Midweek Faith Lift
Journey of Faith
Todd Davis, Guest Speaker
November 7, 2018
Good morning!! How’s it goin, eh? I am so glad each and every one of you is here today! Thank you for coming.
The talk today is based on Eric Butterworth’s book - Practical Metaphysics, A New Insight in Truth.
Jesus said, “According to your faith, be it done unto you.” (Matthew 9:29) He is referring to your focus of attention. Which way is your arrow pointing? It can be one of infinite directions.
Everybody has faith. – What do you have faith in? Disaster, chaos, bad luck or Divine Love? Butterworth states, “Faith is a factor of the consciousness, and faith is just as natural to every person as seeing, hearing & tasting. There is really no such thing as an absence of faith.”
As a side note, Faith is one of the 12 Powers of Unity.
Where is God?? Within or without? We have to look within.
As a child, my father used to tell me that I am God. The palm tree is God. That piano is God. I fundamentally disagreed with him, as this seemed arrogant to me, although now, I understood what he meant. He was trying to tell me that everything is OF God. I am OF God but not the totality of God. God operates through me, not AS me. I know that many in Unity would disagree with this statement. I only speak from my own experience. Because I am a leaf, does not make me the whole tree, however, I serve a vital role in the tree by taking in carbon dioxide and giving off oxygen for the animals to breathe. The tree cannot live in the summer without leaves.
From Psalms 46:10. “Be still and know that I am God.”
Butterworth states, “To believe in God means to believe in yourself-to believe in yourself at the Divine level, to believe in yourself as rooted in the ground in the consciousness of God.”
In the Bible, Jesus heals a young boy with epilepsy & seizures. The boy’s father could not do it, so he brought his son to Jesus.
Jesus replied, "Because you have so little faith. Truly I tell you, if you have faith as small as a mustard seed, you can say to this mountain, 'Move from here to there,' and it will move. Nothing will be impossible for you." (Matthew 17:20)
I have heard this verse over 100 times and I thought it was cheesy. Upon further research, I realized that wild mustard plants grow prolifically & very quickly in the Middle East. Metaphysically, seeds represent potential for growth. Notice Jesus didn’t use the analogy of a grain of sand or a piece of lint, because these do not grow. Well, the lint under your bed could grow, I guess. Seeds take time and draw from the nourishment of the Earth (God).
Intuition is the power or faculty of attaining to direct knowledge or cognition without evident rational thought and inference. You need intuition to practice healthy faith.
How do we define Trust? It is to hope or expect confidently. Trusting the essence of life is the essence of trust. When we journey in faith, we journey in that trust.
It is Maya Angelou who said, “ I’ve learned that no matter what happens, or how bad it seems today, life does go on, and it will be better tomorrow.”
This is an example of faith in action, an example of living faith, not just thinking about it.
Butterworth explains what faith really means on an individual level in the first two paragraphs on page 124 of Practical Metaphysics:
You Can Only Be You
But let’s be realistic about this power of believing. When Jesus says, “All things are possible to them that believe” (Mark 9:23) he was not saying that a swan could become a duck. He was not saying that a nonmusical person could become a concert pianist. This is a very important thing, because we often get this carried out of context. He did not mean that you could do something that is not a part of your innate potentiality. You can only be you, although through positive faith, you can release more of you than you’ve ever done. That’s what we’re talking about—not being somebody else, not taking on the potentialities that other people express—but knowing your own potentialities and releasing them and fulfilling them, releasing your own imprisoned splendor.
Many students of Truth are misled at this particular point, and it’s so important that we get the concept straight. Quite often it is said, “You can do anything you want do through faith. You can have anything you want to have through faith,” and that is misleading because it’s not true. You can only be you, and you can only do that which is fulfilling potential of your life. If a person is too influenced by covetousness and allows herself to be stimulated by her covetousness, by her desire, her acquisitive instinct, by her materialistic and selfish interests, this will not release that splendor.
I would like to share a story with you about a journey in my faith. I went through Basic Training at Fort Leonard Wood in Missouri in the summer of 1986 right after I graduated from Ottumwa High School and started as a freshman at Iowa State. I had NO idea what I was in for. I was strong, but I was out of shape and I did not take that seriously. The first three days in reception were ok, no problem. Then we were shipped to drill on the other side of the base. The Drill sergeants dogged us for push-ups as the very first thing. I made some mistakes in how I did them and they dogged me to do extra push-ups, A LOT of extra push-ups.
So many that it caused my chest muscles to break down and it was a threat to my liver. It hurt so much I could not sleep. I went to the hospital on the base and was admitted for 5 days. While at the Post hospital, I lost 100% of my upper body strength. I wondered if I was going to make it through basic training. I called my father on the pay phone to tell him and that I wasn’t me. I asked him what his intuition was about whether I could do this and whether I would even be ok.
He told me that his intuition was that I would be ok. I allowed his intuition to become my faith. I decided I wasn’t coming home until I finished basic training. At the end of three weeks, when I went to the small weight room in the barracks, I could only bench press 35 pounds. I was losing a lot of excess weight. At the end of around the 5th week I realized I would be ok. I felt reassured that I was going to pass basic training. I felt a strong faith.
In week 7 I did the PT (Physical Training) test to qualify and I had to do 30 pushups in two minutes. I did not do 30…..I did 65!! And I felt a huge relief. The soldiers in my unit noticed my improvement. And strengthened in mind, body and faith, I graduated from basic training.
In closing, I will not say that “Oh, you can do it!” I will say you can be it, you are you, and you are beautiful.
Thank You!
Todd
And much gratitude to you, Todd for this wonderful talk!
Blessings on the path,
Rev. Deb