Spiritual Solutions

It is within our very nature that we are always longing to excel, to rise higher, to overcome. Most of us never cease to long for a better life, for greater freedom, for more abundance.

This is as it should be, and we can be sure that happiness and all the good things that the earth has to offer can be ours when we affirm them with faith and are persistent in working towards them. If you long for something that will bring fulfillment or betterment into your life, that will make your life richer or more beautiful, then certainly follow your desire. Look for and seize the better possibility.

Every person is endowed with the gifts and the powers to enable him or her to seek for oneself a trouble-free, happy life. Everyone can rise from the worries of experience; everybody can live better. One only needs to realize that in every situation in life there are only two possibilities, a negative one and a positive one. It is very important which possibility we consider and accept.

Should we meet with opposition and hostility, obstacles and adversities, the negative possibility leads only to despair and failure. The positive possibility on the other hand leads to the mastery of life. All we have to do is to choose the best possibility each time, and make use of it.

We always have that choice. There are always two possibilities. One is to search history books and biographies for the elements that brought great persons to success. Such data is often full of minor details that can easily lead one into imitating such people instead of learning to unfold or to develop one’s own powers and abilities to become a real person.

The other, the better possibility, is to get only the essential fundamental principles, to learn from the experiences of these people the success method for the art of living, the insights, the thoughts, the decisions which are helpful not only to them but to all, to know the mind-principles by which they succeeded. Because the implication is, “What God has done, God can do; what man has done, man can do.” And this means you can do too.

You know you can’t walk two roads at the same time. And yet, while walking on the one, you may still be wondering whether you should have taken the other one. Haven’t you had this experience? You make a choice, but yet you keep wondering all the time if it was the right choice, wondering what the other choice would have brought?

We can become free of such inner conflicts when we consider that there are two sides to everything, and that our happiness or unhappiness depends on the side to which we turn our thoughts, our eyes, and our steps. Every situation in life is like a door which offers two possibilities. It is either open or it is closed. If it is open, we can stop in front of it or go through; if it is closed, we can accept it with resignation, or we can knock and open it.

Life always puts before us two possibilities: the poor one is to look for things which are unpleasant, negative, sinister, disarming, and to turn our steps as well as our thoughts despondently in that direction; on the other hand, the better possibility is to look at all that happens for the good, to look for the encouraging, the bright, and the unlimited. This is the road that leads higher, and the one on which things and circumstances will turn out to be sources of happiness.

Eric Kasner once wrote, “If somebody is unhappy, he has two possibilities of change. He may either improve the situation, or improve his opinion about it.” The first one he can’t always do, but the latter choice is always open to every person.

You always have that choice. We can always improve our opinion about things. We can improve our attitude, the level at which we see things, view them, deal with them. The important point is that change of perspective, change of attitude, brings with it great changes in the situation also. It is vital that we consciously choose the better of the two possibilities.

The art of living happily and successfully consists in taking each situation and making the better choice the first time, in other words by acting under guidance. Every situation offers two possibilities. When you learn to look at yourself and your environment from a higher and brighter viewpoint, you will discover new possibilities, find better solutions for your problems, dare to venture into new experiences, and to exchange the old life for the new one.

We have at each moment the possibility of beginning a new life. It begins with the transformation of our thoughts from the hidden obstacles to the friendly helpers with our seeing, affirming, and choosing the best of every situation, the positive possibility.

As soon as we set the law of mind-action into motion consciously in a positive way by affirming our strength, ability, joy, happiness, success, and then by immediately acting according to our new and positive outlook, we enter a whole new life which leads us higher and higher and which is happier and happier, and more successful in every way.

Remember, God is Blessing You, Right Now!

Rev. Alan A. Rowbotham

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Rev. Alan Rowbotham, a Unity minister for over thirty-nine years, invites you to enjoy more articles and/or subscribe to his free inspirational newsletter, “Spiritual Solutions,” at www.spiritualsolutionsblog.com

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Today, Sunday, April 24, is Easter Sunday. During the forty days of Lent we have been preparing ourselves for this resurrection day, this Easter experience of our own lives.
 
