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Archive for December, 2008

The Sunshine of God’s Love

Posted in Good Morning, tagged , on December 31, 2008| Leave a Comment »

           Behind every problem or difficulty lies the Truth of Being. This means that in spite of the appearance, you must believe that divine Mind is already healing the situation. Jesus said that when you pray, believe that you have received. Often we are so close to a problem that, spiritually speaking, we accept the cloudy day as a permanent state of climate, forgetting that the sunshine of divine Love and Power has never ceased to shine, although obscured for the moment.
 
In prayer we remind ourselves again that, no matter how bleak or overcast the picture may be, we believe that in divine Mind there is nothing but good and therefore only good can express itself in these circumstances. The important thing is to raise your consciousness above the level w here the difficulty seems to be, and put God there instead.
 
Then shall the righteous shine forth as the sun in the kingdom of their Father (Matthew 13:43).

Sometimes, the problems and difficulties we face seem intractable or they are of long duration. In these circumstances it is harder to believe that God has already healed the situation which is causing us to pray. In these circumstance, it is critical to believe that God is working for your best good regardless of how the situation appears. We must remember that God knows everything we need even when we don’t. Our job is to believe this, to trust that God is working for us and then seek his wisdom to understand and accept with joy that which he sends to us. Even when our own actions or inactions are the source of our problems or difficulties, God is working on behalf of those who believe in God and accept his will. When we live this way, we shall shine forth as the sun in the kingdom of God and we shall experience peace and joy whether facing difficulties or triumphs.
 
Shine on,
Z gardener

PS – The author prays that you have a happy, safe and blessed New Year. May this entire year bring you closer to God and find you each day living in the Eden he gave to us. And may these morning thoughts be as much a blessing to you as they have been for the author.

Peace

 

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Capitalize Your Disability

Posted in Good Morning, tagged , on December 30, 2008| Leave a Comment »

             Success consists in the overcoming of difficulties. All men and women who have made a success of any kind have done so by overcoming difficulties. There was a time when laying a telegraph line from New York to Boston presented many difficulties. Then there was a time when doing that was easy, but laying the Atlantic cable presented difficulties. Later on, marine cable laying became a routine business, but radio across the ocean presented problems that for a time were insuperable.
 
If you have a personal disability that seems to keep you from success, do not accept it as such, but capitalize on it and use it as the instrument for your success. H. G. Wells had to give up a dull underpaid job because of ill health, so he stayed at home and wrote successful books and became a world-known author instead. Edison was stone deaf and decided that this would enable him to concentrate better on his inventions. Theodore Roosevelt was a sickly child, very shortsighted and nervous. However, he worked hard to develop his body and became, as we know, a strong husky open-air man and big game hunter.
 
The owner of a fashionable dress business in London was the wife of a struggling clerk, who was stricken with tuberculosis. She had never been in business, and had no training, and found herself having to support a husband and two children. She started with nothing but good taste in clothes and a belief in prayer.
 
… To him that overcometh will I give to eat of the tree of life (Revelation 2:7).

Whatever is holding us down, keeping us from our god-given purpose or robbing us of our peace can be turned into a springboard by which we catapult ourselves over any obstacle. When we honestly face a disability of body, m ind or spirit and ask God to help us overcome it, he will turn our frailty into our glory and use it to crown us with success.

A paraplegic friend of the author has been using a wheel chair for decades. Yet from that chair, this person has risen in spirit and action to dramatically improve the entire landscape for persons with disabilities. From that chair one person has risen to answer God’s call to become a nationally recognized voice for all people with disabilities. May we all face and use our challenges with such grace and power. When we do, God will enable us to over come them and turn them into mighty blessings.

Being enabled,
Z gardener

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When God Does Not Act

Posted in Good Morning on December 29, 2008| Leave a Comment »

             We all believe that the love of God is invincible. We all believe that His intelligence, His knowledge, and His power are infinite. We all believe that God cares for us to a degree beyond imagining, and that each one of us is equally precious in His sight. Yet, in many cases healing and harmony do not follow from this knowledge. Why is this?

 
In most cases it is because we have forgotten that these qualities have to be embodied in ourselves before they can appear in our lives. To know of them as existing in God is not sufficient. We must be seeking to express them in our personal lives before they can do anything for us.
 
The only way to know God is to seek to express Him in our lives.
 
