To BE
ushered into turmoil, blindly toil a few years and then
go out into uncertainty, is surely not the purpose of
Man's existence. Life must mean more than this, and it
does mean more. Man should be a builder, and to him is
given all the materials out of which to construct the
kind of life he desires to live. He builds in wisdom or
in ignorance, according to his obedience, according to
his understanding of a Divine Law and the use of it in
his daily life.
Many
people, when they learn that the science of living is
governed by exacting laws, immediately assume that to
live rightly is to live the hard way. They are afraid of
a law that is exacting in its demands when it touches
their relationship with the finer things. Yet these same
people would not be willing that the laws which govern
human society should be modified in any way. They
recognize that the laws which govern social conduct and
activity must be properly enforced if organized society
is to function harmoniously and safely. In other words,
they recognize that government is for the good of
mankind and that without it human life and welfare would
be in continual jeopardy.
If this
is true of human government and established by
constitution and law, it is even more true of divine
government. And the more exacting the law, the more
certain the safety, prosperity, and happiness of him who
fulfills the law's demands. In the realm of science no
laws are more exacting than those which govern the
science of mathematics. An accountant, even when he
fails immediately to solve a problem, knows it can be
solved only by calling into operation the exacting laws
that govern all mathematical calculations. Were those
laws subject to change, the solution of mathematical
problems would be utterly hopeless.
Perhaps
in no way has religion gone so far astray as in its
conception or understanding of God, whether it be the
God of the Christians or of the heathen. Instead of
recognizing that the Supreme Intelligence is Law,
operating according to and as surely as the Laws of
Nature, men have created in their ideas a God who is
partial, subject to appeal from saint and sinner alike;
a God who can be persuaded and bargained with; a God who
gives life and takes it away; a God who heals sickness
and causes it; a God who impoverishes and enriches; a
God who rewards and punishes; and having accepted this
wrong idea, it has made prayer largely a matter of
doubts, lacking in that strong assurance that a thing
will be so because it is according to the Divine Law.
TOP
To many
folks this aspect of truth creates an illusion of a God
for all; a God who is not interested in man's needs and
problems; a God who is not a father to whom we can take
our cares and with whom we can converse. "They have
taken away my Lord," cried Mary. Sooner or later,
however, they discover that this divine knowledge of the
nature of God, as Law, has given them their Lord in a
sense so close and intimate that all doubt in claiming
their good is ended; for once the Law is understood, we
hold the secret of eternal happiness, peace, and
dominion or mastery over all the forces around us.
The word
"obey" means to submit to rule or to comply with orders
or instructions. Obedience, then, is the governor of all
movement whether it be mechanical, literal, or
spiritual. A giant machine without its governor would
tear itself apart, would be utterly destroyed because it
failed to obey its own laws of momentum or gravity. An
intellectual giant who fails to comply with the laws of
learning will become as an idiot. A student failing to
comply with or to obey the instructions of spirit, the
Law of God, will reverse that good and create evil. We
are dependent entirely on obedience for our success or
failure in this life. TOP
Our
societies, cities, state's and nation are supported by
it. Our properties and lives are dependent upon it.
Because of our respect for obedience, we, as a whole,
support it. But woe unto the man who tries to break
through to pillage, to plunder for selfish gain. As we
look into the home we see the mother training her child
Into habits of discipline. Tomorrow we see a happy
mother because her child has grown into youth and
manhood and has earned success. A success because, back
in the beginning of his life, the seed of obedience was
placed there which brought forth respect, obedience, and
unselfish thought. On the other hand, we may see where
others fail because they have been allowed to grow up
being disobedient, disrespectful, and selfish.
Business
is founded upon obedience, and as each member obeys the
laws of commerce, he will succeed. It is only when man
expands these laws by over speculation, and by wildcat
schemes, inflated values, or lack of cooperative agency,
that he brings upon himself failures and causes
bankruptcies and loss. All our problems of life are due
in some measure to our obedience to the Law of Thought
and its Creator, God. Our difficulties have been in
knowing what to obey and what not to obey.
TOP
We see
in Nature the answer. She has no troubles she cannot
overcome. She has no problems she cannot solve. She has
no burdens she cannot bear; 110 tasks she cannot
perform. Why?
All her
operations are governed by the mighty Law of Harmony and
Order which constantly removes every discord, which
heals all diseases, which rights every wrong, which
supplies every need. If, in the winter, a young sprout
attempts to break through the soil before season, Mother
Nature destroys that sprout, rills it off or freezes it
out. Yet, at the same time, the very snow and ice that
freeze the little unruly sprout, serve as a blanket of
warmth and protection to the other seedlings complying
with her laws. When man wishes to use Nature in his
work, such as farming or gardening, he must know how to
comply with Nature's law. In turn, as he obeys her laws,
he derives the best results, and in the end he will
enjoy the greatest harvest. He, who obeys the laws of
Nature and acts as her obedient servant, later becomes
the master and reaps a full harvest. TOP
Every
student who obeys the Law and is a true servant of Good
will become a greater soul and will reap the power to
control his every condition and enjoy blessings galore.
This is what the Master tried to tell us when he said,
"He that is greatest among you shall be your servant;
whosoever shall exalt himself shall be humbled;
whosoever shall humble himself shall be exalted." Yet
this does not picture for us a weakling, one who gives
way to the stronger or is easily brushed aside by the
more aggressive, for Paul says, "When I am weak, I am
strong," meaning, of course, that when he is weak to
obey the Law of Good, he is strong and spirited.
