Principles of Manifestation: Desire and Dedication

Mick Turner

As we begin to apply the spiritual principles of manifestation to our lives things can get a bit confusing. We often wonder whether or not we are “doing it right” or if we are following proper procedures. Experience has taught me that the best thing to do after developing a thorough understanding of the principles involved in positive or affirmative prayer, is to keep things as simple as possible. With this in mind, let’s explore two important issues that come in to play right from the start: desire and dedication.

 

Desire

 

Let’s begin by looking at desire, because all good things, whether or not they are brought to fruition, begin in the realm of desire. It is desire that gives rise to our dreams in life and it is desire that provides the fuel for performing the positive activities that will allow us to bring those dreams into reality. In this sense, desire provides positive motivation. When we truly desire something with our whole heart we set in motion the powers of the mind to achieve that which we desire. If we have as a goal to deepen our walk of faith and manifest some degree of success in living the genuine Christian life then we must recognize that this positive goal began as a desire. Further, the power of a strong desire, when properly applied, helps insure our success. Christian Larson tells us:

 

…it is readily understood why the wish, if strong, positive, determined and continuous, will tend to produce the thing wished for…It is not occasional desire, or half-hearted desire that gets the thing desired. It is persistent desire; persistent desire not only desires continually, but with all the power of life and mind and soul. The force of a half-alive desire, when acting upon a certain faculty (the subconscious mind) cannot cause that faculty to become fully alive….it is true that the desires of most people are neither continuous nor very deep. They are shallow, occasional, wishes without enough power to stir to action a single atom.

 

Let’s look more closely at what Larson is trying to tell us when we apply these principles to the process of spiritual formation. If you want to develop spiritually you must first possess the desire to do so. Lack of desire is why so many Christians fail. They just don’t have any desire to improve. Larson goes on to say that our desire must be strong, positive, determined, and continuous. He further states that it is persistent desire that brings about results. When applied to our spiritual formation it means specifically that we must have:

 

Strong Desire:       From the outset of our desire to improve must be strong and unwavering.

 

Positive Desire:    We must always keep in the forefront of our minds the concept of positive thinking and positive faith in ourselves and especially in God. We should always remind ourselves that part of our purpose in life is to grow and develop, in short, to become all that we can be.

 

 

 

 

Determined-

Desire:                      Our desire must be paired with a willful determination to make every effort to see it through to completion.

 

Continuous-

Desire:                      Continuous desire means ongoing desire. If we are to be successful our desire cannot be here today and gone tomorrow. Although there may be days when we feel like our energy is low and our desire is at low ebb, we must maintain the power to resurrect our dream and keep it ever before us. This is the surest way to success and fulfillment.

 

In addition to these four vital characteristics of positive desire, Larson goes on to

Tell us that an “occasional, half-hearted desire” will avail us nothing. It is easy to see, based on Larson words, why so many apathetic, ambivalent, and lethargic Christians fall short of their goals. Their desire is occasional and half-hearted. Ambivalent and lethargic Christians have the dream but not the drive. Apathetic Christians don’t even have the dream.

 

What is the opposite of occasional, half-hearted desire? A desire that is continuous and full-hearted. It means that we give our all, all the time, to deepen your walk of faith and, more importantly, deepen you relationship with Christ.  Application of this type of desire with diligence will insure our success.

 

 

Dedication

 

 

The second aspect of our subject to consider is the concept of dedication. Dedication is fundamental to any successful endeavor in life, including spiritual development. Dedication is defined as the act of “devoting oneself wholly and earnestly to a specific goal or purpose”. If we are to improve our application of Christian principles of living we must dedicate ourselves to that specific aim.

 

Dedication is an act of the mind. We begin with a strong desire to improve our relationship with the Lord. We follow this by firmly dedicating ourselves to making this goal a reality in our lives. We can best do this by the use of affirmations. Affirmations are powerful, positive statements that we make to ourselves over and over again, thereby deeply impressing them into our subconscious mind. According to the discoveries of Cognitive and Transpersonal Psychology, it is those things that we deeply plant in our subconscious minds that actualize into physical reality in our lives. So, if our goal is to become closer to God, we begin by dedicating ourselves to the process. We do this not only in the conscious mind, but also in the subconscious.

 

           Look at the process like this. Suppose a farmer wants to grow corn. He begins by preparing the field, then he carefully plants the seeds in the fertile ground, then waters and cares for the field so that, at harvest time, his yield of corn will be bountiful. Your conscious desire to deepen your Christian walk is the farmer. The affirmations are the seeds, and the subconscious mind is the field. Based on your desire, you use your conscious mind (the farmer), to plant the seeds (affirmations) into the fertile field (subconscious mind). You then water and nurture the field through constant repetition of your affirmations. Try the following: Each morning before you get out of bed, relax your breathing and repeat silently to yourself the following statement:

 

Every day, in every way,

I am getting closer and closer

To Christ

 

During the day, at lunch- time for example, repeat this statement over and over to yourself. Each time that you repeat the statement you are not only planting more seeds, but you are also watering and nurturing the field of your subconscious mind. This is the way to insure success. It may sound simplistic and perhaps it is. That’s the beauty of positive thinking. It is simple! But in spite of its simplicity, it is a proven method of personal and spiritual transformation that has worked miracles in countless lives. Try it and see.

 

The keys to making successful affirmations are: repetition, faith, and expectancy. We need to repeat the affirmation many times and have faith in the process, a living expectancy that if we continue, we will surely succeed. The key again is repetition. Do it over and over again. In this way, your subconscious mind will be saturated with positive thoughts of dedication.

 

 Keep It Simple!

This procedure that has also come to be known as affirmative prayer is a fairly straight forward process but, as with many things, we humans have a marked tendency to complicate it. I know this from past experience because I have been as guilty of exhibiting this “genius for complexity” as anyone – probably more than most. It was with some degree of difficulty that I eventually learned that with most things it is best to keep it simple. With this truth in mind, let’s see if we can simplify the basics of affirmative prayer by stating the following:

When we use our affirmative thinking, put into the containers which we call words,  and animate it speaking with living faith, we are able to manifest that which we desire, providing of course, that it is in alignment with God’s will.

There is really no need to mystify the process any more than that. Granted, the underlying laws and cosmic principles associated with affirmative prayer can seem a bit mysterious, but in actuality, even the laws are not all that complicated.

It is essential that we understand that this process begins with our thinking and moves forward from there. Everything that we see began somewhere as someone’s thought. Creation in all its glory began as God’s thought and came into being at God’s command, using His words. He literally called things into existence from the world of the unseen, into the world of the seen. On a smaller scale, this is how we manifest reality as well. Our thoughts begin the process and or faith-filled words empower and animate the process that results in the creation of the thing desire.

Two important factors are also involved in the process of bringing our desired outcome down out of the spirit world and into concrete manifestation. These are emotion and intention. Centuries of working with these principles has revealed that the more deeply you feel about your desired goal, the more readily it manifests in physical reality. I have found that this is precisely where imagination comes into play. When we clearly visualize what it is we desire we arouse our feeling nature, which is a natural part of our soul. We facilitate this by focusing not only on repetition of our positive prayer, but we also form a clear, concise image of the desired outcome and bring our attention to bear on that outcome. We allow the feelings that arise to become magnified and these feelings, along with our thought, image, and faith-filled words form a powerful magnetic force that will pull our desired outcome out of the spirit world, where it already exists, down into physical reality.

Intention is perhaps the most important component of affirmative prayer. Your intention is what gathers and focuses your cognitive energy in a specific direction. It is for this precise reason that your intention must be constructed carefully and spoken clearly. This is not some sort of cosmic, New Age mumbo jumbo, but instead, is a fundamental principle of positive cognition. Your words of intention accomplish several vital functions in the process of affirmative prayer. First, speaking your intention gives direction to your energy and gives firm direction to your prayer. Second, your intention lets your subconscious mind know exactly what it wants to bring down from the spirit realm and why. And finally, your spoken words contain the power necessary to animate the unfolding of the process of affirmative prayer. As stated before, your words, especially when joined to a vital foundation of faith, serve as a magnet to attract the very thing you desire.

