As a progressive Christian, I believe there are many names for God and many ways to a loving God; this article reflects one of those ways. Take from here what works for you. Celebrate life with joy and peace!
We can all think of giants in the field of “practical spirituality” whose lives have shown the possibility of how we can live our own lives in the direction of our choosing.
Norman Vincent Peale pastored the Marble Collegiate Church in NYC for 52 years. During that time, he started Guideposts magazine, wrote several books including the Power of Positive Thinking, and was one of the first ministers to hire psychologists to his church staff to offer professional therapeutic counseling. He took the mind/body/spirit connection very seriously. Dr. Peale lived to be 95 years old and was active for 94 of those years.
Rev. Ike was a very interesting personality, known as a prosperity preacher, but in reality, he was a metaphysical teacher who was trying to empower people to believe in themselves and experience the best in life. He built a large congregation in the Washington Heights area of NYC, for a time had a very successful television and radio ministry.
Louise Hay is 88 years old and still active. Her story includes surviving child abuse, an unplanned pregnancy, failed relationships, and even cancer. In her 40’s, she became a Religious Science practitioner and went on to create the Hayride which was an empowerment and support group for people living with HIV. The group became very large and eventually was even bi-coastal. Before there were treatments for HIV, there was Louise Hay offering hope and love to people who had experienced way too little of either. She became a bestselling author and even started her own publishing house. She has very effectively demonstrated the power of a raised consciousness.
And Rev. Dr. Johnnie Coleman was told as a young woman that she was terminally ill. She discovered a daily devotional guide full of positive teachings and affirmations, and it changed her life. Her illness went into remission, she became a New Thought minister, started her own school, seminary, and even her own denomination, the Universal Foundation for Better Living, the denomination where Della Reese is a minister.
What did these accomplished leaders share in common? Most of them became bestselling authors and very successful in their ministry. Were they just lucky, or did they understand and use life-principles that served them well and then used those same principles to help others as well?
These life-principles are referred to in the book of Proverbs, also known as the book of Wisdom. Lady Wisdom in Proverbs invites us to her rich banquet. It’s an open table that excludes no one. We are all invited to answer Wisdom’s call and be blessed by Her.
The writer of Ephesians tells us that wisdom comes from joy and gratitude, which are qualities already within us, just waiting to be expressed. Joy and gratitude. As we allow ourselves to experience joy, and find reasons to express gratitude, we can tap into the power of wisdom in our own lives.
It’s a matter of consciousness, as Johnnie Coleman says. Consciousness is what we are aware of … as we focus on joy and gratitude, it focuses our attention, our awareness, our consciousness on what is good, and what we focus on we tend to experience.
Joy and gratitude is the result of choosing where we place our thoughts – from moment to moment. That’s how we answer Wisdom’s call and participate in her abundant feast. Joy and gratitude.
In our reading today, Jesus is represented as bread. Theologian Rev. Durrell Watkins said, “The bread of divine wisdom and eternal life isn’t like manna that just sustained people wandering in the wilderness; this internal sustenance is everlasting, life-giving, and without limit.”
The true bread, the Christ within … is that which is made in the divine image, and that, my friends, is the truth of our lives. We are made in the Divine image of God. You are made in the Divine image of God. Nona Brooks taught that we are in God, and of God, and if that is true, then we are entitled to every blessing that life has to offer.
The Buddha said, “What you think you will become.”
Proverbs 23:7 says, “As we think in our hearts, so we are.”
There are those who want us to be afraid, who want us to not believe in our own sacred value, who want us to live with shame and regret and a sense of smallness.
But our playing small won’t help them or us, so instead, let’s believe in our sacred value, let’s believe in our enormous potential, let’s believe that we deserve the best, that we are made in the divine image of a loving God, that we are a gift and a blessing to the human family, and as we dare to believe in ourselves and experience healing, we won’t be healed alone, but others will be raised up with us, perhaps even some of those who wanted to keep us down.
So, let’s commit today to changing our attitudes so that we actually expect the best, and believe for the best.
Let’s change our mind-set from believing the deck is stacked against us, to believing what the psalmist wrote, “God withholds no good thing from those who live with integrity!”
The hand we’ve been dealt may seem random and not that great, but how we play the hand and how much we enjoy the game is all up to us!
Let’s release the past to the past, knowing the future is filled with infinite possibilities. Let’s choose to focus on the possibilities that we most deserve and desire. Why? Because what we focus on, we will attract.
Let’s fill our thought patterns with positive affirmations and by giving thanks for every blessing, no matter how small – and even for blessings we haven’t experienced yet. What our minds can conceive and believe, we can achieve.
The bread that never runs out, the living bread of heaven, the bread on the all-inclusive table at Wisdom’s feast is ready. So, let’s use our words, our thoughts, our attitudes, and our actions to direct that infinite source of goodness – the living Christ within us to make life more joyous and more abundant.
Every week we pray, “Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven.” Are you ready for a little bit more heaven right here on earth? Then let’s not just say it, let’s expect it, give thanks for it, and allow it.
As Rev. Coleman has spent decades teaching, “I am the thinker that thinks the thought that creates the thing.”
Let’s take charge or our thinking and create the best for ourselves, our church, our community and our world. We have the power and we can put it to good use.
