...and opening to a whole new understanding of "beneficially."
Once I am secure in my base of acceptance (which means I've quit thinking, analyzing, bargaining), I can pray the greatest of all prayers: "Thank You."
Thank You.
It becomes fairly easy to understand that being caught up in praying for one's self, be it for power, glory or security, is self-centered and not of God.
It becomes trickier when we allow ourselves to believe that God will approve and grant our prayer if it's for a just or noble cause, or a dear one's health, or our country. That, in fact, is simply a wish...there is no God in wishes either.
What makes that particularly hard to comprehend is that occasionally our so-called prayer is answered and answered exactly as we asked for it. That may be the human condition or it may be karma whichever you choose to go with. I doubt anyone has ever kept track of the unintended consequence of those answered requests, but it would make for interesting reading.
Today, prayer to me is based first in my accepting unto walking around truth that God does know each and every person's needs, does have each one's back, has already taken care of any perceived problem and taken care of it for each one's own personal benefit.
If we are ever to do God's will, or to even want to do God's will, our job is to accept that God's idea of fixing a problem beneficially is not our idea...and opening to a whole new understanding of "beneficially."
Once I am secure in my base of acceptance (which means I've quit thinking, analyzing, bargaining), I can pray the greatest of all prayers: "Thank You."
Thank You.
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