Monday, June 22, 2009

Seeing your life through the spiritual sense of the Lord's Prayer

"Give us this day our daily bread."
Give us grace for today; feed the famished affections.

What if you accepted - right now - that you have a perfect life? that you have perfect work to do, perfect love to share, a perfect home to live in, a perfect relationship to enjoy?

OK so you're thinking "what? are you nuts??"

And yes, to the "normal" sense of things, accepting something like this is probably ludicrous if not downright nuts.

But intuitively, you know that there is something more to Life than just what your circumstances currently look like.

You know that things aren't always as fixed or final as they seem. You know that, even when things are dark, that there's always a little light somewhere, that there is something more, something good going on.

And you know that if you quiet the fear down, you can feel it intuitively.

And that is because we all have more than just our senses to tell us what's going on in the world. We also have spiritual sense.

"Spiritual sense, contradicting the material senses, involves intuition, hope, faith, understanding, fruition, reality."

Spiritual sense leads you to see things in a different way. It leads you to see openings. Inituitively you know there are good things going on. Your expectancy - hope - sensitizes you to every glimmer of good. Your faithfulness to that expectancy let's you act in positive helpful ways. And that faithfulness awakens you to understand where your life and love really live. You begin to taste the fruits of your prayer and your labor. You begin to wake up to what really matters. You start to see Life as a blessing.

And this is exactly how God sees you:
  • Already blessed.
  • Already happy, pleased, content.
  • Already whole, healthy, and holy.
  • Already complete.
In other words, already His image and likeness!

So how would you feel if you accepted this as true? How would you act? What would you do? How would you think about your life - right now - if you accepted God's view of it?

And what if you understood that God's view of you is the only view that is actually correct!

OK so that is hard to accept sometimes. Maybe all the time. And yes, you can refuse to accept this and act according to what your material senses are telling you.

But you actually have a choice.
  • You can accept God's view of you.
  • And you can act according to what your spiritual senses are telling you.
It is always your choice. And it is always just a mental switch:
  • from looking at all the lack you see, to feeling gratitude for even the smallest goodness
  • from feeling separated from love, to actively living Love
  • from thinking you're all on your own, to awakening to your existing likeness to God

Practice doing this and see how it changes the way you see your life and your world and the way you "live and move and breathe" in it.

Remember, God sees you as already supplied with every good idea, as greatly needed and dearly loved.

"Whither shall I go from thy spirit? or whither shall I flee from thy presence?
If I ascend up into heaven, thou art there: if I make my bed in hell, behold, thou art there.
If I take the wings of the morning, and dwell in the uttermost parts of the sea;
Even there shall thy hand lead me, and thy right hand shall hold me.
If I say, Surely the darkness shall cover me; even the night shall be light about me.
"

This is more than just poetry. And it is certainly more than just another blog entry. This really is how much God actually loves you.

Let God reveal His love to you. Open your eyes to what is possible, to what He has prepared for you, to what His holy purpose is for you.

It may be that your circumstances won't change much. Or it may be that they will change a lot. Either way, a wonderful preacher once said: "keep your eyes off your circumstances and keep them on the Lord."

And your intuition will guide you to where you need to be and what you need to do. The love in your heart will awaken you to the good already around you. And your spiritual senses will never fail you, but always lead you to exactly where you will grow the most.

Mrs. Eddy poem "Feed My Sheep" says it this way: "I will listen for Thy voice, lest my footsteps stray. I will follow, and rejoice all the rugged way."

The path may be rough and rocky, but that means you are at a point of great growth and opportunity. Listen to your honest intuition and hasten to follow it. Blessings will flow as naturally as flowers bloom after rain.

Give us this day our daily companioning with You Father, our daily communion with You, our daily experience of You.

And give us grace for today - not only Your unconditional Love, but Your peace and joy and power! And feed our famished affections that we may feed the famished affections of those around us. That we may be Your image and likeness in deed and in Truth.

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