Spiritual Solutions

It was Ann Landers who said, “Some people believe holding on and hanging in there are signs of great strength. However, there are times when it takes much more strength to know when to let go and then do it.”

Yes, we have to know when to let go. And more than that, we have to be willing to let go and then allow ourselves to do it. In Unity, we often say that we need to “Let Go and Let God.” So after being willing to let go and allowing ourselves to let go, it’s important to realize that we are letting it go – whatever it might be – so that God can bring about the right outcome through us. Or, as Meister Eckhart famously said, “Let God be God in you.”

In this article I’d like to expand on that idea with excerpts from an article by the late Mary L. Kupferle, Unity minister and author, titled Let Go! Let God’s Love Do the Work!, printed in the February 1988 issue of Daily Word magazine. I hope you will find it inspiring and helpful to you in the letting go process:

Let go, dear friend, and let God’s love do the work. Give up all striving and struggling to accomplish. Whatever has been difficult for you to handle, hard for you to release, or impossible for you to solve can be given to the loving Father. God’s love will do the work and bring about the healing, the answer, the blessing you cannot accomplish of yourself. Let love – God’s love – do the work!

God has created this beautiful universe and knows how to help you surmount any doubt or disbelief. God’s love has fashioned you and has given you wisdom that you can call on, unlimited peace that you can accept, and unceasing goodness that you can experience.

If you have been discouraged about a delay in receiving a physical healing, turn this specific challenge over to the love of the Father. Tell yourself, “I let go and let God’s love do the work.” Accept the help of that love. Let it think through you. Give up the belief that you must struggle and fight your Way through any challenge. Let the Father take over. Put all in the light of love. Again and again, let go and let God’s love do the work!

To help yourself begin the process of letting go and letting God’s love do the work, take a few minutes now and daily – as often as needed – to consciously assume a quiet, receptive state of being. You are physically quiet as you turn your thoughts to the Mater’s words, “Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow . . .” (Matt. 6:28), and relax every muscle of your body in readiness to receive.

Patiently wait upon the Father’s love as a growing plant waits upon the light of the morning sun. “Consider” how the rays of light and warmth enfold a plant and move down through the leaves and stalk into the roots within the soil. Think about the invisible working of the sunlight, reaching to the depths of the plant and encouraging its growth, strength, and unfoldment.

Realize that somehow, in some wonderful and miraculous way, the love of God is continuously flowing into your mind, emotions, and body, touching all with life-giving power and renewal.

Let go! Let God’s love do the work! Give that love an opportunity to work through you and your life and affairs. Take the time needed to “consider” again and again the miracle-working love of your Father. Continue until you find yourself accepting it more and more naturally. Results will speak for themselves. You will be encouraged to find new awareness of God’s presence and new comprehension of God’s spirit moving within you.

Do not try to understand how this is happening or the means by which the answers will follow. Just – for this time – be willing to accept being loved. Take no thought – just “consider” the presence and power of God’s love. Letting go, you will let divine love harmonize the feelings within your heart, the thoughts within your mind, the functions within your body, and the activities and relationships within your life.

Jesus gave his days and nights, words and actions, thoughts and feelings, prayers and teachings to the Father, knowing that the Father through miracle-working love could do the work freely. He gave himself mentally, emotionally, and physically to that same wonderful love and became the visible example of love in action that overcame every limitation of humankind. He came to demonstrate that this is what happens when we turn away from burdensome thinking and struggling to the quietness of letting go and letting God and His love do the work.

This same love is available to you now. Let this love supply strength and healing for your physical being. Let it satisfy your longings for inner peace and greater faith. Let God’s love dissolve your feelings of unsureness or need to grasp for wisdom. Let His love handle every challenge, every undesirable thought, every unwanted emotion, and every binding habit. Let go of believing that you must continue to struggle with yourself and by yourself. Instead, accept the great love of your Father. Let go, dear friend. Again and again, practice letting go and letting God’s love do the work.

The love of God is greater than any opposition, any appearance of evil, and any claim of limitation. The love of God is your safety, your security, your guide, your comfort, your assurance, your clear vision, your accomplishment, your peace, and your light for every path of life.

Take hold of this love, dear friend, in total assurance that God’s love will do the work. Let go! Let go! Let go! Let God’s love do the work! All you feel you have been unable to do, God shall accomplish. God’s love will do all that your willingness will let it do. Let God’s love reach into the very roots of your being. Let God’s miracles of love begin now. Let go! Let God’s love do the work!

Remember, God is Blessing You, Right Now!

Rev. Alan A. Rowbotham

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

Feel free to share this article in its entirety with a friend. You may also reproduce and publish this article if you also include this reference box. Thank you!

If you’d like to receive “Rich Words,” featuring weekday inspirational quotes, you can subscribe at www.alanrowbotham.com
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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

Feel free to share this article in its entirety with a friend. You may also reproduce and publish this article if you also include this reference box. Thank you!

If you’d like to receive “Rich Words,” featuring weekday inspirational quotes, you can subscribe at
www.alanrowbotham.com

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Are you bogged down in the belief in sickness and impotence? Then right now bring yourself to the present moment, and become aware that you can use your God given dominion over all things. God’s spirit of life, dynamic energizing life, dwells within you. It is there, and you have only to call it forth, put it into action, and you will begin to manifest perfect health in spirit, mind, and body.

