See what Love has prepared for you

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

How many powers are there? How many do you think are governing you? Is there a power called hunger? Is there a power called thirst? Is there a power called lust? anger? sorrow? or digestion, circulation, sleep, breath? or how about politics, the economy, or even the weather?

It sounds crazy, but in spiritual reality there really is only one power. And that is God.

And Christ Jesus proved this repeatedly, by stilling storms, feeding the multitudes, redeeming sinners, healing the sick and raising the dead. He even paid his taxes - courtesy of a fish!

One of the most beautiful things about Jesus' life is how vividly he shows us the all-encompassing unconditional Love that is God. He embodied that so completely that he changed the lives of everyone he encountered. He proved repeatedly that sin is not desirable, that sickness is not inevitable, and that death is not final!

So what if you just stopped for a moment. Just stopped worrying and fretting and wondering about what's next. What if you just occupied this very moment right now and just asked God, Divine Love itself, to show you what He has prepared for you. No arguing, no whining, no stressing, no fretting, no doubting. Just that childlike expectancy that looks up to its Parent with a complete openness to Love.

Spend today practicing that expectancy. If you are worrying about something difficult, offer it up to your Father-Mother God and just listen for the intuitions of good that come back to you. Persist in your expectancy and your listening! And then, be sure to be open - completely open - and you will see what Love has prepared for you.

Today.

"For Thine is the kingdom, and the power, and the glory, forever."
For God is infinite, all-power, all Life, Truth, Love, over all, and All.

Debts?

"Forgive us our debts as we forgive our debtors."
And Love is reflected in love.

To see a debt is to be in debt!

Have you ever stopped to think about that?

But in debt how? in debt to what?

Maybe think about it this way: to see a debt is to be in need of Love. And the bigger the debt you see, the deeper the need of Love, divine Love, the Love that is actually God Himself.

"Give unto the LORD the glory due unto his name: bring an offering, and come before him: worship the LORD in the beauty of holiness." 1 Chronicles 16:29

And isn't this need cured by the "beauty of holiness"? to love God so deeply that you pay your "debt" first to Him? bring your offering to Him? your offering of your broken heart, your fear, your repentance? and offer these up - let these go - so you can awake in His likeness? whole, complete, divinely fair?

When you think that someone else needs forgiveness, it is really you that needs forgiveness! For what? For accepting evil for your neighbor: seeing your neighbor as a sinner, seing your neighbor as lacking, seeing your neighbor as evil.

"Jesus beheld in Science the perfect man, who appeared to him where sinning mortal man appears to mortals. In this perfect man the Saviour saw God's own likeness, and this correct view of man healed the sick."

So pure was Jesus' correct view that it also healed the sinner and raised the dead!

Be sure then to follow Jesus' example as best you can and witness correctly - see God's own likeness where everyone else sees debtors. This includes seeing yourself - loving yourself - this same way!

Forgiveness is always Love being reflected - acted on, lived, made manifest - in love: love for God, love for our neighbor, and (don't forget!) love for yourself.

Put some skin on it!

"Thy kingdom come."
Thy kingdom is come; Thou art everpresent.

What does this everpresence of God look like?

It looks like you.

Does that surprise you? Then you're likely taking a limited view of not only yourself, but also of God.

God's goodness is actually here. His joy is actually right now. And, no matter what your circumstances right now look like, His Love is actually inevitable.

Why?

Because these qualities of His are yours to live.

They are already present in your heart, in your consciousness - and always yours to demonstrate - yours to live out loud, no matter what your human circumstances.

In fact, you could truly say that the reason you are here is simply to live His love. Everything else is secondary.

Jesus so clearly understood that God is Love itself. Everything he said and did made that so abundantly clear. And as we baby-step approach this understanding ourselves, working, praying, failing and succeeding at living as His loving image and likeness, we start to realize this is why we're here. Each of us is here to make His love alive in the world.

As an old preacher friend of mine once said, "Don't just talk about the love of God. Put some skin on it!"

Get busy!

Thinking about forgiveness (Part 2)

"Forgive us our debts as we forgive our debtors."
And Love is reflected in love.

Accept the forgiveness of God by living it out, by living the unconditional love of Love.

