Midweek Faith Lift
6-13-18
“What Are You Holding?”
Rev. Deb Hill-Davis
Good Morning! We are on the second chapter of Spiritual Economics, which is titled “Your Fortune Begins With You!” Now to quickly review, the two things we learned last week is # 1. It’s not about the money. #2. There is not a spot where God is not. Say that with me: It’s not about the money and there is not a spot where God is not. God as Substance is my instant, constant and abundant source of supply. I align my consciousness with Divine Consciousness, realize that I, too, am made of that God Substance, and when fully grounded in that Truth, I ask for all that I need and I am open to receive my good. There is not a spot where God is not.
So we are good to go, right? Every hand is a winning hand! Positive thinking and prosperity, here we come! I am feeling so prosperous, I ought to go and buy a lottery ticket! Surely if I plan to give all the proceeds to Unity Church of Ames, I will for certain win the big jackpot, right?!? Well, not so fast! We need to explore this question of “what are you holding?” just a little bit more because there is a great deal of complexity in this prosperity consciousness business. It is not about luck or being dealt a “bad hand” or a “good hand” in life. It is about discovering what you can do with the hand you are holding when you first realize that you live in both the human and Divine realm simultaneously.
As humans in our evolutionary process, we made a great leap when we realized that we could act in a way to impact our circumstances and change them for the better. We discovered the power of agency. We could do something about what we did not like or did not want. It has taken us a while to realize that we can’t and don’t control everything and then to realize further that God is not an agent who intervenes when we come to the edge of our human capacities. And God is not an agent who punishes us either.
What we are called to realize in this chapter is that whatever life circumstances we find ourselves in, WE HAVE SOMETHING TO DO WITH IT! It is not fate, bad luck, our parents, a bad marriage, the government and on and on. We have to step up and become able to respond; become responsible, no longer blaming ourselves or anyone else. That is a tall order, but that is what Jesus asks of us.
This is not an easy teaching and it pushes us to move out of victim consciousness. Whatever hand life has dealt us does not ultimately determine how our life will be. We are called to take full responsibility for our lives. We do not have control over what happens in our lives, but we can establish mastery over how we respond to it, how we think and feel about it. It is that journey to spiritual mastery and maturity that allows us to let go of the cards in our hand that don’t work for us any more and open to the “more” that Universe is offering.
You can change how you think about things in your life and how you feel about them. It is not easy but it is possible; with God all things are possible. We call it spiritual growth. And I will be the first to admit that there are some ideas I let go of quickly and easily. And then there are those buggers that just won’t go and keep sticking in my craw….designed especially for my personal spiritual and emotional growth. Here is how Butterworth describes it in of Spiritual Economics:
However, if you are willing to accept full responsibility for your life, then even as your level of thought has put you where you are (or at least contributed to it), so by a change of consciousness, you can change the experiences of your life. (p.34)
Your personal welfare begins with your consciousness; it begins in the state of your mind. And Butterworth puts it very bluntly, “There is no way out; you are always on the side of the problem or you are on the side of the solution.” He says you are either adding to your good or taking away from it. He says you are either “minus-ing” it or “plus-ing” it. A minus sign is just waiting for a vertical line to take it to a higher place. While I generally agree with him, sometimes I have been stuck in “no-where-ville” with absolutely NO awareness of how that was limiting my good. It took personal trauma, prayer, a lot of therapy and some significant self-confrontation to get unstuck.
How did that look? Well, my first marriage was a hotbed of drama, all of our own creation. And there is no doubt in my mind that this drama was what initially attracted me to my first husband. I grew up with drama and trauma, so when it happened, I resonated with it; it was familiar. I knew how to step it up, cope with it and survive. It was a personal badge of courage. We didn’t create the same drama; we were actually able to complement each other in how we created it. His was with money and it came in the form of not getting the bills paid on time. It came in the form of overspending and not budgeting. We initially did ok with that until the kids came along and pushed us over the edge. My drama was to react to this, pick fights and then withhold information to control things. What a hot mess we were!
