Spiritual Solutions

Many of us have had great dreams for ourselves and then let them die. They were dreams that started within us and then perhaps we let them get caught up in outer things and we’ve lost our direction and motivation for their accomplishment.

There’s a great analogy I find in the book of Ezekiel about the valley of dry bones. It says, “The hand of the Lord was upon me and he brought me out by the Spirit of the Lord, and set me down in the midst of the valley; it was full of bones. And he led me round among them; and behold, there were very many upon the valley; and lo, they were very dry. And he said to me, ‘Son of man, can these bones live?’ And I answered ‘O, Lord God, thou knowest.’

Again, he said to me, ‘Prophesy to these bones, and say to them, O dry bones, hear the word of the Lord. Thus says the Lord God to these bones: Behold, I will cause breath to enter you, and you shall live. And I will lay sinews upon you, and will cause flesh to come upon you, and cover you with skin, and put breath in you, and you shall live; and you shall know that I am the Lord.”

Of course, this wasn’t really about bones at all. It was about lost dreams. He was talking to the Israelites, who had started off with great dreams of God’s presence and the things that with God they could achieve. Then they got caught up in creating idols and so on.

But he is speaking not only to the Israelites; he is also speaking to us. We have started off sometimes with great dreams, guided from within, and then we’ve let them die. We’ve let them get caught up with outer things, outer concerns, outer circumstances, outer situations that have caused our dreams to shrivel up and die. And we end up with a valley of dry bones.

But he says it’s not all over yet, because you can prophesy to these bones that the Lord God will come and clothe them with muscle and skin and sinew, and will breathe into them and make them live.

So the prophet prophesies to them, and the bones begin to come together, and the muscle comes on them, and the skin comes on them, and they stand up. But there’s no life in them. It’s like us, we sometimes look like living beings but we’re not; there’s no life in us, there’s something missing. And what was it? It was the breath of God.

So God says to Ezekiel, “Breath on them, speak to them again, prophesy again and say to them that the Lord God will breath on you, and the breath will be in you.” So when the breath comes in they live, the dreams live again.

Our dreams live when the breath of God moves in us. This is what makes us uniquely human and uniquely divine; the breath of God is that which moves us to our highest good. If we align ourselves with that awareness, then we find that our world has changed. The outer things are still there, but we’re not so caught up in them; they are transformed because of our inner perception of them as we put God first in our lives.

No matter what is happening, no matter what challenges come along, we are centered in God’s presence and live in a conscious realization of our oneness with God. We really know for ourselves that there is only one presence and one power; we are centered in that knowing and able to move out into all situations with confidence.

When we are not living according to the Truth of our being, not living God’s purpose, we’re not living our wholeness and we feel divided, separated from God and separated from the Truth within ourselves. In order to come together, it takes the breath of God. We only find real life when we are moving with that breath of God.

You may remember some of the last words that Jesus said to the disciples before his ascension. He said, “Wait for the presence of God and the Holy Spirit will bring the power to you.” The “breath of God” and the “Holy Spirit” are the same. The Holy Spirit is the movement of God; it’s the whole Spirit of God in action through you. We can identify it with the wind or breath; we cannot see the wind and in the same way we cannot see God’s movement, but we can see what the wind does and we can see what God does in our lives.

We may think of ourselves as being like sailboats, only moving in the right direction when we open our sails to the breath of God. In that way, we become more malleable to the movement of Spirit within us instead of thinking that we have to force the pace. We become still, and listen more in order to open ourselves to the Spirit of God.

Remember, in the story of Pentecost, it said they were all together in one place. That means they were in integrity, they were united in prayer in one place or one consciousness. And it said it was as though there was a mighty rush of wind that came to them and filled the house, and they were all filled with the Holy Spirit.

They were all changed after that experience. They began to speak and to understand one another even though there were different races; in other words, they spoke with the language of Spirit. And they were permanently changed.

So we know that change is possible within us and for us, as it was with the disciples; when we open ourselves to the Holy Spirit or the “wholeness” of potential within ourselves, our dreams can live again.

Remember, God is Blessing You, Right Now!

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Rev. Alan A. Rowbotham, a Unity minister for over forty 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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Today I want to take a look at the true source of power. What is our true power? All of us need daily power. I talked with someone the other day and said, “How are you doing?” He responded, “Well, I’ll be all right if I can just get through the day” That’s a pretty heavy situation to be in. But in a sense, many of us feel that way, if only we have enough power to get through the day, if only we have enough power to do the things that are ours to do. We need that daily power and we need to know the source of that power.