And God's love is unconditional. Jesus said it most beautifully: "He [God] causes his sun to rise on the evil and the good, and sends rain on the righteous and the unrighteous." God's Love shines on everyone, rains down on everyone - equally.

What matters is your response.

Are you willing to love like that? That's how God loves. And He made you in His image and likeness. He made you to be like Him. So it isn't too much of a stretch to think that loving unconditionally is actually your native way of loving.

So be who you really are! Be His loving likeness! And you will awake from the need of forgiveness because you'll be too busy loving like God does: unconditionally.

And rest assured: Love does not ignore evil. It annihilates it. It rips off the mask of egos, of separation, of many (evil) minds, and exposes these as the dream that they really are. Evil is never the reality - but it takes focus and practice to prove this.

Fortunately Jesus left us his supreme example. He repeatedly proved evil's powerlessness. And his resurrection and ascension exposed evil forever as "the liar" that it is.

So if you're feeling the need of forgiveness (and who doesn't!) or of being forgiving (ditto!), wake up to your opportunity to reflect the unconditional love of Love, God! Don't wallow around in hurts and debts and tresspasses! Don't stay asleep in that sometimes way-too-cozy dream of evil! Wake up to God and reflect Him! Let His utterly complete and unconditional joyous love pour into you, cleansing all that guilt away. And let His utterly complete and unconditional love pour right through you, and out to everyone around you, shining His light, His love equally to all.

His Love is always shining, and you are always at the point of opportunity to awake to your real status as His image and likeness. Jesus proved this so you could live this, so you could know God's complete unconditional forgiveness of you - awake - as His perfect reflection.

"Forgive us our debts as we forgive our debtors." And His Love is always reflected in your-being-Love-made-manifest. Here. Now.

Thinking about forgiveness (Part 1)

"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.

You are not left out of the Kingdom of God!

"Thy kingdom come."
Thy kingdom is come. Thou art everpresent.

God is everpresent.

Do you get this? Do you accept what this means?

God is present with you.

Right here. Right now.

You begin to learn this first by learning to love God for who He really is - divine Truth, Life, Love itself.

And you practice this love for God by loving His creation: by actually sincerely loving yourself. Loving your own ego? No. Just the opposite: by loving the you God made.

In fact it's only when you put aside that little me-me-me clamoring for attention, you begin to notice - intuit even - the kingdom, the presence, of God. You hear Him telling you about every lovely God-like quality that you already embody. These qualities are God's gift to you. They awaken in you so you look like Him. So you can learn to love yourself as God made you. So you can learn to love the real you as His image and likeness.

Then, and only then, can you love another as you love yourself. Love the real them as much as you love the real you. Love the them that is God's likeness.

"Jesus replied: 'Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.' This is the first and greatest commandment. And the second is like it: 'Love your neighbor as yourself.'"

When you're living Love, you're in the kingdom.

Get busy.

"Desire is prayer..."

"Our Father which art in heaven."
"Our Father-Mother God, all-harmonious."

Have you ever stopped to think where your yearning for "something better, higher, holier" comes from? Have you ever stopped to realize that it comes from God?

God speaks to us through our intuition, through our yearning, through our desire. "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."

God stirs you to yearn, to wake up to your personal inability, to need to trust your desires to Him.

Why? Because no matter what other solutions you try - drugs, sex, rock-and-roll (or whatever other substitute for real fulfillment you choose) - He alone can fulfill your desire. That is because, at its root, all desire is for that "something better, higher, holier," something powerfully good, something lasting, something more than you can get or make or steal on your own. It is your desire for your oneness with God. He is stirring you - right now - to awake in His likeness, to see yourself as He always already sees you, to be what He already "be's" you!

All desire - no matter how good or bad - is a form of prayer. And the outcome of that prayer is completely based on what - or who - you trust your desires to!

Try trusting them to God. God is always stirring you to want to wake up to Him, to seek so you can find Him, to knock so He can open your heart, to ask so He can tell you "My son... you are always with me and everything I have is yours."

Our Father which art in heaven.
Our Father-Mother God, all-harmonious

Seek Him. He's as close as your desire.