Perhaps you have allowed yourself to be handicapped by fear and indecision. The first thing to do is to take your mind off the problem and perplexities and fix your faith in God. When you place your affairs in the Father’s loving care, all anxieties cease. Worrying incapacitates us for meeting life’s crises.

Use your faith, declare your dominion now. In II Corinthians 6:2 we read, “Behold, now is the acceptable time; behold, now is the day of salvation.” And Jesus said, “Do you not say, ‘There are four months, then comes the harvest’? I tell you, lift up your eyes, and see how the fields are already white for harvest.” (John 4:35)

Instead of having faith that sometime in the future your healing might take place, you can exercise your faith now, give thanks that your healing is already taking place and accept it now. “This is the day which the Lord has made; let us rejoice and be glad in it.” (Ps. 118:24)

God is ever with you. Let Him quicken your mind, put the proper tools in your hands and lead you in the right decision. Through the guidance of the indwelling power of God you will be able to say the right word and do the right thing in every situation that may confront you.

If you seem to be weighed down by some circumstance, a steadfast faith in God will help you to lift up your head and to face the situation unafraid and confident. God’s omnipotent power is yours. God’s love surrounds you. His light is within you to guide you.

Perhaps you’ve allowed yourself to be fettered by hatred, resentment or suspicion. Turn your eyes instead upon the blessings of life and the blessedness of other human beings. If you feel that you’ve been treated unfairly, misused, or abused, it‘s time to exercise forgiveness. Then put it out of your mind. The only reality in any situation is the thought we have concerning it, the way we feel about it. This is the law of life.

“Whatsoever things are true, whatsoever things are honorable, whatsoever things are pure, whatsoever things are lovely . . . think on these things.” (Phil. 4:8) Put the unpleasant thoughts right out of your mind by thinking of God’s goodness and greatness and love. Bless the person who has seemingly injured you. Behold the Christ in him or her.

Could it be that you have neglected the power of prayer? Prayer is the open sesame to the joys and riches of the kingdom, and yet we fail to use it.

Many marvelous answers to prayer have been outlined through the spontaneous faith of persons utterly unlearned in theology, psychology or metaphysics.

Remember the woman who came to Jesus for healing, hoping to push through the crowd to touch the hem of his garment without speaking or even being blessed by him? She probably knew nothing about the working of faith, but she had the secret of prayer. She had absolute faith, the courage to act, and the simplicity to accept. She used the necessary means. She believed if she could but touch the master, the healing would follow. And, confident in that faith, she pressed on, touched him, and was healed.

Simplicity of faith is the thing that always gets an answer, sometimes in the form of immediate, even seeming miraculous results. Sometimes, it may come slowly. Sometimes we lose patience and our faith grows weak. If we become faint hearted and fall back in our faith, then we must try again. Long years of wrong thinking, of imperfect practice, have often made deep grooves in the brain. It takes effort and continued practice before change.

Don’t be discouraged. Never give up. Keep faith in the latent powers within you. Remember those who have overcome insurmountable handicaps, and keep constantly in mind that you too can overcome. And you don’t have to wait. Whether your faith is small or great it is the key to riches of which you never dreamed. Remind yourself that “now is the acceptable time.”

Remember, God is Blessing You, Right Now!

Rev. Alan A. Rowbotham

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

Please feel free to publish this article in your blog or newsletter or share it with a friend, as long as you include this resource box.

If you’d like to receive weekday inspirational quotes, you can subscribe at Rich Words.

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Here’s a poem I wrote when I was in ministerial school about forty years ago, after recovering with sympathetic help from a difficult time and finding my spiritual connection again. My wife, Kathryn, found the poem when going through some old papers. Whether or not it is acceptable poetry, I do think the sentiments expressed have some merit and may trigger some reflection within you. So here it is:

The Listening Ear

Gently, gently, gentle touch, the hand of God moves on;

Pushing here, persuading there, the will of God is done.

If we would accept His love and put our trust in Him,

How easily we would glide through life; He’d grant our every whim.

But stubborn we, we think we know, and block the inner voice;

An ear that never listens, cannot hear the choice.

This way, that way, here and there we run;

Yet when we learn to listen, our new life has begun.

Love flows freely in our veins, our hearts then pulse with joy,

If we would learn to listen. With God we cannot toy,

And only use Him when we please; He’s not a part-time King,

But full-time, all-time, living now, as One with every thing.

All creation is the Lord’s, each hand, each leaf, each tree;

If only we accept Him now, then only are we free.

Take not a step, nor speak a word, not start a brand new day,

Without you listen to your God, and act upon His way.

God is Blessing You, Right Now!

Rev. Alan A. Rowbotham

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Rev. Alan Rowbotham, a Unity minister for more than thirty-five years, invites you to enjoy more articles on Spiritual Solutions and/or subscribe to the free Spiritual Solutions newsletter at www.spiritualsolutionsblog.com

Feel free to share this article in its entirety with a friend. You may also reproduce and publish the article if you include this reference box. Thank you.
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