After the resurrection, the disciples were sort of in that same situation. They’d gone to what was known as the Upper Room and they were feeling dejected, helpless and powerless; they didn’t know what to do with themselves or which way to turn. And Jesus appeared to them. He instructed them to wait in the city, to wait in Jerusalem, until the promise of the Father came.

We can find that story in the gospel of Luke, also in the book of Acts which records the activities of the apostles after the crucifixion, resurrection and ascension. It says “He charged them not to depart from Jerusalem but to wait for the promise of the Father.” Then a little later it says, “You shall receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you, and you shall be my witnesses in Jerusalem and in all Judea and Samaria and to the end of the earth.”

These were tremendous words of hope that he gave to them. And we know that, after this time, we come to the experience of what has been called Pentecost. Pentecost was actually a Jewish celebration fifty days after Passover, but we remember Pentecost for different reasons. I won’t go into that at this time because I want to focus on the steps to realizing the true source of power so we can begin to apply it to our daily lives.

Jesus’ words remind me also of the Old Testament, when the prophet Isaiah was speaking to the exiles from Israel who were in Babylon. He was giving them similar words of hope. He is talking about the presence of God in our lives, and says, “He gives power to the faint, and to him who has no might he increases strength. Even youths shall faint and be weary and young men shall fall exhausted, but they who wait for the Lord shall renew their strength. They shall mount up with wings like eagles, they shall run and not be weary, they shall walk and not faint.” There we get a vision of new strength, new vitality, a surge of energy that comes when we tap into the true source of our power.

So God meets us where we are, bringing us blessings all the time. But we have to be open to receive those blessings. So, what is the source of true power and how do we find it in our daily living? What hinders us, what stops us from receiving God power? It’s available to us all the time as the promises say: wait for the promise that will renew you. But we don’t always experience it. And why is that? What hinders us?

There are two things really that hinder us from experiencing God’s presence. The first one is hurry, and the second one is worry; hurry and worry. We tend to do a lot of both. We think we have to hurry to get places, but the thing that falls by the wayside when we get in a hurry consciousness is our time of true prayer. That is the first thing to suffer, because we don’t give enough time to it. We might say, “I don’t have time to pray right now because I have to hurry up, I have to get somewhere, to do something.” So the prayer often gets pushed to the back.

Hurry hinders us, it begins to ease the awareness of God out of our lives and we begin to slip away from the true source of power. The power is not out there somewhere; the power is truly within us. We can only find that power if we take time to pray, to get still and open ourselves to receive it. Hurry interferes with that; and the other thing is worry.

Worry hinders us receiving God’s blessings. And how does it do that? It blocks the flow of good to us, because worry simply means that we’re not trusting God. We say we believe in God and trust in God, but then why do we worry? We all do it, we worry. Worry gets in the way of us feeling and knowing God’s presence because we’re not really trusting. We may believe in God but we’re not really trusting God.

We have to begin to really trust God, to let the hurry go and to lessen the worry. Then we can begin to receive the blessings of God’s presence.

If we would just take the time to get still and pray, the answer will come; our direction will be there for us, our way will be opened. But we must take the time, put aside the worry, and take the time to pray.

The disciples recognized the importance of prayer. It says in the scripture that they did stay in Jerusalem in the Upper Room, “and they were all there, in one accord, in prayer.” Mary, the mother of Jesus, and other women were there, and the brothers of Jesus were there. And they all prayed together.

Sometime later, at Pentecost, the Holy Spirit touched them as Jesus had promised, “You shall receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you.”

Daily power is our greatest need and prayer is our greatest resource. Sometimes we think of the demonstration of power as a brute strength, assertiveness, and aggressiveness to get things done and to thunder through life. But that’s not true power.

True power is never noisy, it doesn’t beat the drum, it doesn’t toot its own horn, it never puts people down, and it never belittles others. True power takes decisive action and claims authority of the inner self as is necessary, but it doesn’t make a big fanfare of it. True power is always demonstrated in gentleness, but sometimes we forget that and think we have to put on the big show.

David, says in one of the psalms, “The Lord is my rock and my fortress; in him will I trust. Thou savest me from violence and thy gentleness hath made me great.”