The completeness of our daily bread

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

Give us this day our daily bread, our daily communion with God, our daily grace, our daily experience of His unconditional Love. That Love feeds all famished affections. ThatLove satisfies all our deepest yearnings. That Love supplies all our true need.

And being filled up full with the Love of God, we have the natural ability to reflect His Love to everyone around us. With our famished affections fed, we awaken to our right to love our neighbor as ourself - to reflect the unconditional love of God to all those famished hearts we see around us.

If our famished affections are fed, we can have no sense of debt or lack or burden of owing or being owed. Because God is awakening us to see that Love forgives all debts by proving there actually are none! Love awakens us from our false witnessing of others (or ourselves!) as lacking, as debtors and tresspassers! And when you receive the incredible Love that is the only source of real forgiveness, you begin to learn how to forgive - love- like God does. And all sense of others owing you vanishes.

"Forgive us our debts as we forgive our debtors."
And Love is reflected in love.

There is no "you owe me" in the recipe of the Bread of Life! Instead God insists we eliminate that ingredient of a personal sense of indebtedness out of Life. God insists on being reflected completely in us, so that we may not only see others as God already sees them, but (usually harder) see ourselves as He sees us. And right this moment, God sees you (and everyone!) as debtless, flawless, complete, with every need supplied by - who? by Him. Always by Him.

"And lead us not into tempation, but deliver us from evil."
And God leadeth us not into temptation, but delivereth us from sin, disease, and death.

And once you've awakened to - glimpsed - your true nature as God's loved image and likeness, do you think you'd fall back into tempation again? Well, maybe. But it becomes increasingly harder, especially as you pray, really pray, the Lord's Prayer.

Praying the Lord's Prayer makes you much more aware of the lies of evil. Why? Because you are tasting your daily Bread of Life. You are tasting the Truth. You are learning what the real meal - the real deal - tastes like. And how satisifying it is. And what a contrast it is to the cheap junk-food evil seems to offer up.

And isn't this then how God leads you? Isn't this how God delivers you from all the Liar's lies: sin, disease, even death? By giving you, through the Lord's Prayer, a taste of your daily Bread, your daily communion with God, your daily experience of God?

And once you taste what God, Love, really is - taste that True Bread - and feel it feeding, awakening, and enlivening you, the contrast is so sharp that you can spot the trial, the temptation - the Liar - a mile away.

So "Give us this day our daily bread." Give us grace for today; feed the famished affections - ours and everyone's. And learn how that Grace forgives and teaches forgiveness, how God loves and reflects love in you, as you. And so know that God will always lead you from trails and deliver you from any sense of evil. Why? Because God actually is the only presence, the only power, the only glory of Life, Truth, and Love there ever was, is, or will be. God is not only over all, He is All.

And you know what? He loves you.

Amen.

The joy of the Lord's Prayer

We are so glad that You are our Father which art in heaven.
We are so glad that you are our Father-Mother God, Good, already all-harmonious!

We are so happy to hallow Your name, to recognize Your complete and perfect loving nature as the Adorable One.

We so much want Your kingdom within us to come alive!
We are so amazingly glad that Your kingdom - Your presence - really is already come; that in fact, You are already here, with us, right now. And it is a great place to be!

We so so so much yearn to see Your will done in earth as it is already done in Heaven.
We are so glad that You enable us to know that, as in Heaven, so in earth - right where we are - You are already omnipotent, supreme.

And we are so hungry for our daily communion with You, the Bread of Life that you give us!
We are so grateful for the grace You give us today, for the famished affections You feed - and cause us to feed as Your reflection.

And thank You for forgiving us our debts - as we forgive our debtors.
How grateful we are that Your forgiving Love is reflected in our loving to forgive.

Oh and yes! Lead us! and You never lead us into temptation or firery trials. So we thank You for always delivering us from evil - from sin, disease, death - from every claim of that original lie that we, Your reflection, could ever be separated from You.

And how is all this possible?

Because You are the only Presence, and the only Power, and the only Glory there ever is, forever. Because You are already infinite, all the power there is right here, all Life, Truth, Love there is right now. You are over all. In fact, Father-Mother, You are All.

Hallelujah!

Temptation and human sexuality

"Lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil"
And God leadeth us not into tempation, but delivereth us from sin, disease, and death.