So keep these two aspects of affirmative prayer before you at all times. Positive emotion amplifies the power of your prayer and positive intention supplies even more punch to the process. Without these two vital aspects of prayer, you may find your prayers unfocused, impotent, and ineffective.

Here at LifeBrook we conduct a training program entitled, “Conscious Cognition,” which is basically the capacity to be acutely aware of what we are thinking on a consistent basis. It has as its goal the honing of our ability to recognize negative thoughts the moment they arise and take those thoughts captive. Rather than climbing aboard our negative “train of thought,” we never allow it to leave the station. Instead, through the development of our capacity for conscious cognition, we replace these negative thoughts with positive ones. At first this process will seem quite cumbersome and highly unnatural. This is to be expected because we have been thinking in unproductive ways for many years. It takes time to delete this negative process from our memory banks and reprogram our minds to think along positive avenues. Persistence and patience are the keys. Keep at it and you will eventually find that you are responding to life in a healthier, more optimistic manner.

Another key principle when using affirmative prayer can be expressed this way: use frequent repetition in present tense. Your patterns of negative thinking and behaving were not formed overnight. Instead, these unhealthy thoughts were repeated over and over again until they were firmly planted in your subconscious mind. Once that happened, these damaging thought patterns seemed to have developed a life of their own. This same principle of repetition, however, can also be utilized to your benefit. First, understand that positive thoughts are more powerful than negative thoughts. Formal research and well as the experience of countless pilgrims who have used these methods of cognitive reprogramming have confirmed the fact that one positive thought can counteract many negative ones, provided the positive thought is constructed in the present tense and is repeated many times.

The principles we have discussed here are basic but essential to the process of creating and using affirmative prayers. As stated at the outset, these principles are not overly complicated, unless of course we choose to make them so. My suggestion is that you study the relevant literature available on affirmative prayer, positive thinking, positive imaging, and the Law of Attraction. By doing so you can deepen your understanding of what is going on when you utilize affirmative prayer as a part of your spiritual path. However, don’t let your studies lead you into any unnecessary confusion or complexity. Above all:

 

Keep it simple!

(c) L.D. Turner 2009/All Rights Reserved

 

The Fragrance of God

*** A number of readers have asked that this previously posted essay about my Grandfather be put up again. I am only glad to do this, as my Grandfather was a positive and important person in my life.

This morning when I woke up and shook the fog out of my head, I became aware that I was thinking back on an experience I had undergone many years ago. Perhaps I had dreamed about it or it could be that the Sacred Spirit was bringing it to my attention for some reason. As I go through my day I need to be aware of this, in case the Spirit is indeed trying to communicate something to me. I have found that, at least in my case, God often gets messages past my thick mind by speaking to me in this indirect but unmistakable manner.

 

Sometimes I wish I could hear from God a little more easily. I find myself from time to time wishing that I could just walk out in my back yard first thing in the morning and find God waiting there to talk to me out of a burning bush. I would even settle for a braying donkey.  It doesn’t matter so much how he did it, just that it was a little less troublesome and inconsistent.

 

My old friend Jesse often tells me that God speaks to all of us all of the time, but we rarely have ears to hear. He claims that many people’s dependence upon thing like Bible reading, sermon-listening, and book study have blinded us, or perhaps I should say deafened us, to the crystal clear voice of God. For Jesse, God speaks through three primary media, nature, the inner light and other seekers. It could very well be that Jesse is right when he says we have become so dependent upon the ways we have been instructed to hear God’s voice that we can’t discern his speaking when it comes in other ways.

 

Jesse reminds me of my grandfather when he talks like this. I have mentioned my grandfather before on this blog. A southern, rural man to the core, my grandfather was devoutly attuned to the rhythms of the natural world. As a child I often marveled at his knowledge, wisdom, and uncanny ability to see things that others couldn’t see. A Quaker and a mystic by birth, from the time he was a teenager my grandfather was a consternation to his parents because of his stubborn resistance to going to First Day Meeting as the Society of Friends called it. “Church” is basically what it was to others. This resistance did not go away once my grandfather reached his adult years and now, rather than to my great-grandparents, his absence became a consternation to his wife, my grandmother.

 

The reason I mention all of this is that it was often through my grandfather that I learned that God did indeed speak through venues other than the church, the preacher, the Bible, and, in his day, radio-evangelists. I carry to this day one distinct memory of my grandfather’s approach to religion that was for me an epiphany of sorts. I was 12-years-old and our family was visiting my grandparents during the Easter season. Little did I know at the time that this would be a Palm Sunday I would never forget.

 

As usual, my grandfather had resisted the family’s repeated entreaties that he join them for the Sunday morning meeting at the “Meeting House.” Even more to my surprise, he asked me if I wanted to stay home with him and “help him take care of a few things.” You can’t imagine my delight at this turn of events. I responded that I would love to stay home and help him and that pretty much settled the matter.

 

After putting out some extra feed for his two mules, my grandfather took me for a walk in the woods adjacent to his farm. Eventually we came to a clearing, a meadow actually, that was dotted with patches of wild flowers. From our vantage point, the meadow seemed to extend forever and the patches of flowers were like explosions of color in a sea of green. As was often the case, we walked and talked about all kinds of things. I had something I wanted to ask him about and finally got around to it, although I was somewhat apprehensive about asking him.

 

“PaPa,” I began. “Why is it you never go to church with the family? I have only seen you go a couple of times. Do you hate church?”

 

“No, son….I don’t hate church. In fact, I like it,” he replied, chuckling under his breath. “I just like to spend my Sabbath day being with God.”

 

I recall being mystified by his answer and, after scratching my head for a minute or two, go around to asking the logical question a 12-year-old boy might ask.

 

“But church is where God is,” I said. “If you want to be with God, why don’t you go to church? It doesn’t make sense, PaPa.”

 

“God isn’t in church much these days, son. At least I haven’t seen him there in awhile,” responded PaPa. “At church preachers preach (they were Evangelical Quakers), singers sing, prayers pray, and gossipers gossip. That doesn’t leave much time for God to say anything.”

 

I remember he paused for quite awhile to let his words sink into my still young mind.

 

“I figure if I need to be with God, to talk to him and listen to him, I need to come out here where it is quiet,” he continued. “God didn’t build that church, but he sure as hell made these woods and this meadow. I figure if I want to talk to God I need to go where he lives.”

 

“I think I understand, PaPa,” I recall saying. “But isn’t religion important? My Mom says my religion is the most important part of life and that when I grow up, I can’t live without it.”

 

After a long silence, my grandfather looked me squarely in the eyes and told me in no uncertain terms what he thought about my question.

 

“Just keep in mind a few things and it will make your spiritual life easier and less troublesome,” he said. “First, understand that religion doesn’t have anything to do with God, and vice versa.” My grandfather had to explain what vice versa meant. I was only 12.

 

“Religion is an invention, just like the wheel and the telephone,” PaPa continued. “Spirituality is sometimes a part of religion but most of the time it isn’t. Unlike religion, spirituality is not an invention. It is something as much a part of being human as breathing, sleeping, and sex. All of those things are built into us from the start. So is spirituality. Our job is so make our lives spiritual every day. Religion is supposed to help with that, but most of the time it prevents spirituality, it doesn’t create it.”

 

I guess my grandfather was one of the early people to be dealing with the religion vs. spirituality conflict. These days the familiar adage about being spiritual but not religious is so commonplace it has lost much of its real impact. I should not be surprised, however, at my grandfather’s words. As I mentioned, he was a Quaker and a mystic throughout his life. In fact, he knew the Quaker mystic Rufus Jones quite well and often told stories about Jones. I never had the opportunity to meet Rufus Jones, although I would have loved to. Jones died in 1948 I think, which was a year before my birth.

 

As for me, I was thoroughly confused by this time. I struggled to understand what my PaPa had said, especially the business about spirituality and religion. I asked grandfather if he could tell me again about the difference between the two. Here is where the epiphany came in and also where Rufus Jones fits into this story.