 
Here is the message for Easter Sunday:
 
Resurrection is the rising of man out of the human thoughts, beliefs and superstitions in which he is submerged. This is the waste of the ages. Instead of discarding this waste in experiencing Truth, man has become enmeshed, mind, body and soul in this waste which results in an outer experience he calls death. Death is the cessation of the activity of breath and life.
 
All breath and life proceed out of the consciousness of life. The awareness of the functions of life which are faith, love, will, strength, imagination, wisdom, the power to listen and understand and the ability to let the love of God move unhampered through the experiences, is the true purpose of every human form.
 
Life is consciousness! Death is the lack of consciousness. Man becomes smothered and lifeless in the machinations of his own mind and the misdirection of his feeling nature. The result is inertia. It is the destination of power to move itself. Life is activity! Death is the result in life of inherent or habitual indisposition to activity.
 
This activity is caused by the forgotten use of the powers of life, such as loving, willingness and ability to serve with joy, freedom and with original power and authority. Death is a forgetfulness of life which results in heaviness and a dreading of the faculties of life. It is the lethal, fatal condition of complete unconsciousness.
 
The overcoming of such a condition is the resurrection. There is a power in man which if he knows and uses, he will never taste death. Man himself makes the cession by yielding his true self, by accepting something less than all truth.
 
Every time we are aware consciously of this indwelling power within, our mind is resurrected. There indwells man one great Truth, that man himself is not personality or even individuality; man is the one unlimited, all knowing, eternal all powerful essence of life we call God. When man knows in mind, body and soul who and what he is, there will be no death.
 
Resurrection is a moment by moment awareness, a bringing to view again that which was forgotten or lost. It is to rise again to an original concept of life and includes the renewal of the body!
 
 
(This series of Lenten messages was first developed by Unity minister Dr. Sue Sikking, founder of Unity-by-the-Sea, Santa Monica, California, author of God Always Says Yes and Seed of the New Age.)
 
If you’d like to hear an Easter Message in two parts, click the play buttons below and Let Your Spirit Soar!
 
Let Your Spirit Soar! – Part 1

Let Your Spirit Soar! – Part 2

God is Blessing You, Right Now!
 
Rev. Alan A. Rowbotham
 
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Rev. Alan A. Rowbotham, a Unity minister for over thirty-nine years, invites you to subscribe to his free inspirational newsletter, Spiritual Solutions, at www.spiritualsolutionsblog.com
 
To subscribe for free weekday inspirational quotes, Rich Words, go to www.alanrowbotham.com
                                                 
Feel free to share this article in its entirety with a friend.
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Today, Friday, April 15, is the thirty-third day of Lent. Lent is the period of time during which we can prepare ourselves for the Easter experience.
 
 
Assignment 33
 
Change is a word that fills the mind of man today. Change is to make different, to pass from one phase to another. Change is in the air, it is inevitable. It is as sure in man as the hard seed in the earth becomes the living plant. At this time in unfoldment the law of life in man’s heart is demanding a change. It is not a change of environment or work or in money matters or relationships; these are only incidental. The change is much deeper and far reaching than the outer things of life.
 
What is happening to all of us is literally a crossover in the development and unfoldment of the human being as well as the human body. It is a change from a purely physical aspect to a completely spiritual awareness, and will be the blending and a balancing between the two. It is even more than this; it is a change in the outer form that transcends or goes beyond the beliefs or awareness of human mind.
 
Such a change took place in the man Jesus. He was transfigured in physical matter to Spiritual Substance. Such a change Moses experienced when he walked down off Mount Sinai and such a change gave Jesus the power to walk out of the tomb.
 
But what does it have to do with us in this modern world, with its maze of problems? Is it too big for man? We have seen people transfigured from poor, sick, unhappy, beaten people to people of power and influence. They rose above the “mind of the outer.”
 
Man shall make mental union with Spiritual energy and he shall be transformed physically by the renewing of the mind. This is a Spiritual quickening that makes all things new.
 
Transfiguration is always preceded by change of mind. If you think you or any man or woman cannot change you underestimate the power of God in all. Such a change is the hope of the world.
 