When I finally got into 12-step addiction therapy and Unity, I began to “see” how I was involved in this fiasco. The therapist confronted me about always being late to appointments and to the group sessions and my “addiction to drama!” My first response was to be offended and angry with this uncaring therapist. HA!! When I finally got it, that I had a LOT to do with this mess, then I had to humbly move to being part of the Solution rather than colluding to continue the Problem. You could say I had a shift in consciousness, BIG TIME. The mess about the money wasn’t about the money, it was about consciousness….mine and his acting in collusion.
When I left that relationship, I did not seek to re-create it in my new life, and the drama and financial fiasco stuff all fell away. Whew! That doesn’t mean I didn’t continue to create dramas because I did. But as I grew in consciousness, I became less and less willing to go there and much more open to seeing my good unfold in a lot of different ways. It was only then that I began to understand what it meant to align my consciousness with Divine Mind and only then that my good began to increase.
The way that Jesus describes this is at the end of the parable of the Talents:
Matthew 25:29-33
29 For to all those who have, more will be given, and they will have an abundance; but from those who have nothing, even what they have will be taken away. 30 As for this worthless slave, throw him into the outer darkness, where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.’ (NRSV)
When I first read this, my reaction was to think how unfair and what a great injustice! It doesn’t seem right for those who have nothing to lose even the little they have. And then I got it! THIS IS ALL ABOUT CONSCIOUSNESS AND DIVINE LAW. The “nothing” in this passage is the absence of awareness of any Divine connection in consciousness. When we cut off or do not acknowledge our true Divine Nature, we are at risk of losing everything because we have no awareness of Source, of God, the Source of our good. And there is weeping and gnashing of teeth! I have so been there!
As we begin to understand and work with the Divine Law of Attraction, we open to the TRUTH of God as Source and in that TRUTH, we draw our good to us. As we live into our God-ness, and seek first the consciousness of God and the “right use” of that consciousness, then all else is added unto us. Until we have that internal shift in consciousness, things will not change in the outer. We may pray, affirm, create a treasure map and speak of “demonstrating Truth” but nothing will happen until we have that inner shift in our awareness. We can’t “make Divine Law work” in our favor because we are then trying to control it and that is not the Law. It is like gravity, it is always there and our task is to realize it and work in accordance with it rather than trying to manipulate it or control it.
While we want to believe in miracles, expect a miracle, Butterworth says this is a spiritual and psychological trap. When you believe in miracles, “you are putting the whole weight of your consciousness on the side of belief in a Universe of caprice.” Instead, he says, seek to grow in applying the Divine Law of Good at a higher level of awareness, not just more of the same. If you keep doing what you are doing, you will keep getting what you are getting. When I kept affirming and enjoying the drama in my life, I kept getting more and more drama until I stopped inviting it. It wasn’t easy to stop, but that was the only way for it to end. I had to learn that I could have challenges without having drama. I had to learn to collaborate rather than collude with others. Hmmmm…..
I want to close today by sharing with you a reading from a book by Alan Cohen, A Deep Breath of Life. It has been around for a long time, but this particular story is especially relevant. It is from July 24, and it goes like this:
In the movie The Jerk, Steve Martin plays Navin, a poor Southern boy who grows up in a ramshackle old house that looks like it is made of toothpicks and would blow over if a strong breeze came along. Navin grows up and heads for the big city, where, through a quirk, he makes a fortune and sends large monthly contributions to his parents for many years. Finally, Navin goes home, looking forward to seeing the big, beautiful house his parents have built with the money he sent. When he arrives, Navin discovers a sprawling version of the same shack he left. Although the “mansion” is 20 times the size of the original, the quality of construction is the same, and it too looks like it would blow over in a moment. It is not really better, just bigger.
It truly is all about what is in your consciousness. What are you holding?
Blessings on the Path,
Rev. Deb