 

“Come over here,” said PaPa as he got up and walked toward one of the flower explosions in the meadow. “Now, pay close attention and I think you will get the picture.”

 

Grandfather kneeled down and picked an absolutely beautiful bright purple flower. As I knelt beside him, he said, “I want to teach you something Rufus Jones taught me many years ago. This is probably the most beautiful flower in this whole meadow. Imagine this is the church. Sometimes churches can be really beautiful places, inside and out. And the folks inside can be beautiful, too.”

 

I listened carefully and appreciated the flower, but wasn’t sure what he was getting at.

 

“Now, hold the flower to your nose and take a good whiff. Smell it deeply.”

 

Taking a deep breath I held the flower to my nose and smelled of it. Oddly, there was no fragrance, either good or bad.

 

“There is no smell, PaPa,” I reported.

 

“Isn’t it strange that a flower so attractive can have no fragrance?” said PaPa. “Churches can be like that as well. Our family goes to a church a lot like that.”

 

He then picked another flower, not unattractive by any means, but far less striking than the first. He held it to my nose.

 

“It is wonderful, PaPa,” I said after drinking deeply of the fragrance of this rather ordinary looking flower. “What is it, PaPa?”

 

“Spirituality,” he said in a serene voice filled with certainty.

 

Watchdogs Say I Can’t Be A Christian

Mick Turner

As the Body of Christ, in all its various manifestations, moves forward toward the second decade of the 21^st Century, I find it both interesting and rewarding to explore the different ways in which diverse segments of the faith are dealing with the major challenges confronting the church. Some groups welcome these challenges and see in them opportunities for growth and expansion, while others resist change like it was the spawn of Satan himself. These latter groups rail against modernism, post-modernism, and even the proverbial partridge in a pear tree as they turn on their collective heel and race head long back to the “good ol’ days” at breakneck speed, never pausing to consider the fact that those days of yore were not all that good by anyone’s measure.

 

I have always been fascinated by the study of ideas, particularly the movement of ideas across time and geography. Within this area of interest, I also enjoy the researching of how these ideas impact groups of people and, in turn, how groups of people impact these ideas. This is especially fascinating when the object of one’s study is religious and/or spiritual ideas.

 

Take for example the movement of Christianity and Christian ideas into Ireland. The Catholic Church, in spite of its problems, warts, and hidden agendas, had a generally positive impact of the Celts of Ireland. There was at least somewhat of a stabilizing  effect on the culture, but the Church and its ideas was never able to completely erase or eradicate the older spiritual ideas that were an inherent part of the Celtic character and ethos. The result was that the ideas associated with the church impacted this group of people, but at the same time, the Celts ended up having a major impact on the church as well. The result was the creation of a unique, vital, and highly popular form of Christianity that survives to this day. In fact, what has come to be known as Celtic Christianity has enjoyed a major resurgence in worldwide popularity over the past two to three decades.

 

Please forgive me for the foregoing digression about Celtic Christianity, but I hope it at least gave an illustration of what I mean about the movement of ideas across time and geography. In addition, it is my hope that the side trip gave clarity to what I meant when talking about how ideas impact groups of people and how groups of people can also impact ideas.

 

With all that said, I find it interesting to look at this sort of thing as the ideas associated with the church continue to encounter the ever-shifting and rapidly changing world in which we live. This whole process is made even more fascinating when one pauses to consider the fact that, unlike the exchange between early medieval Catholicism and the Celts, today’s encounter between Christianity and post-modern, post-Christian culture has no unified system of ideas on either side. The Christian faith is so divided and theologically diverse that it defies cogent definition. For its side of the encounter, post-modern culture is built upon the bedrock of relativism, which is another way of saying that it is built upon the bedrock of no bedrock. Postmodernism prides itself on the absence of absolute truth and blind to the inherent contradiction of doing so, will seemingly fight to the death to prove that no absolute standard of certainty exists.

 

“What contradiction”, you ask? Well, here’s one for starters. Postmodern thought is constructed on the absolute truth that there is no absolute truth.

 

I’ll stop before I launch into another side bar discussion. The point is, as one studies the interplay between Christian ideas that run the gamut from staunch fundamentalism to the Unitarian-Universalist open-ended approach and the here today gone tomorrow truths of postmodern culture, about all one ends up with for certain is a migraine.

 

What I have stated in the above paragraphs leads me to the conclusion that we are living in a most interesting time these days; a time when something old appears to be fighting for its final gasps of breath and something new has moved into the birth canal and the contractions are growing more frequent and intense. Meanwhile, we are frozen in what seems to be an eternal Saturday, halfway between crucifixion and resurrection. It is at precisely such times that definitions become increasingly difficult. It is also on these seemingly eternal Saturdays that rather than judgments and knee-jerk reactionism, we are much better served by tolerant reflection and the realization that we, at least for now, live in an age where definitions are somewhat fluid.

 

Let me give you an example; one that sometimes sticks in my craw and rides sidesaddle in my mouth.

 

Often as I do research for this site as well as various writing projects, I read through various blogs of a Christian bent. Recently, I have had the misfortune of encountering more than a few arch-conservative, fundamentalist sites where several nameless, self-appointed “watchmen on the walls,” doctrinal purists, and “real Christians,” sit in name-calling, mud-slinging, judgment of everyone who happens to disagree with their perspective by even a jot or a few tittles. Personally, I find this kind of behavior on the part of so-called believers to be reprehensible, but that’s another story for another time.

 

On more than one occasion, I have found one of these modern-day Pharisees dragging some teacher or writer through the proverbial keyhole, calling them heretics, apostates, and the brother (and in some cases, sister) of Beelzebub or worse. Even more appalling, more times than not, it is apparent from what these paragons of doctrinal husbandry are saying that they have not bothered to read very much of the writings of whatever author or teacher may have been unfortunate enough to have landed in their crosshairs.

 

What’s worse is the fact that these self-styled doctrinal experts seem to have arrived at the notion, deluded as it is, that somehow, someone died and appointed them to be the authoritative voice of what does and does not constitute a “Christian.”

 

Personally, I find this state of affairs sad, tragic, and deplorable.

 

On one site recently, several of these part-time pundits were engaged in a conversation in which they had worked up a significant amount of bile and spittle over the movement sometimes called “Progressive Christianity. During the course of the online discussion, the participants opined one and all that these apostate progressives could not be “real Christians” because they: a) did not accept the Bible as God’s inerrant and infallible word; b) some of them denied the doctrine of the Virgin Birth; c) did not believe that Jesus was the only way to God; and perhaps worst of all, d) most of them voted for Democrats.

 

The discussion went on over several pages in which some of the more loquacious experts waxed eloquent about the “true faith” while, at the same time, actually composed a “Black List” of Christian writers and had the audacity to grade these authors on a scale of danger based on their perceived degree of heresy. Authors such as Richard Foster, Tony Campolo, and Dallas Willard were black listed, but placed in a category a few rungs up from the bottom. Even such Evangelical mainstays as Chuck Swindoll and Phillip Yancey did not escape the wrath of these cowboys and I found writers like John Eldredge, Myles Munroe, and can you believe it, Billy Graham, even earned spots in their Hall of Shame.

 

As for Bishop Spong, he already had his ticket to Hell punched and if Marcus Borg had inadvertently wandered into their clutches, he would have been drawn and quartered faster than you can say Spanish Inquisition. Search as I might, I found no evidence of agape among this bunch.

 

What galls me the most is the fact that these folks somehow think they have the right to say who is and who is not a Christian. More than once I felt like yelling:

 

“Hey Gertrude, let’s back that bus up a minute. Something’s bad wrong here!”

 

You see, friends, as they engaged in their pseudo-punditry, these wise watchmen did nothing to address the real issues facing the Body of Christ in this exciting but challenging time. All their discussion managed to accomplish was to define who was not a fundamentalist and/or evangelical. Just because someone holds views that differ from this stream of the Christian faith, makes them no less Christian and certainly no less valuable in the eyes of God. I suspect that only God really knows who is “a Christian” and even more pertinent, I suspect only God has that right, let alone enough wisdom to do so.