To know that the man of today has the power to be transfigured and become literally a new being direct from a power within and above his own petty maneuvering is a fantastic Truth. That this can be done on earth here in this present body is beyond our conception. We have come to the end of the physical-mental man of today; he is obsolete. Humanity is in the throes of passing from one phase of being to another.
 
 
(This series of Lenten messages was first developed by Unity minister Dr. Sue Sikking, founder of Unity-by-the-Sea, Santa Monica, California, author of God Always Says Yes and Seed of the New Age.)
 
 
God is Blessing You, Right Now!
 
Rev. Alan A. Rowbotham
 
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Rev. Alan A. Rowbotham, a Unity minister for over thirty-nine years, invites you to subscribe to his free inspirational newsletter, Spiritual Solutions, at www.spiritualsolutionsblog.com
 
To subscribe for free weekday inspirational quotes, Rich Words, go to www.alanrowbotham.com
                                                 
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Today, Sunday, April 10, is the Fifth Sunday in Lent and is known as PASSION SUNDAY. Lent is the period of time during which we can prepare ourselves for the Easter experience.
 
Here is the message for the fifth Sunday in Lent:
 
 
The Overcomer
 
There is an old saying that the events of your life are “written in the stars.” This simply means you are predestined; that every soul is appointed or ordained beforehand by a Divine decree. Of course man, with his limited concept and never living beyond the surface of his outer mind, either refuses such a belief or he limits the belief as meaning he will die on a certain day or some other foolish limitation. On the other hand he may accept it and live in fear because he thinks he has no control over what happens to him.
 
The stars are self-luminous; celestial bodies distinguished from other smaller bodies that shine by reflected light. This is interesting because we are all stars, since we all have within us our own light. The sun is a star of above average brightness and among the first religions were those who worshiped the sun, proof that man has always been seeking the light. Jesus has been called “The Light of the World.”
 
Man’s greatest desire is to know he is not facing his destiny alone. Our desire is a very simple thing, as simple as the destiny of a rose, which is to unfold and send forth its fragrance.
 
Man’s destiny is far above the reaches of his human mind. We are not bond servants to the outer material law, nor are we bound by what we call the law of failure, destruction and death. Jesus did not come to destroy the law but to fulfill, so that man might express the full significance of his being and purpose.
 
The predestination of man is like the predestination of the seed, it is predestined to become true fruit. “Till heaven and earth pass away, not an iota, not a dot, will pass from the law until all is accomplished.” (Matt. 5:18) The God authority in man surpasses that of the law, for it completes the law. YOU, whoever you are, are predestined to be a Son of God in all fullness and you will bring forth this true fruit to the last iota and dot, until its purpose is complete.
 
There are stairs in my stars; there is a way of completion, call it stairs if I may, between that which I am and that which I am destined to be. Awareness and fulfillment of my God-self is my destiny! To overcome is our destiny. To come up over experience is our victory.
 
 
(This series of Lenten messages was first developed by Unity minister Dr. Sue Sikking, founder of Unity-by-the-Sea, Santa Monica, California, author of God Always Says Yes and Seed of the New Age.)
 
 
God is Blessing You, Right Now!
 
Rev. Alan A. Rowbotham
 
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Rev. Alan A. Rowbotham, a Unity minister for over thirty-nine years, invites you to subscribe to his free inspirational newsletter, Spiritual Solutions, at www.spiritualsolutionsblog.com
 
To subscribe for free weekday inspirational quotes, Rich Words, go to www.alanrowbotham.com
 
Feel free to share this article in its entirety with a friend.
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Today, Saturday, April 9, is the twenty-eighth day of Lent. Lent is the period of time during which we can prepare ourselves for the Easter experience.
 

Assignment 28
 
Man was created for fulfillment and for glory. The prophecies are full of the glory of man, and man spends his life trying to reach this glory and acclaim in the outer world. Many receive praise, honor and the highest distinction but it does not always carry with it the exalted happiness that is expected. We receive the honor, the applause, the crowd departs and unless this glory is “from glory to glory,” unless it is more moved from within that from without, there is no satisfaction and one is restless and unfulfilled.
 
All true glory must be accompanied with “wonder.” Wonder is surprise and astonishment and almost awe of this tremendous power within us that draws us up to companionship with those who can share with others the wonder of themselves.
 
