"Forgive us our debts as we forgive our debtors."
And Love is reflected in love.
You are forgiven as you forgive.
Forgiveness happens for you at the moment you forgive another. And you are forgiven in the exact same manner as you forgive another.
So don't wait! Forgive now. And don't be stingy! Forgive generously, completely, whole-heartedly, honestly.
And then be ready. Divine Love will be reflected in love. Your love, your forgiveness of another, will be Divine Love itself moving through you, reflected by you, as you.
You will be forgiven as you forgive. This is Divine Love being reflected in you-as-love-made-manifest.
And Divine Love - made manifest - is the greatest healing force there is in the entire universe.
Saturday, November 28, 2009
Monday, November 16, 2009
Prayer, spiritual sense, and being childlike
"Thy will be done in earth as it is in heaven."
Enable us to know, as in heaven, so on earth, God is omnipotent, supreme.
"And Jesus called a little child unto him, and set him in the midst of them, And said, Verily I say unto you, Except ye be converted, and become as little children, ye shall not enter into the kingdom of heaven."
"Spiritual sense, contradicting the material senses, involves intuition, hope, faith, understanding, fruition, reality."
What a beautiful thing spiritual sense is! And how important it is as a way to understand how to pray.
But sometimes we forget to get past the intuitions of good that come to us. We don't notice them enough. We don't acknowledge their value and power. We don't move to the next step: HOPE! EXPECTANCY!
Notice how children - when they know something good is coming - absolutely clamor with expectancy! Their joy is contagious. They pester you non-stop until they have what you've promised them.
Isn't this exactly how we should pray to our Father-Mother God? with that intense expectancy of good coming our way?
And notice too how a child will treasure a hoped-for gift. Once it's received, they'll take it with them everywhere, telling everyone about it, showing it to their friends. They might even sleep with it!
Do you do that with your prayer? Do you so joyfully receive that inspiration that you wrap yourself up with it and joyfully take it with you everywhere you go? even sleep with it?
If so, then you're exercising your childlike spiritual sense. And that leads you to understanding - reason as well as revelation. Then can fruition - results! - be far behind?
Hasn't your child-like joy lifted you a little higher where you see the clouds "melting into such thinness" that you begin to see that God has always been with you, always there caring for you, always bringing you the intution, the thought, that you need to take the next sure step?
And with your hand in God's, like a child walking safely with his parent, you see His reality is always already present. Right where you are. Whole, healthy, holy. Just like God made you. His image and likeness. His loved child.
Approaching spiritual sense with that childlike expectancy and faithfulness makes your desires, your prayers, agents of awakening.
"Desire is prayer. And no loss can occur from trusting God with our desires that they may be moulded and exalted before they take form in words and in deeds."
Desire is prayer - a prayer that awakens you to the answer already here and now in fulfillment: God's will is already done in you, as you, for you, in completeness, in Life, Truth, and Love.
May your childlike heart receive this gift with joy - and act on it! And even sleep with it!
Enable us to know, as in heaven, so on earth, God is omnipotent, supreme.
"And Jesus called a little child unto him, and set him in the midst of them, And said, Verily I say unto you, Except ye be converted, and become as little children, ye shall not enter into the kingdom of heaven."
"Spiritual sense, contradicting the material senses, involves intuition, hope, faith, understanding, fruition, reality."
What a beautiful thing spiritual sense is! And how important it is as a way to understand how to pray.
But sometimes we forget to get past the intuitions of good that come to us. We don't notice them enough. We don't acknowledge their value and power. We don't move to the next step: HOPE! EXPECTANCY!
Notice how children - when they know something good is coming - absolutely clamor with expectancy! Their joy is contagious. They pester you non-stop until they have what you've promised them.
Isn't this exactly how we should pray to our Father-Mother God? with that intense expectancy of good coming our way?
And notice too how a child will treasure a hoped-for gift. Once it's received, they'll take it with them everywhere, telling everyone about it, showing it to their friends. They might even sleep with it!