If God leads us away from temptation, if He delivers us from sin, then where does human sexuality fit into the picture?

You could just as easily ask, where do bees and flowers fit into the picture?

Sexuality appears to be a temptation - evil - only when you put moralism first and spirituality last. Putting the letter ahead of the spirit is what corrupts this natural part of Life. Suppressing your natural being through human will or through blind obedience to mortal "morality" invites all sorts of problems, from perversion to self-hate and self-destruction.

Mrs. Eddy doesn't say a lot about human sexuality, but her guidance around eating and drinking may be examined in the light they shed on sexual appetite. See how Mrs. Eddy clearly shows her humanity for the differing states and stages of human consciousness:

"Admit the common hypothesis that food is the nutriment of life, and there follows the necessity for another admission in the opposite direction,--that food has power to destroy Life, God, through a deficiency or an excess, a quality or a quantity. This is a specimen of the ambiguous nature of all material health-theories. They are self-contradictory and self-destructive, constituting a "kingdom divided against itself," which is 'brought to desolation.'

"The fact is, food does not affect the absolute Life of man, and this becomes self-evident, when we learn that God is our Life. Because sin and sickness are not qualities of Soul, or Life, we have hope in immortality; but it would be foolish to venture beyond our present understanding, foolish to stop eating until we gain perfection and a clear comprehension of the living Spirit. In that perfect day of understanding, we shall either eat to live nor live to eat. "

So perhaps you can paraphrase it this way:

"Admit the common hypothesis that [sex] is the nutriment of [love], and there follows the necessity for another admission in the opposite direction,--that [sex] has power to destroy [Love], God, through a deficiency or an excess, a quality or a quantity. This is a specimen of the ambiguous nature of all material [moral]-theories. They are self-contradictory and self-destructive, constituting a "kingdom divided against itself," which is 'brought to desolation.'

"The fact is, [sex] does not affect the absolute Life of man, and this becomes self-evident, when we learn that God is our Life. Because sin and sickness are not qualities of Soul, or Life, we have hope in immortality; but it would be foolish to venture beyond our present understanding, foolish to stop [expressing our sexuality] until we gain perfection and a clear comprehension of the living Spirit. In that perfect day of understanding, we shall either [have sex] to [love] nor [love] to [have sex]."

So is human will power going to help you express your sexuality?

No. But your spiritual sense will. Your intuition, your hope, faith, understanding of where God, Love, is leading you - listening to this instead of to your animal urges - is what will really satisfy you.

Is blind obedience to moralism or cultural expectations going to help you? Is peer pressure? Are pronouncements from people too wooden to care anymore about sexual expression, are they going to help you understand your way forward?

No. But your own spiritual growth will. Your own step-by-step demonstration of your true spiritual nature will. Your practicing unselfish love will. Your practicing seeing past just a sexy body to the beautiful spirit of the person who attracts you, yes that will help you grow. And so will practicing loving your *own* beautiful spirit and knowing it's worth sharing - that too will help you embrace your loving sexuality.

Human sexuality is not "dirty" or evil as much as moralistic people might want you to believe. But sexuality can take on unhealthy expression, just as it can with eating or drinking. So let your spirituality inform your morality (and not the other way around). Practicing from that standpoint will awaken you and your spiritual sense will definitely guide you.

And don't be disappointed if you don't succeed at all this spiritual growth stuff right away. It takes practice. And practicing means failing sometimes. Maybe failing a lot of times. But that's how you learn. And you need to have patience with yourself as much as you do with someone you love.

And as you practice (and fail and practice some more), remember what Jesus gave us as the two great commandments that cover all the law and the prophets: Love God with all your heart, soul, and mind; and love your neighbor as yourself.

Note: this implies that you do love yourself!

And remember Mrs. Eddy's wise counsel:

"Emerge gently from matter into Spirit. Think not to thwart the spiritual ultimate of all things, but come naturally into Spirit through better health and morals and as the result of spiritual growth. "

And so do love yourself! Be patient with your human needs. Treat yourself with kindness and understanding as you strive to learn your way to a life of real Love and not just superficial sex. Divine Love wants you to have the full meal, not just mortal junk food.