We are treading in the magic field of miracles when we let things happen to us unannounced and unplanned. A miracle is not an infringement or violation of natural law but an event or effect in our lives and world, transcending our knowledge and expectancy. A miracle is that which is natural and true for us, that which comes to us easily and freely when we cease to “try to cause” our life and world. A miracle transcends what the human mind concedes as plausible or reasonable.
 
The lack of miracles in the world today is because man has put a “ceiling” on his life. He has a cut and dried pattern in his mind of what can happen to him and what cannot; thus he is not able to receive the miracle even if it happens before his very eyes. He will not let a miracle happen to him though his heart cries out for it. He has set up his life without the knowledge that the work that is done in him is the work of a greater power. We are half believers, believing only in ourselves.
 
We cannot have a partial God, and this is why our lives are not fulfilling. If we are to have a miracle then we must know that all power in and through us is the One Power. We must relax our “policing” of life and open the door of our mind and heart to what God would do through us if we would just let Him.
 
If we let down the bars of fear, and what people think, and many old fears and beliefs that are outmoded and antiquated, we would find a rush of God-ideas filling our lives with love and joy and we would be blessed and be a blessing.
 
 
(This series of Lenten messages was first developed by Unity minister Dr. Sue Sikking, founder of Unity-by-the-Sea, Santa Monica, California, author of God Always Says Yes and Seed of the New Age.)
 
 
God is Blessing You, Right Now!
 
Rev. Alan A. Rowbotham
 
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Rev. Alan A. Rowbotham, a Unity minister for over thirty-nine years, invites you to subscribe to his free inspirational newsletter, Spiritual Solutions, at www.spiritualsolutionsblog.com
 
To subscribe for free weekday inspirational quotes, Rich Words, go to www.alanrowbotham.com
 
Feel free to share this article in its entirety with a friend.
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Today, Saturday, April 2, is the twenty-second day of Lent. Lent is the period of time during which we can prepare ourselves for the Easter experience.
 
 
Assignment 22
 
We all live in a world with which we are so familiar that we know it not. How can this be? We are so cognizance of forms, of that which we see with our eyes and touch with our hands that we are completely unaware much of the time of an invisible, knowing Being, and the realization of a Presence that maintains and sustains the length, breadth, and height of any and all forms in outer manifestation.
 
When we realize or become aware of something that fills all and more especially of something that fills us individually, we move into the fourth dimension of life. The fourth dimension is a state of being in which the inner invisible essence of life is so real to us that we are never separated from it. This must be a day by day awareness that we never walk alone or move or think or act without inner guidance.
 
We at all times are capable of managing our life; we can be a King, a ruler in ourselves. This authority we must take if we are to walk the everyday path of life in sureness. We all know there is always an answer. We know that our troubles, challenges and difficulties are the most precious things in the world. They are life! They are our assignments for development, the ground in which we grow.
 
Only by day by day living can we reach our goal of accomplishment, which is the Joy of Living! Let us meet life on the path where we find it. To be in the midst of life is to fulfill life; it is the advancement of life.
 
What comes to you is not important, but how you meet it is the thing. When a storm is coming at sea everything is latched down to ride out the storm. A good skipper is one who has come through many storms.
 
Never apologize or have shame for the experiences of life. There is no self-justification or self-condemnation. Everything is fulfilled in thought and feeling. Do not accept evil, accept experience. All challenges of life are to walk through, not to break you or beat you down.
 
A problem comes again and again not that you may overcome it by force, but that you shall know the nothingness of it and the reality of yourself. Move into life, give yourself to life, and let life take you over. Don’t sit in the ashes of life. Get up and build a new fire!
 
 
 (This series of Lenten messages was first developed by Unity minister Dr. Sue Sikking, founder of Unity-by-the-Sea, Santa Monica, California, author of God Always Says Yes and Seed of the New Age.)
 
 
God is Blessing You, Right Now!
 