 

In closing, in case you wonder if this diatribe of mine will end up putting me on their Black List of apostate ne’er-do-wells, you can relax.

 

I am already on it.

 

© L. D. Turner 2009/All Rights Reserved

 

Dedicated Desire and Affirmative Prayer

Mick Turner

Desire

 

Let’s begin by looking at desire, because all good things, whether or not they are brought to fruition, begin in the realm of desire. It is desire that gives rise to our dreams in life and it is desire that provides the fuel for performing the positive activities that will allow us to bring those dreams into reality. In this sense, desire provides positive motivation. When we truly desire something with our whole heart we set in motion the powers of the mind to achieve that which we desire. If we have as a goal to deepen our walk of faith and manifest some degree of success in living the genuine Christian life then we must recognize that this positive goal began as a desire. Further, the power of a strong desire, when properly applied, helps insure our success. Christian Larson tells us:

 

…it is readily understood why the wish, if strong, positive, determined and continuous, will tend to produce the thing wished for…It is not occasional desire, or half-hearted desire that gets the thing desired. It is persistent desire; persistent desire not only desires continually, but with all the power of life and mind and soul. The force of a half-alive desire, when acting upon a certain faculty (the subconscious mind) cannot cause that faculty to become fully alive….it is true that the desires of most people are neither continuous nor very deep. They are shallow, occasional, wishes without enough power to stir to action a single atom.

 

Let’s look more closely at what Larson is trying to tell us when we apply these principles to the process of spiritual formation. If you want to develop spiritually you must first possess the desire to do so. Lack of desire is why so many Christians fail. They just don’t have any desire to improve. Larson goes on to say that our desire must be strong, positive, determined, and continuous. He further states that it is persistent desire that brings about results. When applied to our spiritual formation it means specifically that we must have:

 

Strong Desire:       From the outset of our desire to improve must be strong and unwavering.

 

Positive Desire:    We must always keep in the forefront of our minds the concept of positive thinking and positive faith in ourselves and especially in God. We should always remind ourselves that part of our purpose in life is to grow and develop, in short, to become all that we can be.

 

 

 

 

Determined-

Desire:                      Our desire must be paired with a willful determination to make every effort to see it through to completion.

 

Continuous-

Desire:                      Continuous desire means ongoing desire. If we are to be successful our desire cannot be here today and gone tomorrow. Although there may be days when we feel like our energy is low and our desire is at low ebb, we must maintain the power to resurrect our dream and keep it ever before us. This is the surest way to success and fulfillment.

 

In addition to these four vital characteristics of positive desire, Larson goes on to

Tell us that an “occasional, half-hearted desire” will avail us nothing. It is easy to see, based on Larson words, why so many apathetic, ambivalent, and lethargic Christians fall short of their goals. Their desire is occasional and half-hearted. Ambivalent and lethargic Christians have the dream but not the drive. Apathetic Christians don’t even have the dream.

 

What is the opposite of occasional, half-hearted desire? A desire that is continuous and full-hearted. It means that we give our all, all the time, to deepen your walk of faith and, more importantly, deepen you relationship with Christ.  Application of this type of desire with diligence will insure our success.

 

 

Dedication

 

 

The second aspect of our subject to consider is the concept of dedication. Dedication is fundamental to any successful endeavor in life, including spiritual development. Dedication is defined as the act of “devoting oneself wholly and earnestly to a specific goal or purpose”. If we are to improve our application of Christian principles of living we must dedicate ourselves to that specific aim.

 

Dedication is an act of the mind. We begin with a strong desire to improve our relationship with the Lord. We follow this by firmly dedicating ourselves to making this goal a reality in our lives. We can best do this by the use of affirmations. Affirmations are powerful, positive statements that we make to ourselves over and over again, thereby deeply impressing them into our subconscious mind. According to the discoveries of Cognitive and Transpersonal Psychology, it is those things that we deeply plant in our subconscious minds that actualize into physical reality in our lives. So, if our goal is to become closer to God, we begin by dedicating ourselves to the process. We do this not only in the conscious mind, but also in the subconscious.

 

           Look at the process like this. Suppose a farmer wants to grow corn. He begins by preparing the field, then he carefully plants the seeds in the fertile ground, then waters and cares for the field so that, at harvest time, his yield of corn will be bountiful. Your conscious desire to deepen your Christian walk is the farmer. The affirmations are the seeds, and the subconscious mind is the field. Based on your desire, you use your conscious mind (the farmer), to plant the seeds (affirmations) into the fertile field (subconscious mind). You then water and nurture the field through constant repetition of your affirmations. Try the following: Each morning before you get out of bed, relax your breathing and repeat silently to yourself the following statement:

 

Every day, in every way,

I am getting closer and closer

To Christ

 

During the day, at lunch- time for example, repeat this statement over and over to yourself. Each time that you repeat the statement you are not only planting more seeds, but you are also watering and nurturing the field of your subconscious mind. This is the way to insure success. It may sound simplistic and perhaps it is. That’s the beauty of positive thinking. It is simple! But in spite of its simplicity, it is a proven method of personal and spiritual transformation that has worked miracles in countless lives. Try it and see.

 

The keys to making successful affirmations are: repetition, faith, and expectancy. We need to repeat the affirmation many times and have faith in the process, a living expectancy that if we continue, we will surely succeed. The key again is repetition. Do it over and over again. In this way, your subconscious mind will be saturated with positive thoughts of dedication.

 

 Keep It Simple!

This procedure that has also come to be known as affirmative prayer is a fairly straight forward process but, as with many things, we humans have a marked tendency to complicate it. I know this from past experience because I have been as guilty of exhibiting this “genius for complexity” as anyone – probably more than most. It was with some degree of difficulty that I eventually learned that with most things it is best to keep it simple. With this truth in mind, let’s see if we can simplify the basics of affirmative prayer by stating the following:

When we use our affirmative thinking, put into the containers which we call words,  and animate it speaking with living faith, we are able to manifest that which we desire, providing of course, that it is in alignment with God’s will.

There is really no need to mystify the process any more than that. Granted, the underlying laws and cosmic principles associated with affirmative prayer can seem a bit mysterious, but in actuality, even the laws are not all that complicated.

It is essential that we understand that this process begins with our thinking and moves forward from there. Everything that we see began somewhere as someone’s thought. Creation in all its glory began as God’s thought and came into being at God’s command, using His words. He literally called things into existence from the world of the unseen, into the world of the seen. On a smaller scale, this is how we manifest reality as well. Our thoughts begin the process and or faith-filled words empower and animate the process that results in the creation of the thing desire.

Two important factors are also involved in the process of bringing our desired outcome down out of the spirit world and into concrete manifestation. These are emotion and intention. Centuries of working with these principles has revealed that the more deeply you feel about your desired goal, the more readily it manifests in physical reality. I have found that this is precisely where imagination comes into play. When we clearly visualize what it is we desire we arouse our feeling nature, which is a natural part of our soul. We facilitate this by focusing not only on repetition of our positive prayer, but we also form a clear, concise image of the desired outcome and bring our attention to bear on that outcome. We allow the feelings that arise to become magnified and these feelings, along with our thought, image, and faith-filled words form a powerful magnetic force that will pull our desired outcome out of the spirit world, where it already exists, down into physical reality.

Intention is perhaps the most important component of affirmative prayer. Your intention is what gathers and focuses your cognitive energy in a specific direction. It is for this precise reason that your intention must be constructed carefully and spoken clearly. This is not some sort of cosmic, New Age mumbo jumbo, but instead, is a fundamental principle of positive cognition. Your words of intention accomplish several vital functions in the process of affirmative prayer. First, speaking your intention gives direction to your energy and gives firm direction to your prayer. Second, your intention lets your subconscious mind know exactly what it wants to bring down from the spirit realm and why. And finally, your spoken words contain the power necessary to animate the unfolding of the process of affirmative prayer. As stated before, your words, especially when joined to a vital foundation of faith, serve as a magnet to attract the very thing you desire.