It is a good thing to give thanks unto the Lord … to show forth thy loving kindness  in the morning, and thy faithfulness every night (Psalm 92:1-2).

When we act according to God’s will; when we accept that God’s intelligence, knowledge and power are available to us; when we manifest him in our lives: then we are expressing God in our lives. Healing and harmony will follow when we truly express God in our lives. Then his invincibility becomes ours. Then will we rejoice and be glad in each day.

Expressing joy,

Z gardener

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The Power Within

Posted in Good Morning on December 23, 2008| Leave a Comment »

            There exists a mystic Power that is able to transform your life so thoroughly, so radically, so completely, that when the process is completed your own friends would hardly recognize you, and, in fact, you would scarcely be able to recognize yourself.

It can lift you out of an invalid’s bed, and free you to go out into the world to shape your life as you will. It can throw open the prison door and liberate the captive.
This Power can do for you that which is probably the most important thing of all in your present stage: it can find your true place in life for you, and put you into it.
This Power is really no less than the primal Power of Being, and to discover that Power is the divine birthright of all men.
 
…. The kingdom of God is within you (Luke 17:21).
…. Seek ye first the kingdom of God… and all these things shall be added…(Matthew 6:33).

It is kind of scary to accept that all this power is within us. It also places a great deal of responsibility on us for how we use such power. It also strips us of any ability to rationalize our acceptance of anything less than true peace and joy in our lives. The Kingdom of God is within us. Our job is to find it, place ourselves there and live in communion with he who created us. This is what the author refers to when describing “life in the Eden that God gave us”. Accept this power, live it for good and claim the garden today.

From the garden,
Z gardener

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The Spiritual Basis

Posted in Good Morning on December 22, 2008| Leave a Comment »

One is on the Spiritual Basis or he is not, for there is no half-way house in this.
 
You are on the Spiritual Basis:
 
If you definitely give all power to God, in the most literal, practical, and matter-of-fact sense of the phrase.
 
If you really believe that prayer can do anything.
 
If you really believe that your happiness and well-being are vitally important in the eyes of God.
 
If you realize whatever ideas and beliefs you accept must be expressed in your surroundings, and in all your relationships and activities.
 
If you try to see the Presence of God everywhere.
 
If, in short, you understand that your world is a reflection of your mental universe, that things are thoughts, and that one’s true life history is fundamentally the expression of his belief about God.
 
Draw nigh to God, and he will draw nigh to you (James 4:8)

When we truly accept the truths listed above, not only will we be on a spiritual basis, but we will be one with God. God’s will then becomes our will and God’s consciousness becomes our consciousness and God’s Holy Spirit becomes our spirit. Are we there yet?

Spiritually based,
Z gardener

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Prayer Is Always The Answer

Posted in Good Morning, tagged , on December 19, 2008| Leave a Comment »

            Prayer is always the solution. No matter what kind of difficulty may be facing you, no matter how complicated your problem may seem – prayer can solve it. Of course you will also take whatever practical steps seem to be indicated, and if you do not know what steps to take, prayer will show you. Prayer is constantly bringing about the seemingly impossible, and there is no conceivable problem that has not at some time been solved by prayer.
 
When we remember that God really is omnipotent, untrammeled by what we call time or space or matte r, or the vagaries of human nature, it is easy to see that there can be no limit to the power of prayer. You can pray about a problem and solve it at any stage, but of course, the earlier you tackle it the easier will your work be.
 
… The effectual fervent prayer of a righteous man availeth much (James 5:16).

When we pray, ask God to remove all barriers and separation between us so we will be one with God as God is with us. Ask God to relax our  body and release all our tensions and earthly concerns. Ask God to lift our spirits and open our hearts, minds, consciousness and will to demonstrate in us God’s universal consciousness, Holy Spirit and divine will so we may express these realities in our lives. Then give God thanks for all our spiritual and earthly blessings, confess our shortcomings, forgive others and ask others to forgive us. Then ask God for those things we need and those we wish to resolve for ourselves and for others. If we pray this way each day and do our best to live a righteous life, then God will answer our prayers and our lives will improve every day.

In communion,
Z gardener

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Mental Drudgery Is Not Prayer

Posted in Good Morning, tagged , on December 18, 2008| Leave a Comment »

            Expect more from you prayers. The power of your prayer depends upon the amount of faith that you yourself have in it. To pray in the spirit that “even if this prayer does not do any good at least it cannot do any harm,” is not, really, to pray at all.