Unfortunately, we often equate gentleness with meekness and think of it as weakness. But it’s not so, for in true gentleness and in true meekness there is strength. Jesus said, “Blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the earth.” Some might say “That’s not really true, because it’s the pushy ones who inherit the earth, the ones who are aggressive and assertive and want to take over, they inherit the earth.”

Now, the translation of the Greek word “meek” really means “tame,” in relation to having tamed the powers within ourselves, having them in harness as it were, in order to move them in the right direction, to be aligned with the true power within us. That’s what the word really means; it doesn’t mean weak at all. It implies a sense of serenity, a sense of centeredness, of harnessing those powers within us.

In the French translation of that same passage, it translates to “Blessed are the debonair.” That gives us a totally different feeling, one of courtesy and charm. Put those two translations together and we can come up with a word in our contemporary society that really characterizes this attitude of being. What is that word? Cool!

“Blessed are the cool.” When you are cool, you have it all together, you don’t get upset about things, you don’t have to push your way through things; you are smooth, you are cool, you go through things easily, you project an image of gentleness and confidence and you move forward with assurance.

St. Francis de Sales says, “Nothing is as strong as gentleness, and nothing is as gentle as true strength.” It’s prayer that gets it all together, and when you get it all together you suddenly find that you have that secret power that goes before you to make your way safe, easy, and successful.

God is blessing you now, as you stay cool!

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Rev. Alan A. Rowbotham, a Unity minister for over forty 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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THE RESURRECTION

Easter Sunday. Read John 20:1-18.

Easter is the celebration of the resurrection of Jesus. Its inner meaning and spiritual significance is the awakening and raising to spiritual consciousness of the I AM in humankind, which has been dead in trespass and sin and buried in the tomb of materiality.

“I came that they may have life, and may have it abundantly.” The resurrection is the raising up of the whole person – spirit, soul, and body – into the Christ consciousness of life and wholeness. This Jesus did. The tomb could not hold His redeemed perfected body temple. Resurrection is accomplished by the quickening power of the Holy Spirit.

Every time we rise to the realization of eternal, indwelling life, making union with the Father-Mind, the resurrection of Jesus takes place within us. All thoughts of limitation and inevitable obedience to material law are left in the tomb of materiality.

Jesus was born into the race thought so that He might reconstruct it in conformity with the divine law. He thus became our Way-Shower, our Saviour, our Helper.

Today the light of Truth is illumining my mind, and I rise up in the majesty of my divine sonship and proclaim myself to be the child of the Most High, free from all belief in sin, sickness, and death.

I affirm: “In unity with Christ I realize that I am resurrected into the life, light, and power of God.”

Questions:

1. What is the spiritual significance of Easter?

2. What is the resurrection?

3. How is resurrection accomplished?

4. Why was Jesus born into the race thought?

Christ within me is the resurrection and the life. Christ within me is the power that enables me to rise triumphant out of every trial.

About the Author of Keep a True Lent

Charles Fillmore was an innovative thinker, a pioneer in metaphysical thought at a time when most religious thought in America was entirely orthodox. He was a lifelong advocate of the open, inquiring mind, and he took pride in keeping abreast of the latest scientific and educational discoveries and theories. Many years ago he wrote, “What you think today may not be the measure for your thought tomorrow”; and it seems likely that were he to compile this book today, he might use different metaphors, different scientific references, and so on.

Truth is changeless. Those who knew Charles Fillmore best believe that he would like to be able to rephrase some of his observations for today’s readers, thus giving them the added effectiveness of contemporary thought. But the ideas themselves–the core of Charles Fillmore’s writings–are as timeless now (and will be tomorrow) as when they were first published.

Charles Fillmore was born on an Indian reservation just outside the town of St. Cloud, Minnesota, on August 22, 1854. He made his transition on July 5, 1948, at Unity Village, Missouri, at the age of 93. To get a sense of history, when Charles was eleven, Abraham Lincoln was assassinated; when Charles died, Harry Truman was President.

With his wife Myrtle, Charles Fillmore founded the Unity movement and Silent Unity, the international prayer ministry that publishes Daily Word. Charles and Myrtle built the worldwide organization that continues their work today, Unity School of Christianity. Through Unity School’s ministries of prayer, education, and publishing, millions of people around the world are finding the teachings of Truth discovered and practiced by Charles and Myrtle Fillmore.