So keep these two aspects of affirmative prayer before you at all times. Positive emotion amplifies the power of your prayer and positive intention supplies even more punch to the process. Without these two vital aspects of prayer, you may find your prayers unfocused, impotent, and ineffective.

Here at LifeBrook we conduct a training program entitled, “Conscious Cognition,” which is basically the capacity to be acutely aware of what we are thinking on a consistent basis. It has as its goal the honing of our ability to recognize negative thoughts the moment they arise and take those thoughts captive. Rather than climbing aboard our negative “train of thought,” we never allow it to leave the station. Instead, through the development of our capacity for conscious cognition, we replace these negative thoughts with positive ones. At first this process will seem quite cumbersome and highly unnatural. This is to be expected because we have been thinking in unproductive ways for many years. It takes time to delete this negative process from our memory banks and reprogram our minds to think along positive avenues. Persistence and patience are the keys. Keep at it and you will eventually find that you are responding to life in a healthier, more optimistic manner.

Another key principle when using affirmative prayer can be expressed this way: use frequent repetition in present tense. Your patterns of negative thinking and behaving were not formed overnight. Instead, these unhealthy thoughts were repeated over and over again until they were firmly planted in your subconscious mind. Once that happened, these damaging thought patterns seemed to have developed a life of their own. This same principle of repetition, however, can also be utilized to your benefit. First, understand that positive thoughts are more powerful than negative thoughts. Formal research and well as the experience of countless pilgrims who have used these methods of cognitive reprogramming have confirmed the fact that one positive thought can counteract many negative ones, provided the positive thought is constructed in the present tense and is repeated many times.

The principles we have discussed here are basic but essential to the process of creating and using affirmative prayers. As stated at the outset, these principles are not overly complicated, unless of course we choose to make them so. My suggestion is that you study the relevant literature available on affirmative prayer, positive thinking, positive imaging, and the Law of Attraction. By doing so you can deepen your understanding of what is going on when you utilize affirmative prayer as a part of your spiritual path. However, don’t let your studies lead you into any unnecessary confusion or complexity. Above all:

 

Keep it simple!

(c) L.D. Turner 2009/ All Rights Reserved

 

Singing Your Sacred Song

Mick Turner

The greatest tragedy in life is not death, but a life that never realized its full potential. You must decide today not to rob the world of the rich, valuable, potent, untapped resources locked away within you. It has been said that the wealthiest place on earth is not in bank vaults, Fort Knox, or underneath Bill Gates mattress. No, the wealthiest place on earth is the cemetery.

 

Beneath the gravestones lie so many dreams that went unfulfilled; so much potential that was never realized; so much purpose that was never discovered and manifested. I am reminded of the poignant verses of Tagore in the Gitangali:

 

The song that I came to sing remains
unsung to this day.
I have spent my days in stringing and in
unstringing my instrument.

I actually got goose bumps the first time I read Tagore’s words. I vowed at that moment that my song would not go unsung. Whatever contribution I was to make to this world would be made before I came to rest in that wealthy domain we spoke of earlier. I can also say that my song continues, with new lines, verses and melodies as my life unfolds. For this, I am ever grateful.

 

It is vital that every person understand that we are responsible for developing the potential stored within us. We must deepen our contact with our divine potential, which I call our Sacred Mind, and do all that we can to nurture, feed, and actualize our true potential. Further, we must recognize that as we move forward in developing our optimal potential, we can never afford to stop. In essence, when we travel the metaphysical journey, we are either moving forward or backward. There is truly no place to stand on the spiritual path.

 

Spiritual growth is a complex subject and we could waste much time and space exploring the more arcane aspects of personal unfolding. However, I choose instead to try to keep things as simple as feasible, especially in the context of a short article. With that in mind, let’s take a look at a topic that seems to cause many sincere seekers to go off the tracks and race down many unproductive rabbit holes. I am talking here about the subject of “purpose.” The issue of purpose is intimately connected with potential and it is often difficult to talk about one without delving into the other.

Many of us are so obsessed with “finding our purpose” that we ignore more important aspects of the spiritual journey. Granted, the Creator seems to have arranged things in such a way that each of us came to this planet with a unique mission. In spite of this, however, all of us share components of a more generalized, universal purpose. In my own journey, I have come to define a central aspect of this universal purpose shared by all believers as follows:

“I must become the optimal version of myself for the glory of God and the benefit of others.”

“Well, I can’t argue with that,” you might say. “But how do I pull it off?”

Good question. Space does not permit a detailed explanation of the complete methodology of becoming the best version of yourself and, besides, I believe that each of us must find our own personal way of unfolding our divine nature. Still, I think we can look at two practical things we can do: define and visualize.

Begin by spending time developing a definition of the best version of yourself. What qualities will your highest self possess? What kind of activities will be a central part of your life and your spiritual development? How will you earn your living? And most significantly, how will you be of service to others?

Once you have a workable definition, set aside a special time each day and see this best version of yourself in your mind’s eye. See yourself manifesting the qualities described in your definition, engaging in the activities you listed, and serving in your best capacity. This exercise of your imagination is a key component of making the best version of yourself a reality.

From the outset, you must learn to consistently see the best version of yourself and your life unfolding in your inner vision. The power of the mind’s eye is uncanny. It is through our capacity of thought and inner visualization that we are capable of taking something out of the realm of the unseen and making it a reality in the realm of the seen. This requires faith: faith in yourself and your abilities; and faith in the principles of optimal cognition. If you have a problem, see it resolved; if your have a business, see it succeeding; if you have a dream, see it unfolding according to your desire.

Let this positive image become a part of yourself, sinking down into the subconscious mind and your inner spirit, the central core of yourself.

A fundamental principle of Positive Psychology states that whatever you keep before your mind’s eye will affect you, either for good or for bad. If you consistently focus on negativity and dwell on your problems, your mindset will become darker and your problems will worsen. If you focus on limitation, lack, failure, and defeat, that is the kind of life you are going to create. Instead, try focusing your mental energy on success, victory, health, abundance, peace, joy, and happiness. Our innermost spirit, which is one with the Divine Source, has as its purpose the unfolding of your greatest good. Don’t lose sight of that truth. In order to create the kind of life you want, you have to get your thoughts and your inner vision in alignment with the power and purpose of your innermost spirit, called by our Quaker brothers and sisters the “Inner Light.”

This visualization process is not a fantasy or an escape from reality. It is, instead, based on centuries of practical application and positive results and utilizes one of God’s greatest gifts: a spiritual imagination. When life presents you with problems, many times there is nothing you can do about it. However, you can have complete control over your response to any problem life sends your way. You can have greater peace of mind if you just choose to have the right kind of thoughts. Focus your entire being on finding solutions, rather than wallowing in the problems at hand. Work diligently to find your Inner Light, and when you do, continue to take proactive measures to deepen and maintain your contact with this sacred aspect of your being.

Be persistent and keep at it in a disciplined, optimistic manner. Before you know it, you will hear your song ringing up from your Sacred Mind. From that point forward your life will be more positive and meaningful. And when the day comes when you leave this world, you won’t be making a deposit in the Bank of Dead Dreams.

(c) L.D. Turner 2009/All Rights Reserved

 

Living in the Enlightenment’s Wake: Right Belief Over Incarnation

Mick Turner

We live in a culture that is, in spite of over 200 years of historical separation, dominated by the Enlightenment. Most of us don’t recognize this, but that lack of awareness doesn’t make the fact any less true. The Enlightenment has cast a long shadow over Western culture, especially the church, and it continues to do so.

 

For those of us who claim Christianity as our worldview, this lingering hangover of rationalism, logic, and intellectualism has robbed us of the very core of our faith and, in its stead, has substituted a sterile and inadequate imposter. Rather than experiencing our faith as a living, vital, relational organism, the norm has become “faith equals right belief.” This represents a major tragedy in terms of the heart of Christianity and, although right belief has some degree of importance, it pales in comparison to the emphasis Jesus placed on incarnational service based on love.