Do you do that with your prayer? Do you so joyfully receive that inspiration that you wrap yourself up with it and joyfully take it with you everywhere you go? even sleep with it?
If so, then you're exercising your childlike spiritual sense. And that leads you to understanding - reason as well as revelation. Then can fruition - results! - be far behind?
Hasn't your child-like joy lifted you a little higher where you see the clouds "melting into such thinness" that you begin to see that God has always been with you, always there caring for you, always bringing you the intution, the thought, that you need to take the next sure step?
And with your hand in God's, like a child walking safely with his parent, you see His reality is always already present. Right where you are. Whole, healthy, holy. Just like God made you. His image and likeness. His loved child.
Approaching spiritual sense with that childlike expectancy and faithfulness makes your desires, your prayers, agents of awakening.
"Desire is prayer. And no loss can occur from trusting God with our desires that they may be moulded and exalted before they take form in words and in deeds."
Desire is prayer - a prayer that awakens you to the answer already here and now in fulfillment: God's will is already done in you, as you, for you, in completeness, in Life, Truth, and Love.
May your childlike heart receive this gift with joy - and act on it! And even sleep with it!
Thursday, November 12, 2009
Desire is prayer
"Give us this day our daily bread."
Give us grace for today; feed the famished affections.
Mrs. Eddy makes this remarkable - and radical - observation at the beginning of her book "Science & Health, with Key to the Scriptures":
"Thoughts unspoken are not unknown to the divine Mind. Desire is prayer; and no loss can occur from trusting God with our desires, that they may be moulded and exalted before they take form in words and in deeds."
Desire is prayer? Really?
Yes, if you really think about it, desire is probably the most perfect and honest form of prayer.
And Mrs. Eddy doesn't stipulate that your desire has to be good, bad or indifferent. What matters is where that desire, that "prayer," is directed!
What's interesting about real desire is, it isn't fake. We all know we've prayed because we're supposed to or because it's expected or because we're scared not to or because we want to look good. But that's just talk. That's not prayer.
Desire is prayer. Desire is urgent and insistent and often wordless and even more often unspoken. It is rarely - if ever - fake. It comes from somewhere deeper than human will. I comes from somewhere more honest than human speech. It comes from somewhere deep within.
But how many times have you felt you could actually trust your genuine burning desires over to God? Don't we more often want to hide our desires from God because we don't think they're good enough or right enough or even honorable enough?
But what if you did start trusting your desires over to God? What if you knew He not only wanted you to trust Him with them, but that He would actually mold them into something beautiful for you and exalt them beyond your expectations - before they take form in word or deed?
But this is exactly what Mrs. Eddy is alerting us all to do: to trust your true desires to God. And to know that He will mold your desires and exalt them into something beautiful and real and spiritually good - into something He would really want for you, His precious child.
You could really then say that the "desire" you feel is actually the birth-pang of Reality - of God's insistant making of you into His likeness. That honest yearning from deep within you, wordless maybe, certainly strong and urgent - is telling you something fundamental about what God wants you to awake to.
Could your desire then actually be God's perfect will for you - maybe viewed "through a glass, darkly" - clamouring to be born in you, as you? to be recognized by you, as you? all glorious within / without, whole, healthy, holy? abundant, complete, fulfilled, awakening to what is already true? to what is already you as God's image and likeness?
Accept the awakening that your genuine desires entail. Accept your desires honestly, maybe even wordlessly just feel them. And then lift them up to God. Trust them to Him. Offer up all of your desires to Him. And through this honest real prayer of yours you will see your desires molded and exalted to be exactly like what God has already prepared especially for you. Accept this! and trust no subsitutes!
His daily Bread of Life will feed all your desires fully as you trust them to Him.
So recieve His grace for today. Let it calm any anxiety you have about your desires. Let His Love instruct you and free you. His Love feeds all hungering desires, all famished affections.
Give us grace for today; feed the famished affections.
