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"Jesus
said, "I am the way, the truth, and the life." You are
the way, the truth and the life unto your own happiness, your own
abundance. That which is yours by divine right must come to you by
way of your own consciousness. It is already within you awaiting
your recognition. ... How do you recognize this? How do you bring
it into your experience? By looking at your thoughts and your
feelings. You cannot demonstrate the opposite of what you think
and feel. If you feel you are a pauper, you will not draw
abundance to you. Life will respond in like manner to your
thoughts and feelings. ... If, on the other hand, you begin to feel that
you are rich in ideas, rich in love, rich in creativity, rich in
expression, beautiful good will begin to manifest in your life."
- Dr. Frank E. Richelieu, The Art Of Being Yourself
In the Bible we
can read: "The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want,"
and because these words are open to interpretation, they mean different
things to different people. For some, it means that G-d will
supply all our needs without any effort on our part. But, in
metaphysics we understand that "Lord" means the "Law of
our mind," and so we know that whatever comes to us, must come
through our consciousness, as Dr. Richelieu states in the opening
paragraph of this message.
The Divine Mind inspires us, but It does not choose for us.
Nor can G-d give us something that we cannot accept for ourselves.
We have free will to accept our good or to negate our good. What
we receive is always up to us. Along with our thoughts we have
feelings, and sometimes our most positive thoughts are negated by our
feelings. This is why we use affirmative prayer and affirmations
to maintain a state of mind that is positive and filled with the
expectancy of good. What we "feed" our mind, becomes
part of our consciousness. But, we must not make the mistake of
making our affirmative prayers and affirmations mechanical, as our
feeling nature will not respond. We must not only believe what we
say, we must feel the truth of our words for them to be effective in
uplifting our state of mind. Our mind must always be open to the
circulation of ideas that come to us from the Divine Mind, otherwise our
words become stale and without feeling.
"The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not
want," provides us with an affirmation, if understood, that can
establish within our consciousness a positive outcome to almost every
condition we find ourselves in. We can look at this statement in
different ways to convince our mind of the outcome or result that we
choose to experience. Knowing that the "Lord" is the Law
or the contract with Life that we have established within, we can expect
to realize that which we have established. We know what this Law
is, because we know what we have focused our attention on or what we
have contemplated within our mind. When we focus our attention and
contemplations on the good result, then we can have confidence that
"I shall not want." The Law will not leave us wanting,
but instead will fulfill Itself in our experience.
Whenever we have moments where we feel jealous, resentful,
frightened, angry or depressed, we are allowing limitation to negate our
good. Whenever feelings of limitation fill our mind, we are
separating ourselves from the Infinite and infinite good. The
greater purpose in working with affirmative prayer and affirmations is
to remind us of who we really are and to know that there is Something
Greater than we are, always with us, working for us, as us and through
us.
To emphasize our ability to establish,
"I shall not want," in our consciousness as our own Law of
Mind, let us look at these words written by Dr. Ernest Holmes:
"Have we had the faith to bless that which
perhaps seemed so very small, and expect it to become multiplied in our
experience to such an extent that it would not only bless us but also
bless everyone around us? We cannot but believe that as Jesus
broke the bread and blessed it, in his own mind he saw it multiplied and
growing and flowing out to those around him. This is an example we
should follow - to bless what we have, know it flows from a limitless
source, and that we merely use and distribute it. There is always
more. The limitless resources of Spirit are at our command.
We have as much to use as we know how to take; but the taking is a thing
of thought, of will, of imagination. It is a thing of interior
awareness, in that place where the mind has unified with the living
Spirit."
And so we know why we can say, "I shall not want,"
because the Spirit is giving, providing, becoming, and flowing to us,
all that is necessary for us to cease from wanting and instead, to wait
on the Lord ... that is our Law of Mind that we have established in our
consciousness, to reveal Itself in our experiences.
As Dr. Frank Richelieu explains, "we cannot
demonstrate the opposite of what we think and feel."
AND
SO IT IS!
Keep
the faith!
Rev.
Dr. Henry Lee Bates
Visit Rev. Bates BLOG: Living
the Science of Mind
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