 

This issue has been exacerbated by two-plus centuries of preaching and teaching that extols the notion that salvation is attained through belief in the accepted set of ideas. Faith is equated with belief and belief is seen as the cornerstone of the entire edifice of Protestant doctrine. It has been going on for so long now that any challenge to the validity of such a notion is seen as heresy. To assert that a Christianity that is based on incarnational themes such as relational imperative, spiritual transformation, and compassionate service is to invite the heckling banter of a cadre of true believers. For these people belief takes precedent over doing and faith (which means belief to these folks) overrides works, even if that work is identical to the service done by Jesus.

 

After much study, prayer, and reflection on these issues I have come to the conclusion that we Christ-followers are called to a participatory involvement in God’s Great Story of incarnation and redemption. In fact, this was basically the view held by Christianity as a whole right on up through the Middle Ages and to the years of the Enlightenment. It was the illegitimate marriage of Enlightenment ideas to theology that changed the flavor and texture of the faith and resulted in the dry, sterile form of religion that we find in many Protestant congregations today.

 

The late Robert Webber spoke clearly to this issue, discussing the validity of an ethic of faith-based works and the dire need for a return to the ancient, relational model of the faith. Listen as he clearly juxtaposes the ancient model of faith and the post-Enlightenment religion that is rampant today:

 

The incarnational model of the ancient church is relational. God relates to humanity by becoming one of us. We relate to God because, through the incarnation, we are lifted up into a relationship with the divine. In this ancient depiction of incarnational spirituality there is a divine indwelling of God, a mystical union between God and man, a relationship of continuous prayerful dependence. Contemplation of God and his wondrous story is characterized by the delight of the heart, an inner reality that proceeds from a union with God that is real…..By contrast, a justification/sanctification spirituality is less relational and more intellectual…..In summary, ancient spirituality is placed within the whole story of God and maintains the dynamic relational aspect of spirituality that is in union with God. On the other hand, the impact of the Enlightenment emphasis on justification and sanctification separates spirituality from the story of God (especially the incarnation in which humanity is lifted into God) and creates and intellectual spirituality that not only affirmed a forensic standing before God but one that equated spirituality with “right belief.” Spirituality ceased to be a “lived theology” and became faith as an intellectual construct.

 

Webber is not speaking of a return to a “feelings-based” religion. Like many astute spokespersons for the faith, he realizes that any spiritual truth based on our emotions is a tenuous commodity. Instead, Webber is talking about a Christianity that is anchored in God’s Sacred Story. Rather than being based on belief in correct doctrines, it is rooted in a life of active participation in God’s redemptive action. For Webber, true Christianity is relational, incarnational, redemptive, and restorative. The final chapters of God’s Sacred Story are the establishment of “new heaven” and “new earth.” All of these characteristics involve belief, but the entire edifice does not depend on belief. Instead, it depends on participation.

 

Intellectual religion is basically easy religion. When we base our Christian experience on kosher beliefs, we allow others to do our thinking for us. For many sincere Christians, the walk of faith basically consists of someone or some group telling them what they are supposed to believe and they fall in line with this expected code of doctrine. Please, don’t misunderstand what I am saying here. I am not saying doctrine is bad, although in some cases it is just that. What I am getting at is that “unexamined doctrine” is a slippery slope. We need to take the time and make the effort to delve into the doctrines of our church, group, or denomination and see whether or not they hold water. More importantly, however, we need to deepen our understanding of God’s Sacred Story and start living it. At the end of the day, this approach is far more satisfying from a spiritual perspective.

 

(to be continued)

 

© L.D. Turner 2009/All Rights Reserved

 

Wise Words for Today

Vision is the force that invents the future, because it is the ability to see your dreams and desires before they manifest in the natural. If you can’t see it in your heart and mind, you may just only be having a temporary thought, idea, or fantasy. Wishing that something might someday happen for your betterment is nice, but it is not enough. Having vision is seeing the invisible and making it visble with a tenacity and determination to never let it go….The key to having vision is “seeing” with spiritual eyes. When you “see” a vision, you “see” your desired future state, and it becomes the purpose of everything you do, motivating you every hour of every day.

Art Sepulveda

(from Focus: What’s In Your Vision?)

 

Thoughts About My Four-Year-Old Roshi

Mick Turner

As this final month of the year is winding down and the New Year is already taken up residence in the birth canal, I have been reflecting a bit on the past year and some of its blessings. I suspect this is a healthy thing to do, given the general negative state of the economy and just about everything else we hear about on the daily news.

 

As some of my readers are already aware of, I have a daughter, Salina, who just turned four this past May. She is my jewel and my angel, all rolled into one, but then, I need to refrain from gushing like a proud Daddy. Otherwise, I won’t make the point I want to make. Some of you are also aware that I was 55 years old when Salina was born.  She came along late in my life and I am certain that she was a gift to Li and I for some special reason I can’t even begin to fathom. Let it suffice to say that Sacred Spirit surprised us back in 2003, when my wife and I discovered that Li was pregnant. Also let it be said that Salina has been my Roshi, Guru, Rinpoche, and Great Teacher for four years now. I have learned so much from her; far more than I have taught her.

 

More pertinent, perhaps, is the fact that she has done this by just being who she is – a four-year-old girl in whose eyes I can still clearly see the smile of God.

Salina has always amazed me with her curiosity, her sense of discovery, and especially her spontaneous wonder and awe as she encounters things new and exciting. Further, she never tires of things that strike her fancy, especially if I do something that she likes but has never really seen before. I am reminded, for example, when I first showed her how to blow bubbles with bubble gum. For me, it was old hat – but for her, this simple act was like seeing a rainbow for the first time or discovering the wonders of ice cream. Whenever I produced a large, pink bubble as if by magic, she would pop it with her hand, laugh in that way that only children can laugh, and say, “Do it again, Daddy; do it again.”

This amazing ability to turn something new into an almost sacred event is, I think, part of that unsullied and untainted aspect of the image of God that we are blessed with in our creation. Moreover, children never seem to tire of monotony, at least until they get a bit older. At those miracle ages of two through five or so, kids just seem to revel in both newness and repetition. I am reminded of the famous words of G.K. Chesterton:

Because children have abounding vitality, because they are in spirit fierce and free, therefore they want things repeated and unchanged. They always say, “Do it again”; and the grown-up person does it again until he is nearly dead. For grown-up people are not strong enough to exult in monotony. But perhaps God is strong enough to exult in monotony. It is possible God says every morning, “Do it again” to the sun; and every evening, “Do it again” to the moon. It may not be automatic necessity to make all daisies appear alike; it may be that God makes every daisy separately, but has never grown tired of making them. It may be that He has the eternal appetite for infancy: for we have sinned and grown old, and our Father is younger than we.”

Sometimes when I sit quietly and open myself to what Chesterton says in these few words and what Sacred Spirit speaks to me when I reflect on them, I am literally stunned into silence; and then I shiver.

Children have not forgotten how to experience our world with a sense of wonder and awe. Noted Jewish philosopher Abraham Heschel, one of my very favorite authors, calls this capacity for reverence in life “radical amazement” and affirms that the spiritual journey cannot be completed until we regain this inborn spiritual quality. Heschel makes this statement, “The beginning of awe is wonder and the beginning of wisdom is awe.” When I first discovered these words, I pondered on the meaning for weeks and eventually discovered by doing so I totally lost their true import. I have come to see that Heschel is alluding to the fact that true wisdom begins with the experience of awe, and this basic sense of “radical amazement” has its birth in a childlike wonder at the incredible thing we flippantly call “life” ; the unfathomable creation that surrounds us every moment. I will let Heschel say the rest:

The secret of every being is the divine care and concern that are invested in it. Something sacred is at stake in every event…..The meaning of awe is to realize that life takes place under wide horizons, horizons that range beyond the span of an individual life or even the life of a nation, a generation, or an era. Awe enables us to perceive in the world intimations of the divine, to sense in small things the beginning of infinite significance, to sense the ultimate in the common and simple; to feel in the rush of the passing the stillness of the eternal.