Mrs. Eddy makes this remarkable - and radical - observation at the beginning of her book "Science & Health, with Key to the Scriptures":
"Thoughts unspoken are not unknown to the divine Mind. Desire is prayer; and no loss can occur from trusting God with our desires, that they may be moulded and exalted before they take form in words and in deeds."
Desire is prayer? Really?
Yes, if you really think about it, desire is probably the most perfect and honest form of prayer.
And Mrs. Eddy doesn't stipulate that your desire has to be good, bad or indifferent. What matters is where that desire, that "prayer," is directed!
What's interesting about real desire is, it isn't fake. We all know we've prayed because we're supposed to or because it's expected or because we're scared not to or because we want to look good. But that's just talk. That's not prayer.
Desire is prayer. Desire is urgent and insistent and often wordless and even more often unspoken. It is rarely - if ever - fake. It comes from somewhere deeper than human will. I comes from somewhere more honest than human speech. It comes from somewhere deep within.
But how many times have you felt you could actually trust your genuine burning desires over to God? Don't we more often want to hide our desires from God because we don't think they're good enough or right enough or even honorable enough?
But what if you did start trusting your desires over to God? What if you knew He not only wanted you to trust Him with them, but that He would actually mold them into something beautiful for you and exalt them beyond your expectations - before they take form in word or deed?
But this is exactly what Mrs. Eddy is alerting us all to do: to trust your true desires to God. And to know that He will mold your desires and exalt them into something beautiful and real and spiritually good - into something He would really want for you, His precious child.
You could really then say that the "desire" you feel is actually the birth-pang of Reality - of God's insistant making of you into His likeness. That honest yearning from deep within you, wordless maybe, certainly strong and urgent - is telling you something fundamental about what God wants you to awake to.
Could your desire then actually be God's perfect will for you - maybe viewed "through a glass, darkly" - clamouring to be born in you, as you? to be recognized by you, as you? all glorious within / without, whole, healthy, holy? abundant, complete, fulfilled, awakening to what is already true? to what is already you as God's image and likeness?
Accept the awakening that your genuine desires entail. Accept your desires honestly, maybe even wordlessly just feel them. And then lift them up to God. Trust them to Him. Offer up all of your desires to Him. And through this honest real prayer of yours you will see your desires molded and exalted to be exactly like what God has already prepared especially for you. Accept this! and trust no subsitutes!
His daily Bread of Life will feed all your desires fully as you trust them to Him.
So recieve His grace for today. Let it calm any anxiety you have about your desires. Let His Love instruct you and free you. His Love feeds all hungering desires, all famished affections.
Saturday, November 7, 2009
If you always think what you've always thought, you always get what you've always got!
"Thy will be done in earth as it is in heaven."
Enable us to know, as in heaven, so on earth, God is omnipotent, supreme.
Did you ever stop to think that God enables you to know how to live a heavenly - God-filled - life right here on earth?
So how about you start accepting this? How about you change your thinking? your attitude? even your "bad"-itude?
It's time to change it up!
Cuz, like the old saying goes, if you always think what you've always thought, you're always gonna get what you've always got!
So how do you start?
By being grateful.
Grateful for what?
Look around you. Even if you are in the most dire circumstances, there is always something you can be grateful for - even if it is your own sense of humor!
And the more you look the more you'll see and the more you see the more you'll be... grateful.
And then notice this: when you're grateful, you shift your perspective. You change your thinking. You start to wake up maybe even to possibility.
This is how you get past "getting what you've always got."
Gratitude wakes you up. It changes how you think about your life right now. It enables you to know - to recognize - that God, good, is already present in your life. You start to notice goodness all around you. This is "magnifying" the Lord's blessings by being aware of them and grateful for them. You really start to see God's goodness everywhere.
Now the "hard" part of gratitude:
Act on it.
Yep, you got to put that gratitude into action.
Find that gratitude and act on it!