Charles Fillmore was a spiritual pioneer whose impact has yet to be assessed. No lesser leaders than Dr. Norman Vincent Peale and Dr. Emmet Fox were profoundly influenced by him. Dr. Peale borrowed his catchphrase of positive thinking from Charles Fillmore. Emmet Fox was so affected by Fillmore’s ideas that he changed his profession. From an engineer, he became the well-known writer and speaker.

Charles Fillmore – author, teacher, metaphysician, practical mystic, husband, father, spiritual leader, visionary – has left a legacy that continues to impact the lives of millions of people. By his fruits, he is continuously known.

Remember, God is Blessing You, Right Now!

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 Rev. Alan A. Rowbotham, a Unity minister for over forty 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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THE FIRE OF GOD

36th Day, Tuesday. Read Acts 2:1-21.

Fire represents the positive, affirmative state of mind, as opposed to the negative or watery state.

The fire of God (Holy Spirit) is the Word of God in action. It burns out the dross of negation in consciousness, and reveals Christ. Tongues of fire represent the illumination of thought, in demonstration of Spirit’s presence and power. The flame of fire symbolizes the light of intuition that burns in our heart.

While the light of intuition (flame of fire) burns in our heart, there is no loss of substance. In thinking there is a vibratory process that uses up nerve tissue, but in the wisdom that comes from the heart this “bush” or tissue is not consumed. This is “holy ground,” or substance in Divine Mind. When we approache this we must take off from our understanding all limited thoughts of the Absolute (”put off thy shoes from off thy feet”).

Spiritual fire is a symbol of the destruction of evil and error. The fire of Spirit never ceases its life-giving, purifying glow. In it all error is burned up in consciousness and the purified individual then manifests this “fire” as eternal life.

I have the assurance that I shall not be left partially cleansed, that the purifying work will be complete. “Our God is a consuming fire,” also He is life, love, substance, power, intelligence, Truth.

In the name of Jesus Christ, I affirm: “The Holy Spirit flares its cleansing, purifying flames throughout soul and body, and I am made whole and perfect.”

Questions:

1. What does fire represent?

2. What is the fire of God?

3. What does the fire of God do?

4. What must we do when we approach holy ground?

The works of Spirit are always constructive. I am not afraid to be on fire with the idea of God; I am not afraid to be consumed with a desire for greater light and Truth.

Remember, God is Blessing You, Right Now!

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 Rev. Alan A. Rowbotham, a Unity minister for over forty 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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POWER

10th Day, Saturday. Read Luke 4:31-44.

We control our thoughts and feelings by the use of our innate power. A quickening from on high must precede our realization of dominion. “Ye shall receive power, when the Holy Spirit is come upon you.”

Humankind is the power of God in action. The power to control one’s thinking is the highest gift given to us all. There is a universal, creative force that urges us forward to the recognition of the creative power of individual thought.

The word Jehovah (Christ) is charged with spiritual power far above and beyond any other word in human language.

The power center in the throat is the open door between the formless and the formed worlds of vibration pertaining to the expression of sound. When the voice has united with the life of the soul, it takes on a sweetness and a depth that one feels and remembers. But sweeter and deeper still is the voice of one who has made union with Spirit and can say with Jesus, “Heaven and earth shall pass away, but my words shall not pass away.”

I cultivate a loving attitude of mind toward everybody, and my voice is rich, warm, and mellow. As I pray and realize spiritual dominion, I feel vital and energetic and my voice is strong and vibrant and brilliant. Through these vibrations I feel the power of unity with the higher self more quickly than in any other way. “All power is given unto me in heaven [mind] and in earth [body].”

In His name I affirm: “All the issues of my life are stirred to action by the quickening Christ power, and I have dominion over my thoughts and my feelings.”

Questions:

1. What must precede man’s control of his thoughts and feelings?

2. What is the highest gift given to man?

3. How does the voice become rich, warm, and mellow?

4. What happens when we pray and realize our spiritual dominion?

The Truth is that I can do all things through the power of Christ working within me. I can act and react in loving ways. I can find harmony and happiness in living with the people in my world.

Remember, God is Blessing You, Right Now!

