GOD LED, WE JOY IN FOLLOWING

The only way to increase authentic spirituality is to deliberately practice actually enjoying a positive response and a grateful heart. — Richard Rohr, "Daily Meditations," November 29, 2025

It has been said that to have an upgraded life, upgrade your gratitude ...your attitude will follow suit. 

That is a spiritual certainty when we follow it. When we strive for it (our self-determined objective), we shut down our spiritual center by giving over to self.

When we deliberately practice actually enjoying a positive response and a grateful heart, our practice is God-led, and we are followers.

Thank you.

LETTING GO...THINK OF IT!, I

[The following is a reprint of my post of November 29, 2015.]

Except the Lord build the house, they labour in vain that build it. -- Psalm 127

There. That is exactly why, with spiritual growth, the difference between the right way and the wrong way is "the difference between a self-determined objective and the perfect objective which is of God."

Even if the objective is good, beautiful, wholly acceptable in our own eyes, and in the eyes of others, we must know as we breathe, that it is as dust if the Lord's hand is not in it.

Think of all the things that we saw heading our way that we prayed would pass us by. Then on arrival, or at some point thereafter, they became to us obvious gifts from God. Then ponder the things we prayed for...and got!..and bemoaned ever after.

We can never out-think God. His up may very well be our down and/or vice versa. All we are asked to do is accept that. Why is that so easy to preach and so hard to do? The very question causes us to stop and think about it... and there we go, down that wrong road again.

And God loves us anyway. Think of it!

Thank you.

ON LIVING A TURNED-OVER LIFE, I

[The following is a reprint of my post of December 29, 2018.]

Except the Lord build the house, they labor in vain that build it. -- Psalm 127

So the difference between 'the boys and the men' is the difference between striving for a self-determined objective and for the perfect objective which is of God. -- Anonymous

So the difference between relying on the reasoning mind and relying on spiritual consciousness is the difference between striving to build our inner house by our own devices and not striving but trusting our Father within to perfectly lead us through the building and then our living therein.

According to me.

Thank you.

ON BEING LIFTED BY GRACE AND BY GOD

Notes from my journal on this Thanksgiving Day, November 27, 2025:

Blinding flash of the obvious: For this I am alone today: To realize His will for me.

The beginning of this day...NOW...feels to me like my early awakening years when I had no real hope.

Lord, I accept this is evidence of my having made the next turn away from self, upward toward Self. As usual it begins by my feeling all the haunting uns...the unloved, unwanted, unneeded, unappreciated ghosts.

BFO: This is the uns clawing to hold on but being lifted away by grace and by God.

May it be so...thank You, Amen.

Thank you.

SELF IS NOT A RELIABLE GUIDE...HENCE, FAITH

Blinding flash of the obvious: Faith is thank you that this is for my benefit in not needing to respond/top what I perceive as an attack...no matter how minor...or major.

Ah, faith is 'thank You' that this, i.e., everything, is for my benefit.

"This" that is for my benefit is a less-than to my reasoning mind's eye. Not needing to respond/top what I perceive as an attack, no matter how minor or major, is continuing spiritual growth. 

We have no physical/mental control over our upward growth, that is where all spiritual growth pays off...in faith a-borning. 

We do have control over impeding our upward growth...it is self-will. 

The mark of spiritual peace comes with the realization that not all self-will is detrimental. It is, however, spiritual growth that determines when, where and how self-will is called for. Self is not a reliable guide.

Faith accepts that we never stop our upward growth...even after death to this world, God is with us for our benefit. That relieves us of the material mind's worry about the way we die with all its self-centered hangers-on.

God is so good to me and thee and us...we. God is so good.

Thank you.

GRATITUDE, GOD'S PERFECT SOLUTION

Here is the deepest lesson of gratitude, then. We are to be grateful not just in the good times, but also in the bad times; to be grateful not just in plenty, but also in need; to maintain thankfulness not just in laughter, but also through tears and sorrow....You may lose a loved one, or facet after facet of your physical [or mental] health, but you can still be grateful for what you have left. -- Brian McLaren, Richard Rohr Daily Meditations, November 25, 2025

In these dark and dangerous times appearing today, we must needs rely on the God of our own understanding...by doubling down on letting go of our resistance to these times. We double down on letting go by love...love alone resists not evil, according to me.

We remember that God can and will if sought...then we recall God can and will whether sought or not. God does not need our permission...it is our open and inviting heart, mind and soul that ease our way. 

The more we think on that, the more we ponder but how?, and the harder we cling to our wants, or self-determined will and way. Loose it and let it go...which is Thy will, not mine, be done...applies if and as we use it.

Here again, our answer: If the only prayer you ever pray in your lifetime is thank You, that would suffice. -- Meister Eckhart

Thank you.

GO BEYOND REASON TO GOD

We may even prefer a pessimistic certainty to a potentially optimistic uncertainty. —Brian McLaren, "Richard Rohr Daily Meditation," November 22, 2025
 
From my own experience, I know that to be true of me...I prefer to know, quick, fast and in a hurry the outcome of any unknown to me. I recall in high school saying that I'd rather be told bad news than to be told to "wait and see."

The hard lesson we are learning is that staying in the mental process of spiritual growth is well-nigh impossible; being lifted above the mental is the pearl beyond price.

We must go beyond reason to love.

Reason is the go-to of the material mind, and the material mind is not naturally attuned to spiritual growth. It's when the material mind gets shucked of its shields by God that our spiritual growth blossoms...and we go beyond reason to love.

We are beginning, barely beginning, to realize that life itself is beyond reason. Now...now!...our inner being, the place where our Father lives, has opened. 

We have been moved beyond reason, and we live now in gratitude.

Thank you.