Charles Fillmore, the co-founder of Unity, said, “Man is not the limited creation that he thinks he is, but he is the focus of an infinite idea.” A powerful statement indeed.
 
We are talking about faith. We may often talk about having faith, but Jesus said, “Have faith in God.” There is a difference you know.
 
You’ve had faith many times in your life. In fact, you’ve had faith all the way through your life. And you’ve had faith, very often, in limitation, and so have experienced limitation in your life. You’ve had faith in fear, and that fear has come upon you many times. You’ve had faith in lack and limitation, you’ve had faith in poverty, you’ve had faith in physical deterioration, and all of those things have been made manifest for you.
 
So you’ve had faith many times. You know how to have faith. You know how to practice faith. You do it automatically all the time. And so all we have to do now is to reverse our focus. As Charles Fillmore said, instead of focusing on the appearance of things, upon the seeming limitation, we need to focus our attention on faith in God.
 
First, think of any time when you are facing a critical situation of any kind, whatever it is – illness, loss of finances, loss of your job, the loss of a loved one in your life. What you fear, what you’re anxious about most of all is not the condition so much, you feel you can handle the conditions if you are solidly rooted enough to withstand the winds of change.

 Put Down Your Roots

It’s like the wind blowing a tree. So often we place our blame on the wind as being the cause of our problems. “If only that wind wouldn’t blow.” No matter what the wind is, what kind of a situation it is, we say “That wind is the cause of my inadequacy, that wind is the cause of my limitation, that wind is the cause of me feeling insecure and helpless.”

 But it’s really our anxiety about whether we can stand up in the face of those conditions.
 
So let’s think of the analogy of the tree, of putting its roots deep down in the soil.
 
In Yoga, there is a tree posture that one can take. The practitioner images the roots of the tree going down deep into the earth so they can hold that stance. It reminds me also of martial arts, in Judo especially. A person who is practicing Judo, if they are defending, they see themselves as having roots go down their legs through their feet into the earth and that they weigh a thousand pounds so that the other person cannot topple them.
 
Visualize those roots going down within you, the roots that are the practices of building consciousness, of coming into a greater awareness of your oneness with God.
 
The poet George Eliot said this: “No human being can live a whole and wholesome life unless rooted to some particular spot in the soil.” That particular spot in the soil for us is really a working philosophy of life, an orientation toward spiritual principles and of applying them in our lives. That’s our spot in the soil. Then we can live whole and wholesome lives. We can feel our sense of oneness with God.
 
There are really two aspects to every part of life. There’s rootedness and fruitage, there is relaxation and activity. There is letting go and going forward. And if you cannot do one, then you usually cannot do the other effectively. So if you cannot let go, then it’s hard to progress effectively.

Lay Hold on the Greatness of God

There’s a man who was a war veteran that learned this truth. He came back from being in hospital abroad after being seriously wounded. He was released from hospital, came back to this country, went home and was glad to be back. When he got home he found that his little child, just a baby, was ill with pneumonia and was being cared for by a neighbor. The child died within a week of his return. He had found also that his wife had been most irresponsible with his properties and his money, and had wasted virtually everything. She had also been drinking to excess and was now seeking a divorce from him. His world was taken away from him. He was totally stunned by it all and thought he couldn’t go on. He didn’t know what to do.

Shortly after that he was traveling on a bus along a stretch of road where there was a stately old live oak, which was the spot where a man by the name of Sidney Lanier wrote a poem. And as he looked at that tree, the veteran recalled the poet’s struggle to compose and write poetry even in the midst of a great physical handicap. He remembered the poem because it was one of his favorites. He wrote the lines down again. The poem was “The Marshes of Glen.” This is what he wrote:
 
As the marsh hen secretly builds
On the watery sod,
Behold, I will build me a nest
On the greatness of God.
I will fly in the greatness of God
As the marsh hen flies in the freedom
That fills all the skies,
Twixt the marsh and the skies.
By so many roots as the marsh grass
Sends in the sod,
I will heartily lay me a hold
On the greatness of God.
 

And as he recalled that, he thought “You know, I can do that too. I can lay hold on the greatness of God.” Arriving home, he wrote the words on a card and put it on his mirror where he could see if often and he began to live from that realization, of laying hold on the greatness of God no matter what was happening, of putting down those spiritual roots. He began to come through it all. He began to let go, and he began to move forward to create a new life for himself.

You Can Meet the Challenge

We are always adequate to meet whatever comes to us in our lives. More than adequate, because we have the very presence and power of God available to us.

There’s a true story, too, about Charles Edison, the son of Thomas A. Edison. Thomas Edison had built the Edison Industries and he had put about two million dollars of his own money into the project, which was really a lot of money in those days. He was about 67 years old at this time, and early one morning the building burned to the ground. Charles Edison said that his father called to him, he said “Charles, run and tell your mother to come out and see this. She’ll never see something like this as long as she lives.” The next morning when it was all burned to the ground, he said “Well, you know, disaster has something in it for us. All our mistakes are burned up. Thank God we can start anew.” And within three weeks the first phonograph was delivered to the first customer who had ordered one.
 
You see, he had put down great spiritual roots that were impervious to anything that was going on in the outer. The fire happened out there, but the fire didn’t come inside him. The only fire inside himself was his commitment to his realization of the creative source, the very source and power of God within him. That was the fire within him, not the fire that burned his building.
 
It’s always there for us, always adequate for us.
 
When we can accept that we are, actually, one with that very presence and power, when we can begin to put those roots down within ourselves, we are like the man that’s referred to in the very first Psalm, verse 3. It says this: “You shall be like a tree planted by the streams of water that bring forth fruit in its seasons and its leaf does not wither. In all that he does, he prospers.”
 
So it’s a wonderful symbol for us, isn’t it, that no matter what ill wind it might be that blows, if our roots go down deep in our consciousness, then we are immovable.
 
You are like a tree planted by the water and you shall not be moved by any circumstance out there, but you will be totally receptive and responsive to the slightest breath of Spirit within you.
 
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