Rev. Alan A. Rowbotham
 
——————————————————————–
Rev. Alan A. Rowbotham, a Unity minister for over thirty-nine years, invites you to subscribe to his free inspirational newsletter, Spiritual Solutions, at www.spiritualsolutionsblog.com
 
To subscribe for free weekday inspirational quotes, Rich Words, go to www.alanrowbotham.com
 
Feel free to share this article in its entirety with a friend.
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Today, Monday, March 28, is the seventeenth day of Lent. Lent is the period of time during which we can prepare ourselves for the Easter experience.

 
Assignment 17
 
Man, created with an image within, is in the process of bringing forth its likeness. He has freedom of expression, but he also has the power either to use or to waste his God-substance. God-substance is made up of rich creative ideas that are to be brought forth with joy and enthusiasm, with activity and attention, for these make up the fullness of living. Life is living and this is man’s purpose for being.
 
Living is accomplishment in the field of outer expression of the inner fullness. These God ideas are charged with energy and vitality that is transmitted to mind and to every cell of the body. So to work with God-given ideas, which are in reality the desires of our heart and our need for expression, is to charge your body with new life and vigor.
 
Old age is not years passed but loss of God-substance in the form of ideas unused and untried. Old age is a state of mind that is established by a soul that refuses to be young; for the young live and love. Old age is a closed book, a soul gone to sleep, “retired” for life. “Awake thou that sleepest and arise from the dead.” (Ephesians 5:14)
 
The Mission of Jesus was to awaken man; it was also the Mission of Moses. It is your purpose and my purpose.
 
Awake, the God-power is your life and your love. You have power and dominion over every moment of your life. Every desire and need of your heart and soul was placed in you for fulfillment.
 
Jesus was not saying, “Look at all the things I can do, I have a special dispensation from God, I alone have power.” No! Only man has interpreted Jesus after this manner. Jesus said, “I am a man that told you the Truth.” (John 8:4) “Is it not written in your law, ye are Gods?” (John 10:34) “I am the door.” (John 10:9) The door is wide open for all of us, but we must carry forth the expression of our true being in ourselves.
 
The door is our own mind and heart. As we believe in God in ourselves as the direction and fulfiller of our being, we shall fulfill the prophecy in the words of Jesus when He said, “. . . the works that I do shall he do also and greater works than these shall he do.” (John 14:12)
 
 
(This series of Lenten messages was first developed by Unity minister Dr. Sue Sikking, founder of Unity-by-the-Sea, Santa Monica, California, author of God Always Says Yes and Seed of the New Age.)
 
 
God is Blessing You, Right Now!
 
Rev. Alan A. Rowbotham
 

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Rev. Alan A. Rowbotham, a Unity minister for over thirty-nine years, invites you to subscribe to his free inspirational newsletter, Spiritual Solutions, at www.spiritualsolutionsblog.com

To subscribe for free weekday inspirational quotes, Rich Words, go to www.alanrowbotham.com

Feel free to share this article in its entirety with a friend.

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Today, Sunday, March 27, is the third Sunday in Lent. Lent is the period of time during which we can prepare ourselves for the Easter experience.
 
Here is the message for the third Sunday in Lent:
 
 
Conservation
 
We need to conserve the precious substance of life. We destroy our bodies by fear, hate, condemnation, worry, or mental turmoil of any kind. Mental and emotional strain is the greatest power against us – it is our misuse of the life substance by our failing to recognize and acknowledge the Life which is God.
 
We renew and recreate our bodies, and open the doors of our mind for free flowing ideas as we conserve this sub-stance of life with awareness of God-life and to refuse false beliefs.
 
God is the substance of life, ever present! We were created of this substance; it is eternal, ever-renewing and everlasting. We waste this substance by following the sense mind. We are wasting the only substance on earth that can heal our bodies and set us free. It is the God substance we use by action of our mind that renews and recreates.
 
The recognition of God living within, always present, is the power in action “which to know aright is life eternal.” God is not the God of the dead but of the living, Jesus said. God of the living is always present awaiting our recognition.
 
Charles Fillmore, co-founder of the Unity movement, says, “Our youth we love so well never really dies, it merely falls asleep in the realm of the subconscious. We let go of the life idea.”
 
We must renew in us the idea of life and free the energies to renew and recreate. This is the beginning of the process that will overcome the last enemy, death. We live in the New Age, the age of restoration and revelation.
 