Divine Love will lead you, and will deliver you. Divine Love will guide you - and your sexual expression - as surely as Love guides you in fulfilling your need for food and drink - or guides the bees to the flowers. Let inspiration and intuition awaken your spiritual nature - and your sexual expression will follow in whole and healthy and loving ways.

Remember:

"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. "

"Lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil"
And God never leads us into temptation, but delivers us from self-will, self-indulgence, and self-hate and into Love's warm and open and intimate embrace.

Feed the famished affections (Part 1)

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

"And forgive us our debts as we forgive our debtors."
And Love is reflected in love.

"God setteth the solitary in families:" it says in Psalms. God delivers you from loneliness and into love. How? By giving you the grace - the love, the fluidity of thought and the movement of perspective that, what? Awakens you to your authentic purpose: that you are the active expression of His Love in the world. You are Love alive in the world. You reflect that Love that feeds the famished affections. You are the living proof that Love is unconditionally forgiving. You are "Love reflected in love."

Because Love is your true nature, you're naturally attracted to Love's expression, naturally appreciative of it, and naturally connected to it - even while glimpsing that it is something bigger than just any one person. In fact, it isn't personal at all. God's Love is divine, even if it seems humanly expressed and experienced.

As you become more conscious of, feel, appreciate - embrace - this divine sense of Love, you realize that this is why you're here: to live Love, to live to give Love - not live to get love (which is the lie spoken by loneliness). Living to give Love embraces Jesus' command to "Let your light so shine before men, that they may see your good works, and glorify your Father which is in heaven." Living to give is "Love ... reflected in love."

Gently embrace this idea of living to give Love. Your intuition will show you opportunities. Expectancy helps you see them. Faithfulness helps you act on them. And as you practice living to give, living God's precious "grace for today," you'll see that it's for a reason: Because the way God feeds your famished affections is by having you feed someone else's.

"Love is impartial and universal in its adaptation and bestowals. It is the open fount which cries, 'Ho, everyone that thirsteth, come ye to the waters.

"You will learn that in Christian Science the first duty is to obey God, to have one Mind, and to love another as yourself."

Yes. It is actually your duty to love at least one other person as you would yourself.

Yes. You get to be the answer to someone else's prayer for love.

This is Love reflected in love. This is obeying God. This is letting "this mind be in you, which was also in Christ Jesus:" This is adoring the Divine Name of Love by being loving. This is striving to know and reflect God's true nature in your relationship to everyone and everything around you.

This isn't necessarily though all easy-peasy. It usually involves some hard work letting go of maybe some not too God-like ways of acting. Because to withhold love is to be in debt. To take love without giving it is to be in debt. To ignore, belittle, mock love is to be in debt.

So if you feel in debt, challenged, by the idea of living to give Love, and want a good example of how this is done, take a look at the life of Jesus in the Gospels. You'll see that Jesus' followers weren't perfect either. Far from it. But you do need to do the same thing they did: follow his incredibly challenging but loving teaching and example as best you can.

And as you do, you begin to understand what Jesus knew implicitly: that that which is the cause and creator of everything, that which is the most fundamental primary power, that which we call God, is actually Love itself. And Love impells expression. Love must be lived.

So the only way to pay off that debt is to do likewise, to live your God-given purpose as His Love-light rejoicing no matter what the circumstances, shining from the top of the hill, bright and active and radiant and loving impartially and universally.

This is not theoretical. It is practical. It can be challenging. It can be difficult. You might resist it. This resistance is the cross. Take it up! This work is the practice. Bring it on! Love is imperative. It has to be seen and felt. It has to be made manifest. It can't just be talked about or thought about or wished for. As an old friend of mine used to say about living Love: "Put some skin on it!"

Sticking to the Love that is God, you find yourself - and all around you - held in His arms, safe, satisfied, rejoicing. And there is never any loneliness or famished affections there, for living in Love is living in the presence, the power, and the glory of God, forever.

Awaking to this as your actual state of being, you'll be too busy loving God and your neighbor as yourself to ever be suckered into that lie of loneliness again.


"Give us this day our daily companioning."
Give us unconditional Love for today. Feed the famished affections of us, our neighbor, and the world.

"And forgive us forgetting to love as we forgive those who we think have forgotten to love us."
And Love is always reflected in love.