—————————————————–             

 Rev. Alan A. Rowbotham, a Unity minister for over forty 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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“Guidance” is a common word in our day. Everyone seeks some kind of guidance: guidance for children, for adolescents, for marriage relationships, for the businessperson, and so forth. Occasionally, someone might suggest the idea of spiritual or “Divine” guidance.

Unfortunately, that suggestion may be looked upon with distrust, simply because the term “Divine guidance” is usually related to the magical, mystical or psychic. Yet there is an almost instinctive feeling in every person that there is a “Something” beyond personal prejudices, different from the mental state of worry and concern, and that this “Something” can be reached.

But this feeling for the “Something” has often been dealt with on the level of superstition. Thus, many persons look for guidance through a sign or leading, all the way from the flipping of a coin to reading the stars or the numbers, the cards, the tea leaves or the crystal ball, and then on to Indian guides and spirit readings. This is not to put down any of these pseudo-sciences, but rather to point up the fact that involvement in them is a subtle form of self put-down.

If any person evidences, even in a brief showing, some kind of inner direction or direct knowing, it is often identified as ESP or psychic phenomenon or spirit guidance. This is to malign our potential as a spiritual being, and to deny the inherent flow of guidance within us that is just as natural as the instinct of animals. Remember this dynamic statement from the book of Job: “There is a spirit in man, and the inspiration of the Almighty gives him understanding.” So why do we refuse to accept this inner knowing?

Maybe it is that religion has not really dealt with the whole of the person. The dictionary defines “religion” as “divine revelation for human guidance.” But most religions have become exteriorly oriented, dealing with God “out there” or “up there.” We may be told in impassioned sermons that our need is “to find God.” But God is not to be found – for God is not lost. 

It is not God’s hiddenness, but our blindness that is the problem. We live in a state of ceaseless guidance, in a field of Infinite knowingness, but we are blind and deaf to the process. Emerson says, “There is guidance for each of us, and by lowly listening we shall hear the right word.”

To find God, to understand God, we need to expand our thoughts to the realization of the omnipresence of God and then know, in the words of former Unity minister and author Eric Butterworth, “The whole of Spirit is present at every point in space at the same time, and in its entirety.” There is no distance between us and God. There is nowhere to go to get guidance or inspiration or creativity. We are in it, all of it, all the time!

Divine guidance, or spiritual guidance or “direct knowing” is the same as getting an immediate answer to prayer in time of need. It is but another way of explaining the work of intuition. The ancient wise ones called these occurrences “illumination.” The mystics called them “showings.” Many call them “leadings.” But again we lose the real idea if we see these things as some kind of special access to the inner secrets of the Universe, or some kind of psychism or divination.

The term “Voice of God” is purely a poetic expression. It is found all through the Bible.   And it has been terribly misleading for many people. The classic instance is Moses’ experience at the burning bush. “God called to him out of the bush: ‘Moses, Moses!’” This was an experience of direct knowing. The Bible writers used highly symbolic language and overstatement, such as describing locusts as big as giants that jumped from hill to hill. So they are saying in this passage about Moses that it was a knowing so clear that it was as if God was actually talking to him.

Remember, “The Father knows even before you ask Him”; “Before they call, I will answer.” This means that God is present – always and in all ways. God knows. God knows in you, for you. Knowing is, and it is at hand. It is now. The way out (the way to escape the difficulties at hand) is at hand.

But this guidance or direct knowing comes into consciousness most easily through a mind that is uncluttered with the known. If you know about a lot of things, it is difficult to know the Truth, which is to know the Knower. A creative mind, or a mind in a creative experience, is so involved in knowing that it lets go of what others know about, even if they know about things that indicate impossibilities.

Most people have preconceived notions which they bring into their prayer time. They have a strong idea of what they want to have happen, and often, even in seeking guidance they are actually looking for “Divine approval” of something they have already determined to do. To have the mind full of preconceived notions, even images and treasure maps representing outlined goals, is to frustrate the process of direct knowing.

The important thing to remember is that wherever you are, God is. The whole of Spirit, the Holy Spirit, is present in its entirety at every point in space at the same time. Spirit is present, as presence. All-knowing is present. The answer to your dilemma is present – here and now. There is nowhere to go, nothing to reach for, and no one to contact and plead with.

Prayer is communion, oneness, a listening. “Be still and know that I am God.” When you know that I AM is God, you humble yourself to listen; you expect to be guided. In childlike faith, you know the Knower within you that is always present.

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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