Deep in my personal spirit, when it is connected with and animated by the Holy Spirit, I know with certainty that my daughter Salina innately understands this. She cannot articulate it with the eloquence of Heschel but she expresses this sense of radical amazement nonetheless. Every time she giggles when Daddy blows a bubble; every time she sits on the deck and watches birds feeding in the back yard and cows feeding in the field beyond; every time her eyes dance with wonder when she sees a sunset and screams, “Look Daddy, God is smiling,” – I know she gets it just as much as Heschel ever did and just as much as I long to once again.

© L.D. Turner 2008/All Rights Reserved

 

Realizing Your Divine Potential and Purpose (Part Three)

Mick Turner

The fact is I have a potential placed in me by God Himself and it is God’s desire that I find my mission and get moving. You, too, have a mission – a divinely ordained purpose and it is God’s great wish that you take up the challenge of finding that purpose, manifesting your potential and talents, and achieving your dreams. Let’s listen now as popular pastor Joel Osteen, in his fine book Become a Better You, speaks about the importance God places on your dreams:

 

Scripture teaches that we have a valuable treasure on the inside. You have a gift. You have something to offer that nobody else has. You didn’t just show up on planet earth by accident. You were handpicked by Almighty God. He saw you before you were formed in your mother’s womb and placed you here for a reason. You have an assignment. There’s something that God wants you to accomplish. Somebody needs your touch. Somebody needs what you have.

 

It is a cardinal truth of the spiritual life, my friend. Somewhere right this minute someone you don’t yet know needs you. Someone needs exactly what you are equipped to offer. Just as God has organized all of creation with a finely-tuned balance that is so incredible that it is beyond comprehension, He has also organized the great dance of spiritual life in such a way that we each have a part that only we can contribute. If we don’t realize our potential and live out our deepest dreams, we rob the world of something of immense value. We rob the world of the optimal version of who we are and when we do that, everyone loses and the Holy Spirit is grieved.

 

Be careful that you don’t take your talent to your grave. Leave your legacy, your gift here so that others can prosper from the simple fact that you lived and cared enough to live rightly.

 

It is highly important that you also realize that your dreams and your God-given potential are intimately related. God gave you your dream and He also blessed you with what you need to make that dream a reality right here in this hurting world. This doesn’t mean that manifesting your dream will be a piece of cake. No, most often those things that are truly significant are going to meet with a bit of resistance, from either other people, the world in general, and especially the enemy. Still, God has equipped you and given you authority to overcome and overwhelm all three of these areas of friction.

 

You potential is like a seed and, until you allow that seed to grow, your dream will remain just that – a dream. God gave you this potential and, with the right environment, that seed potential will grow and develop into something quite magnificent. Dr. Myles Munroe speaks of these issues cogently:

 

“The entire creation possesses this principle of potential. Everything has the natural instinct to release its ability. The plant and animal kingdoms abound with evidences of this fact. The Creator designed everything with this principle of potential, which can be simplified to the concept of a seed. The biblical document states that God created everything with ‘seed in it according to their kinds’ (Genesis 1:12). In essence, hidden within everything is the potential to fulfill itself and produce much more than we see.”

 

It is vital that every person understand that we are responsible for developing the potential stored within us. We must deepen our contact with our divine potential, which I call our Sacred Self, and do all that we can to nurture, feed, and actualize our true potential. Further, we must recognize that as we move forward in developing our optimal potential, we can never afford to stop. In essence, when we travel the spiritual journey, we are either moving forward or backward. There is truly no place to stand on the spiritual path.

 

Our journey of discovering and developing our divine potential must begin with a commitment to excellence – an agreement with our Creator that we will walk in cooperation with the Spirit to become the best version of ourselves.

 

 Necessarily, this commitment will involve personal challenges and, at times, a degree of personal discomfort. Spiritual growth involves change and change always requires stepping out of our comfort zone. Still, the process of realizing and manifesting our divine potential is one of the greatest adventures we will ever undertake.

 

And where does this journey begin? It begins with the decision to become the optimal version of yourself for the glory of God and the benefit of others. It begins, my friend, with a firm commitment to excellence.

 

When we make a commitment to excellence, we are basically telling God and ourselves that we are finally getting serious about our spiritual development. When we firmly dedicate ourselves to become who God intended us to be, we get honest with ourselves about where we are, where we are not, and where God wants us to go. We then make a personal commitment to, with God’s help, become all that we were created to be, all that we were intended to be, and, in the final analysis, all that we truly are.

 

Contrary to popular belief, living a life committed to Christian excellence is far from a tedious, joyless affair. When Christ calls us, he does not call us to a life of drudgery and boredom; he does not lead us into a life characterized by a restrictive morality and a scowling face. Christ’s call and claim on our life is a challenge to our limited ways of being in the world. When the Lord whispers in a person’s ear, saying, “Follow me,” he is issuing an invitation to an exciting journey of exploration and spiritual discovery. Erwin Raphael McManus, noted author and pastor of Mosaic in Los Angeles, tells us:

 

“Jesus calls us to a life of unimaginable adventure. It begins the moment we choose to follow Him. It is no less than to pass from existence to life. Though we are not taken out of time and space, we are translated into an entirely different dimension of living. Jesus tells us that He is the portal into this life and the quest that follows. Jesus describes Himself as a door, a gate, a portal. In other words, an escape hatch. He has come to lead us out of the mundane and into the extraordinary. Strangely enough we find it hard to trust Him, while all the time he has been trying to lead us out of the dark dungeons we have created for ourselves and let us run free in the light of day. When we come to Him, he translates us into an entirely new realm of living. His promise is that in Him we will find the life that our hearts have always longed for.”

 

The process of realizing the potential God placed in us is individual in nature. One person may see his or her potential unfolded in one way while someone else may have a different experience altogether. Still, there are several truths that hold firm for each of us as we journey forward with the Holy Spirit. Let’s discuss three of them: the need for discipline; the need for persistence; and the trap of complacency.

 

Discipline is not a popular word in post-modern culture. Instead, we are encouraged to “follow our bliss” and “do our own thing.” The world pays lip service to the importance of discipline and self-control in daily living, but the over-arching message is in actuality much different. Often, instead of encouraging individuals to delay gratification, defer rewards, and develop character, our culture tells us, “If it feels good, do it.” No one ever manifested divine potential by adhering to this advice.

 

Scripture repeatedly stresses the importance of discipline, self-control, and personal morality. Without personal discipline, we squander our energies, waste precious time, and lose direction and focus. If we want to become the persons God intended us to be, we have to be disciplined individuals governed by an internalized biblical value system.

 

As we move forward in this sacred journey of spiritual development, we will experience periods of accelerated growth as well as times when it seems we are advancing at a snail’s pace. This unpredictable pace of spiritual formation is to be expected. There will be times of elation and excitement a you realize the positive changes God’s Spirit has brought about in you life. At other times, you will experience something quite different as you struggle with a particular habit, sin, or negative personality trait. This can be a critical juncture in your growth process. It is easy to become discouraged when change does not come at the pace we would prefer. However, the important point to remember is: “Don’t quit.”

 

There is an old saying: “Never rest on your laurels.” Basically, this means that we should never be satisfied with what we have accomplished. Reaching a goal is satisfying, but we shouldn’t allow this to be the final act in the play. We must continually press forward toward new goals that will allow us to manifest the best version of ourselves. Also, it is important to keep in mind that we should never focus our mental energy on what it is we think we cannot do. Rather, we should believe in ourselves and always refuse to let what we cannot do interfere with what we can do. By focusing on doing what we can do, and doing it better, we make progress. Moreover, we facilitate our continuing spiritual development by challenging ourselves to reach higher. Both personal experience and deep study has taught me that the optimal method for moving beyond where we are is by “stretching ourselves.” By this I mean it is highly advantageous for us if we encourage ourselves to move beyond what we are now capable of, even if only to a small degree.

 

For example, I enjoy playing table tennis. I am far from a great player, but I can achieve some degree of success when I am at the top of my game. (Of course, I played much better when I was younger and my reflexes were quicker.) Early on, I discovered I could not improve my play by competing against players who I could easily defeat. By the same token, I could not get any better by playing against opponents who were my equal. If I wanted to improve, I had to play against competitors who were more skillful than I was. I soon discovered that if I took on players whose skills were slightly above mine, my play gradually but consistently improved.