 
Have enough faith in the love of God to believe that a short heartfelt prayer is just as good as a long one. Too long a session of prayer usually means the in your heart you really doubt the love of God, and think that a great deal of effort and toil will be necessary to move Him. Pray quietly and sincerely for a reasonable time – and then leave the matter, expecting success.
 
O Lord, thou art my God; I will exalt thee, I will praise thy name; for thou has done wonderful things; thy counsels of old are faithfulness and truth (Isaiah 25:1).

The length of a prayer is not what makes it work. It is the expectation of fruition that strengthens prayer, the fervent emotion that quickens it and the action after it  that assures it. So, let us believe our prayers are being answered, invest them with all our hope and confidence while we act as if they are already true. Then God will do wonderful things.

Expecting answered prayers,
Z gardener

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Is It Selfish?

Posted in Good Morning, tagged , on December 17, 2008| Leave a Comment »

            Is it selfish to pray for yourself? Some people think that it is, and say that you should pray only for others, but this, of course, is a foolish idea.
 
You must pray for yourself constantly. How could it be otherwise? We worship God by believing in Him, trusting Him, and loving Him wholeheartedly – and we can attain to that only through prayer. The sole object of our being here is that we may grow like him – and we can do that only through prayer.
 
The more we pray for ourselves the more power will our prayers have for any other purpose whatever; so praying for ourselves is the reverse of selfishness – it is truly glorifying God.
 
Bow down thine ear, O Lord, hear me: for I am poor and needy … Rejoice the soul of thy servant; for unto thee, O Lord, do I lift up my soul (Psalm 86:1, 4).

If we are to love others as we love ourselves, we must pray for our brothers and sisters as well as ourselves. Righteous self love is not vanity based nor is it self worship. It is the acceptance that God loves us and that the Almighty has seen fit to place the Holy Spirit within us. As God’s temple, we are sanctified by God and are consecrated to his service. That is something deserving of love.

Loving all,
Z gardener

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A Treatment Is An Operation

Posted in Good Morning, tagged , on December 16, 2008| Leave a Comment »

            The word treatment is usually applied to a prayer that is made for some specific purpose, as distinct from a general prayer, which is really a visit with God. You must remember that a treatment is a definite practical action, having a definite object and a definite beginning and end. It is in fact a surgical operation on the soul.

 
            Let us suppose that you decide to heal a certain difficulty by prayer. You know that your difficulty must be caused by some negative thought charged with fear and located in the subconscious mind. You therefore turn to God, and remind yourself of His goodness, His limitless power, and His care for you. As you work the fear will begin to dissolve, and the awareness of the Truth corrects the erroneous beliefs themselves.
 
Thank God for the healing that you believe will come – and then keep your thought off the matter until you feel led, after an interval, to treat again.
 
He sent his word, and healed them … (Psalm 107:20).

When we exist in the full awareness of God’s infinite love, goodness, power and intelligence, we are capable of  conquering any fear and overcoming any difficulty through Him. To exist in that state of awareness, we must believe, practice and think in ways that acknowledge God’s infinite ability and his concern for us. We must also face our challenge(s) honestly, confront the fears they cause and remove the self-centered limitations that block the solution. Lastly, we must thank God for that which we expect and live as though it has already happened. The true test of faith is living it in the present reality.

Revealing healing,
Z gardener

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God Works With Joy

Posted in Good Morning, tagged , on December 15, 2008| Leave a Comment »

            Don’t pray or meditate as a duty. Realize that prayer is a visit with God and should be joyous.
 
Neither must you pursue your secular activities as necessary duties to be gotten over, that you may return to your prayer. In the light of Truth, there are no secular activities.
 
You must have regular recreation or you will become stale. Recreation, also, is to be enjoyed – as an expression of God – and not as a task to prepare yourself to pray better. An understanding joy in living, is the highest pray er of all.
 
…in thy presence is fullness of joy… (Psalm 16:11).

This is what is meant by this writer when reference is made to living in the Eden God created for us. Each day that is filled with joy makes the strongest statement of our faith life. If we are living our lives in states of happiness and peace, we are living our witness and our ministry.

Peace,
Z gardener

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