To our human mind these ideas seem impossible, but all things are possible with God and with man when he embraces God ideas. The human consciousness is limited and limiting. We worry and fret ourselves out of the Kingdom of God which is within us. Constant attention to the God idea within is to release and quicken the vital substance.
 
Joy and happiness, love and faith, oneness with others, expectancy, anticipation, believing in the things our heart tells us is real and true is the way of Conservation – is the way of the restoration of the physical body, it is the beginning of the journey to Easter morning.
 
 
(This series of Lenten messages was first developed by Unity minister Dr. Sue Sikking, founder of Unity-by-the-Sea, Santa Monica, California, author of God Always Says Yes and Seed of the New Age.)
 
 
God is Blessing You, Right Now!
 
Rev. Alan A. Rowbotham
 

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Rev. Alan A. Rowbotham, a Unity minister for over thirty-nine years, invites you to subscribe to his free inspirational newsletter, Spiritual Solutions, at www.spiritualsolutionsblog.com

To subscribe for free weekday inspirational quotes, Rich Words, go to www.alanrowbotham.com

Feel free to share this article in its entirety with a friend.

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Today, Saturday, March 19, is the tenth day of Lent. Lent is the period of time during which we can prepare ourselves for the Easter experience.
 

Assignment 10
 
Are you free? You answer, “Yes, I am free. I do as I please, go wherever I desire. I live in a free country.” I ask the same question again, for I don’t believe there are very many free souls. The chains that hold us are so finely forged they are almost invisible but are strong enough that ten thousand wild horses could not break the smallest link.
 
Freedom is of the mind and soul, this is the highest and most prized freedom. Are you able to think clearly without being hampered by the feelings of others: employer, employees, loved ones, friends, members of groups, those of other religious convictions, political parties, or even the entangling web of the outer world?
 
Can you control your feelings? I do not mean hold them in by force until you are about to explode. Can you withdraw your feelings? If you can, you have freedom!
 
Freedom is the power to sustain or refuse to sustain any idea, situation, or condition. Do you feel to withdraw your feelings is a cold, calculating disinterest? It is not! It is refusing to let outer conditions and people make you a prisoner in your own daily life. No one has the power to stop you, but you have the power to let them stop you!
 
Are you one that cannot live without the approval of others? Even strangers? Then you are not free!
 
A Power has been given to you to complete every project in life. You cannot have a need, an idea, or a plan that is truly yours by feeling and desiring, that cannot be completed. The perfected good comes with the true desire just as the bush, blossom, and fruit come with the seed. But in the mind we must plant a seed of desire in the soil of believing.
 
Remember, your feelings, your desire, your inner need to bring forth are the God Power in action. People and conditions are only incidental and part of the environment through which you bring forth – much like hard clods of earth makes a strong plant.
 
There is nothing as powerful as a God idea that is ready to come through, we are told. So, be free to live, to love, and to express your own perfect self-projects.
 
(This series of Lenten messages was first developed by Unity minister Dr. Sue Sikking, founder of Unity-by-the-Sea, Santa Monica, California, author of God Always Says Yes and Seed of the New Age.)
 
 
God is Blessing You, Right Now!
 
Rev. Alan A. Rowbotham
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Rev. Alan A. Rowbotham, a Unity minister for over thirty-nine years, invites you to subscribe to his free inspirational newsletter, Spiritual Solutions, at www.spiritualsolutionsblog.com

To subscribe for free weekday inspirational quotes, Rich Words, go to www.alanrowbotham.com

Feel free to share this article in its entirety with a friend.

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“Love sails me around the house. I walk two steps on the ground and four steps in the air. It is love. It is consolation. I don’t care if it is consolation. I am not attached to consolation. I love God. Love carries me all around. I don’t want to do anything but love.

“And when the bell rings, it is like pulling teeth to make myself shift because of that love, secret love, hidden love, obscure love, down inside me and outside me, where I don’t care to talk about it. Anyway, I don’t have the time or the energy to discuss such matters. I have only time for eternity, which is to say, for love, love, love.