 

The same is true in terms of realizing our potential in any endeavor. If we want to improve at something, we have to challenge ourselves; we have to stretch ourselves to get to the next level.

Dr. Myles Munroe, the highly respected pastor and Bible teacher mentioned earlier, begins one of his books on divine potential by observing that the richest place on earth is not the vault of a large bank or even Fort Knox. Instead, Dr. Munroe points out, the world’s greatest wealth is often found in the cemetery. It is here, in the graveyard, where many dreams lie buried – dreams that were never realized, missions that were never accomplished, and potential that was never realized.

 

As I reflect upon the tragic reality of Dr. Munroe’s observations about the wealth lying beneath the grave stones, I ponder another possible tragedy, equally distressing. I wonder how many people are going about their daily rounds, oblivious to the potential placed inside them by the Creator. How many of us will squander this precious life that we have without realizing and manifesting their God-given potential? How many will have their potential buried with them? I, for one, have made a covenant commitment with God not to allow this to happen to me.

 

How about you?

 

© L.D. Turner 2008/All Rights Reserved

 

Realizing Your Divine Potential and Purpose: A Fundamental Question (Part Two)

Mick Turner

If my own experience is a valid indicator, it seems that most of us come to a point in our spiritual journey where we are confronted with the reality that things are not as they should be. On a surface level, we may be struggling with a persistent sin or shortcoming; on an emotional level, we may find ourselves wrapped up in a cloak of despondency, bitterness, or guilt. Whatever the surface manifestation, however, if we really take a look at what is going on and if we have the backbone to be brutally honest with ourselves, we find there is a deeper struggle occurring. More often than not, that struggle is between that still, soft voice calling us to move forward in our journey of faith and that other voice of complacency, which tells us that stepping out into the territory of the unknown can be a dangerous affair – at best unpredictable, at worst, downright terrifying. The late Brent Curtis and his co-author John Eldredge describe that voice we often hear in the dead of night:

 

The voice often comes in the middle of the night or the early morning hours, when our hearts are most unedited and vulnerable. At first, we mistake the source of this voice and assume it is just our imagination. We fluff up our pillow, roll over, and go back to sleep. Days, weeks, even months go by and the voice speaks to us again: “Aren’t you thirsty? Listen to your heart. There is something missing.

 

Indeed, my friend, that still, small voice calls us to the grand adventure. It calls us to get up off our seats, step out of our comfort zones, and walk forward in the light of Christ. It calls us to become His partner, to share his mission, to challenge the status quo, just as He did. Yet his calling is a high calling. It is a high honor, but does come with a price tag. The price tag for most of us is, first of all, getting past any sense of complacency and satisfaction with things as they are.

 

The call of Christ is without a doubt counter-culture and has no association with maintaining the status quo for the sake of personal comfort. The divine call is a grand calling, but to follow it is to guarantee a degree of daily discomfort. I have always loved these words by Houston Smith, so much so that I will give them to you in there entirety. I think Smith speaks clearly about what the call of Christ entails:

 

…we have heard Jesus’ teachings so often that their edges have been worn smooth, dulling their glaring subversiveness. If we could recover their original impact, we too would be startled. Their beauty would not paper over the fact that they are “hard sayings,” presenting a scheme of values so counter to the usual as to shake us like the seismic collision of tectonic plates…We are told that we are not to resist evil but to turn the other cheek. The world assumes that evil must be resisted by every means available. We are told to love our enemies and bless those who curse us. The world assumes that friends are to be loved and enemies hated. We are told that the sun rises on the just and the unjust alike. The world considers this to be indiscriminating; it would like to see dark clouds withholding sunshine from evil people. We are told that outcasts and harlots enter the kingdom of God before many who are perfunctorily righteous. Unfair, we protest; respectable people should head the procession. We are told that the gate to salvation is narrow. The world would prefer it to be wide. We are told to be as carefree as birds and flowers. The world counsels prudence. We are told that it is more difficult for the rich to enter the kingdom than for a camel to pass through a needle’s eye. The world honors wealth. We are told that the happy people are those who are meek, who weep, who are merciful and pure in heart. The world assumes that it is the rich, the powerful, and the wellborn who should be happy. In all, a wind of freedom blows through these teachings that frightens the world and makes us want to deflect their effect by postponement – not yet, not yet! H.G. Wells was evidently right: either there was something mad about this man, or our hearts are still too small for his message.

 

 

It is imperative that we don’t become complacent. I am convinced that one of the primary obstacles we Christians face is our own tendency to be too complacent. We come to treasure our comfort zones and, as a result, keep our hearts too small for the message of Jesus.

 

Many of us start out well, accomplish numerous positive things in our lives, and then settle into a pattern of general comfort and complacency. We live not to grow, but to maintain the status quo. This is a tragic mistake.

 

God did not create you to rest on your laurels. Instead, he hardwired you to keep on moving – keep in growing. So beware of settling in for too long. “But wait a minute,” you might be saying. “We all need to rest. All work and no play makes for a dull boy.” Yes, that’s true. We do, indeed, need to take time off from time to time in order to rest, recuperate, and recharge our spiritual batteries. However, these periods of recuperation were never meant to be a career. No, we have to keep on moving.

 

The Pakistani poet and psychologist Ahkter Ahsen, in his epic poem “Manhunt in the Desert,” describes the journey through the desert of a man in search of truth. After wandering for days in the scorching landscape, he is at the end of his tether. Without respite, he is going to die. Fortunately, he eventually stumbles into a small oasis, just in the nick of time.

 

The oasis is a God-send. Not only does it have fruit and coconuts, but there is also a well. The man becomes rested, watered, and fed and he grows quite fond of the oasis, in spite of several issues he encounters there. After a time, the man developed the habit of each day going to sit on the edge of the oasis, right where it met the desert. As he sat there, he began to feel a vague sense of anxiety. He wasn’t sure where this feeling of anxiety was coming from and he fought to keep it at bay.

 

Pretty soon a voice within him insisted it was time for the man to continue on his journey. The man argued with the voice, reasoning that he would be a fool to head back into the heat, sand, and tremendous aridity. The voice, on the other hand, kept reminding the man that his goal could not be found in the oasis; instead, it existed beyond the desert.

 

This state of affairs went on for quite some time, but the man remained steadfast in his resistance to the voice within. One day he goes to sit in his accustomed place at the edge of the desert. He notices that way out on the horizon, a sand storm is blowing. He watches the cloud of dust dance across the desert, first in one direction, then in another.

 

Soon, the man becomes somewhat alarmed as the storm now seemed to be heading right toward him. The man, still enjoying his seat, did not move because he was certain the storm of blowing sand would change direction, just as it had so many times before.

 

He was mistaken.

 

Before he could react, the storm was upon him. The wind whirled around about him and blew a single grain of sand up his nose. He found the grain of sand highly irritating to the lining in his nose, and frantically trying to dig it out, he uncoiled himself from the lotus position and began dancing about in great discomfort. With the storm continuing around him, the man repeatedly tried to dislodge the grain of sand.

 

Eventually the storm abated and when his field of vision finally cleared, the man discovered two startling facts. First, the grain of sand was at last gone. That was the good news. The bad news was the fact that he was now back out in the desert with the oasis nowhere in sight.

 

It seems God used the storm to push the man back out to where he needed to be. There was no way the man was going to reach his divine destiny parked on the edge of the oasis in the lotus position. The man had to get up, stretch himself, and get moving again.

 

How many times are we in similar situations? We create our comfort zones and rigidly live within their confines. Any attempt to dislodge us from the walls of this comfort zone meets with great resistance. I know in my own life, the pattern depicted in this epic poem plays out in pretty much the same way. I first begin to feel a bit anxious. After this, a voice within me tells me that if I am to reach  my goals I have to get back into the desert, even if it is unpleasant.

 Sometimes, I heed the voice and get moving. At other times, I require a sandstorm to get me to move.

 

(to be continued)

 

(c) L.D. Turner 2008/All Rights Reserved