Let divine Love, be God in your thought first and then in your life. Let the Love of God be what you focus on, what you look for, what you live for.
And choose to refuse whatever thoughts come to you that are unhappy, depressing, demoralizing, mean, selfish, habitual - all thoughts that are unlike God. Why? because it is your divine right to listen to what is most like God, to what is good and true.
This is not hiding from reality. This is embracing God's reality. It is letting go of having only a human perspective, and opening up to the divine perspective. This is also "magnifying the Lord" - making what is true about God BIG in your thought!
The old hymn says:
"He knows the angels [spiritual thoughts] that you need, and sends them to your side, to comfort, guard, and guide."
As it says in Isaiah (30:21):
"Your ears shall hear a word behind you, saying,
'This is the way, walk in it,'
Whenever you turn to the right hand
Or whenever you turn to the left."
God enables us to know - to listen for these angel thoughts, these uplifting naturally spiritual intuitions that tell us all about our inate goodness and peace and joy and power - about our likeness, our closeness to God. And when we listen to God, He gives us the natural spiritual intuition to guide us into beautiful new ways of thinking and living, into hope and faith and understanding.
We change our thought to be more like His.
And God awakens our life.
Thy will be done in earth - in our thought - as it is in heaven - as it is in Divine Mind.
God enables us to know, as it is in heaven - in His reality - so right here where we are on earth, Divine Mind is the only power; He is supreme.
Enable us to know, as in heaven, so on earth, God is omnipotent, supreme.
Did you ever stop to think that God enables you to know how to live a heavenly - God-filled - life right here on earth?
So how about you start accepting this? How about you change your thinking? your attitude? even your "bad"-itude?
It's time to change it up!
Cuz, like the old saying goes, if you always think what you've always thought, you're always gonna get what you've always got!
So how do you start?
By being grateful.
Grateful for what?
Look around you. Even if you are in the most dire circumstances, there is always something you can be grateful for - even if it is your own sense of humor!
And the more you look the more you'll see and the more you see the more you'll be... grateful.
And then notice this: when you're grateful, you shift your perspective. You change your thinking. You start to wake up maybe even to possibility.
This is how you get past "getting what you've always got."
Gratitude wakes you up. It changes how you think about your life right now. It enables you to know - to recognize - that God, good, is already present in your life. You start to notice goodness all around you. This is "magnifying" the Lord's blessings by being aware of them and grateful for them. You really start to see God's goodness everywhere.
Now the "hard" part of gratitude:
Act on it.
Yep, you got to put that gratitude into action.
Find that gratitude and act on it!
Let divine Love, be God in your thought first and then in your life. Let the Love of God be what you focus on, what you look for, what you live for.
And choose to refuse whatever thoughts come to you that are unhappy, depressing, demoralizing, mean, selfish, habitual - all thoughts that are unlike God. Why? because it is your divine right to listen to what is most like God, to what is good and true.
This is not hiding from reality. This is embracing God's reality. It is letting go of having only a human perspective, and opening up to the divine perspective. This is also "magnifying the Lord" - making what is true about God BIG in your thought!
The old hymn says:
"He knows the angels [spiritual thoughts] that you need, and sends them to your side, to comfort, guard, and guide."
As it says in Isaiah (30:21):
"Your ears shall hear a word behind you, saying,
'This is the way, walk in it,'
Whenever you turn to the right hand
Or whenever you turn to the left."
God enables us to know - to listen for these angel thoughts, these uplifting naturally spiritual intuitions that tell us all about our inate goodness and peace and joy and power - about our likeness, our closeness to God. And when we listen to God, He gives us the natural spiritual intuition to guide us into beautiful new ways of thinking and living, into hope and faith and understanding.
We change our thought to be more like His.
And God awakens our life.
Thy will be done in earth - in our thought - as it is in heaven - as it is in Divine Mind.
God enables us to know, as it is in heaven - in His reality - so right here where we are on earth, Divine Mind is the only power; He is supreme.
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