“Maybe Saint Teresa would have me snap out of it, but it is pure, I tell you: I am not attached to it (I hope) and it is love, and it gives me soft punches all the time in the center of my heart. Love is pushing me around the monastery, love is kicking me all around, like a gong, I tell you. Love is the only thing that makes it possible for me to continue to tick.” – Thomas Merton, from “The Sign of Jonas.”

I love the idea of love pushing me around; it’s so much better than being pushed around by the world or by what’s happening in my life at any particular time. If we could, like Thomas Merton, realize the tremendous importance of love in our ongoing in the world, how much more would we rejoice in the love process within us.

Love is a powerful solvent, melting hardness of heart, quickening appreciation of the mind, increasing the joy of our days and the ease of our passage through them. It is the “open sesame” that opens the doors to the treasures of life. Love often appears to be many things. Indeed, one of the many songs about love tells us that “love is a many-splendored thing.”  Actually, love is one essence distinguished in its various manifestations by the degree of its purity and selflessness that proceeds through the individual from the one great source in God.

In the Scriptures we read that “God is love, and he who abides in love abides in God, and God abides in him.” (I John 4:16) The quality of love that each person must radiate to clear the path that is ongoing is proportionate to the assurance, security and faith in the omnipresence of God. Love in its highest expression is the certain knowledge of the presence of good in all things, that God is in all, through all, and over all, knowledge that without Him nothing could be made that is made.

Some happy persons have attained the assurance to an eminent degree; they are so imbued with the consciousness of God in omnipresent good that they just radiate love without effort, without even speaking or acting; they just exude this conscious awareness of love. You may pass this person in the street, and be aware of an outstanding personality who seems without words to proclaim as the Scriptures say, “underneath are the everlasting arms.” (Deut. 33:27)

If we really love God, if we love life and ourselves and other people, then we are operating in harmony with the laws of life. Further, if we fulfill the law in this sense then our experience will be happy and fulfilling. If we are not happy, if our relations with others are not harmonious, if our world is not orderly and peaceful, it would follow that we are not as loving as we need to be in order to transform ourselves and our world.

To learn to express divine love is not always easy, but it is so very rewarding and is an accomplishment that brings tremendous satisfaction. It entails facing ourselves honestly, overcoming all the emotional reactions that fall short of the divine love such as pride, greed, resentment, jealousy, inordinate sensitivity, and of course this takes a great deal of effort. When we try to express divine love, we discover our true selves, and we find that we are free to be and to have all that makes life joyous and fulfilling.

The principle is that you cannot escape God’s love. If you ascend to the heights of spiritual consciousness, you find the activity of God. On the other hand, if you wallow in disease and lack, you are still in the presence of God though you are not aware of it. God is omnipresent, ever at hand, in good times and bad. The truth is we cannot get away from the presence of God; we cannot live apart from God. You can’t get away from God any more than you can get away from breathing. God is within and about you as your peace, joy, and life. When you darken your thought by believing the opposite of this, obviously you can’t perceive the truth. But God doesn’t leave you when you depart from Him in thought; His presence is always present.

The most futile thing in all the world is to try to escape God’s love. Many persons find their way in life difficult because they do not accept God’s presence in love. Consequently, they do not have enough love to radiate to others, or so they think. We could never think of the loveless person as one who is conscious of God’s love in his heart. There are those of us who cannot think of God’s love because we are so engrossed in what others say and do. If we hold in mind a wrong that someone appeared to do ten years ago or even ten hours ago, certainly then we cannot very well express love. Many of us hold ourselves apart from love because of our own unpleasant memories.

So, if we would enjoy life and the many blessings that make life worthwhile then we must love. Love is a powerful solvent, melting hardness of heart, quickening appreciation of the mind, increasing the joy of our days and the ease of our passage through them. It is the “open sesame” that opens the doors to the treasures of life. As Thomas Merton said, “Love is the only thing that makes it possible for me to continue to tick.” Let it be so with each of us as, we let God’s love “push us around” and let love lead our way.

Remember, God is Blessing You, Right Now!

Rev. Alan A. Rowbotham
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Rev. Alan Rowbotham, a Unity minister for over thirty-eight years, invites you to enjoy more articles and/or subscribe to his free inspirational newsletter, “Spiritual Solutions,” at www.spiritualsolutionsblog.com

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