Spiritual Solutions

I was thinking about times when you may have been driving along, perhaps in a different neighborhood and intent upon where you’re going, perhaps not paying much attention to things around you. Then you hit one of those speed bumps – not the larger ones with all the warning signs before them, “Warning – Speed Hump Ahead – 15 miles per hour,” but the smaller ones that have no warning and are still around. I hit one myself not too long ago. And when you hit one of those things, wow, that shakes you up and wakes you up, doesn’t it?

In life we have bumps, too, don’t we? Life goes bump for all of us from time to time, we all hav unexpected things that happen to us which may be difficult, or frustrating, or even tragic. How do we handle these bumps in our life? Are we grim about them, or are we gracious in how we handle them? It makes a difference to us.

How we handle those unexpected events determines to some degree how we handle challenges throughout our lives. We develop a certain attitude. The attitude can be one of welcoming all experiences knowing you can handle it and move on through it; or you become fearful of life and what may be around the next corner.

Being cautious and fearful about life, you naturally attract to yourself things to be fearful about.

So how do you deal with these bumps in your life? Do you think and feel that you can transform such situations and handle them with grace, ease, and confidence? Do you move through them in a way that makes you stronger rather than diminishing you?

Let’s look at some answers to those questions. How do we handle those bumps in life that surely come along?

There’s a story in scripture which can give us a key. It’s the story about Joseph, who ticked off his brothers by telling them his dreams which symbolized a future when they would all bow down to him. The brothers got together and threw Joseph in a pit, and then they sold him to some Ishmaelite slave traders who took him as a slave into Egypt.

Later on, when Joseph met up with his brothers again in different circumstances, he said to them, “As for you, you meant evil against me, but God meant it for good.”

I think we can do the same thing with situations which upset us, and disturb us, and throw us for a loop, and shake us up. We can say, this situation may seem to be evil, it may seem to want to take us down, to destroy us, but God meant it for good. If we take that attitude we can have a shift in our perception and we can begin to look for the good in the situation or person.

In Romans 8:28 we find Paul saying, “We know that in everything God works for good with those who love him . . .”

You may say, “In everything, even this mess that I’m in the middle of right now? In everything? There’s some good in this? I can find good results from this?” “Can this really be a vehicle of blessing?”

Yes, in everything – God works for good with those who love him.

Of course, you have to know, you must really believe, that there is good in everything.

Faith is a stabilizing element that sustains us. My wife, Kathryn, says it must be “unshakable faith.” She has an affirmation she uses all the time and which goes like this:

“I have unshakable faith in the perfect outworking of every situation in my life for God is in absolute control and all things are working together for my highest good.”

One of the most important things in life is the ability to recognize and utilize the good, which is always present.

You’ll remember that Jesus said, “He that is within me is greater than he that is in the world.” A challenge can be an opportunity to draw on your inner resources.

Jesus also said, “Don’t judge by appearances, but judge righteous judgment.”

What is righteous judgment? It’s looking from a God perspective, isn’t it? It was Emerson who said that “Prayer is the contemplation of life from the highest point of view.” So it’s a shifting from an outer perspective to a different point of view, to the highest point of view. When we see from a God perspective we can see the good in the situation.

There’s another key in the quote I gave you earlier. It says, “We know that in everything God works for good with those who love him . . .” (Romans 8:28)

“With” means to cooperate, doesn’t it? Loving God, we cooperate. Cooperation is love; it is the attitude of mind where we do not work alone. We cooperate with God, and we cooperate with people. The right use of divine love changes our whole perspective.

We are no longer the sole operator of our lives, the one who goes it alone and pulls ourselves up with our own bootstraps. We are the co-operator, we are the co-worker, we are the co-author, and we are the co-creator with God. Our lives begin to improve and change dramatically as we consciously work with God in the situation.

The spirit of love will lead you into the ways of cooperation. Then that love becomes a magnet that draws your good to you. Love is like a magnet and it always draws our highest good to us. The divine process says that we must love God, and then everything works for good.

So look for the good and look for God in every situation.

For God is Blessing You, Right Now!

Rev. Alan A. Rowbotham

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

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