Our
mistakes are largely due to the fact that we have obeyed
more readily the laws of earth than the Laws of Spirit.
We have subjected our ideas to the outward appearances
of things rather than to the inner truths as the Law
teaches them. Peter and the apostles said to those who
gathered about them in the market place, "We must obey
God rather than man." We must obey the Law of Good
rather than the law of man. They knew that an individual
is only as he thinks he is, and if he obeys the
promptings of the Spirit or the urge of his senses, his
results will be accordingly. Paul says, "Know ye not to
whom ye yield yourselves servants to obey, his servants
ye are to whom ye obey; whether of sin unto death or
obedience unto righteousness." TOP
If we
are to obey the Spirit within us rather than the
conditions about us, then the Law requires us to first
think things into existence from the within before we
shall see them on the without. Most of our experiences
are the outgrowth of our own created activities. These
created activities are first to be bound in thought that
we think in our minds. The law reads, "As ye sow, so
shall ye reap," which is mathematically accurate and
true. If you plant a turnip seed, Nature does not
produce potatoes. If you plant a corn seed, Nature does
not make a mistake and bring forth a giant oak tree. On
the same reasoning, if you plant thoughts of worry, the
law you obey will give you something to Worry about. It
will produce more and more circumstances to increase
your worries. If you think of disease and lack, you will
receive exactly what you are expecting. Whatever law you
obey will in turn serve you. The most important thing
then is to know what to obey.
You
laugh at the troubles of little ones because you view
them from their true value. To the child his tiny task
seems real and all important, and not until he outgrows
his childish ways can he look back with amusement and
not feel regret. Not until we can rise superior to our
problems and our troubles can we ever hope to cease to
have further troubles. A mother put her little boy to
bed one night, but later she found him restless, unable
to sleep. He called down and asked that the light be
left lighted for him. The mother knew something was
wrong so she went up to his room and gained his
confidence by talking with him. She learned that during
the day other children had threatened to send the
"boogie man" after him because he would not give over
his toy to them. The mother then explained that there
was no "boogie man." She said that the principle of it
was to frighten him into submission so that he would
give over his toy to the other children. She told him he
could go to sleep because there was no real "boogie
man.' The child had obeyed the illusion of things and
was frightened, but the mother saw the truth. In knowing
the truth she could see through the principle of fear
involved, and by dispelling it from the mind of her son,
enable him to go peacefully to sleep. TOP
The
purpose of our lesson is to learn how we might properly
choose and serve the Law for our highest good. We either
serve principle or things in all that we think and do.
Things are the events or the results of invisible
causes, whereas principle is the true cause and is
spirit. Principle is that which we think in our minds
and things are the results of those thoughts. A man who
obeys illusions or worships things, will have burdens to
carry. A man's burdens are the things, which he claims
as his personal property. Things that he feels are his
very own and, therefore, he must protect and serve them.
Years ago a relative of mine worshipped illusions and
things. He strove to accumulate riches. He worked so
hard gaining his wealth that he lost his health. Then he
turned about and tried to gain his health by spending
his wealth, and in the end he passed away, a
disappointed and disillusioned man. That man, like so
many others, had started out in life with the wrong
conception of the Law of God.
Strange,
but man does not own an earthly thing. All that he has
been loaned to him according to his understanding of the
law he serves. Man was born naked and he dies in that
nakedness. All his earthly things are stripped off of
him; even his many burdens become illusions again. His
real task in life is to find his place according to his
understanding, and that understanding determines the way
he lives life. Analyze your burdens. They arise from
some ideas of possession that you think. You may have
dependents, others who must be supplied, and you feel
you must care for them, as they have no other protector
or provider. But when you realize the allness of God,
who sees even the sparrows fall, you will then change
your idea of responsibility. Then your mental release
will permit a greater flow of good to come to you, and
it will come to you in many other ways than before.
Thousands today are held in bondage to the idea that
they must be helped by others, that they must have
relief. Their greatest need is not your help or mine so
much as it is a new understanding of life itself. The
fear of the future has become a race belief and it
affects all ages. As you obey the law of fear instead of
the Law of God, you will have many more burdens. For
only as we are able to cast our burdens upon the Law
shall we be free. TOP
If you
are obedient to the Law you will not suffer these
burdens to be heaped high upon you.
You will
live in the present, do your highest duty every day,
forget the past, and let the future take care of itself.
For to trust the Law you must know of its guidance by
experience and practice. To those who have not learned
this guidance, the experience must be acquired. God does
not require you to follow his leading on blind trust.
Behold the evidence of an invisible intelligence
pervading everything, even your own mind and body.
Disobedience to the Law is refusal to do what we know is
right. We all know the right, but we do not always do it
because it seems to interfere or delay our immediate
attainment of the object we see. We want quick returns,
forgetting that the Law moves slowly, yet it works
perfectly and well. We want instantaneous healing of our
diseases, but we are loath to give up the net of habits
that caused them.
When we
speak of a man of principle we mean a man who is
governed by the law of right thinking and living; a man
who is not easily swayed; a man who is not an
opportunist; a man who will not deviate from the path of
what he deems to be right for the sake of personal
profit or popular acclaim; a man, in short, whom one may
trust absolutely to be true to his convictions
regardless of the temptations to change or modify them.
No one will deny that such a man inspires the utmost
confidence and may become a tower of strength and
leadership. He is one on whom others rely for
leadership, whereas the man who is easily persuaded to
Yield to pressure, even for kindly motives, is not the
type of individual on whom we can depend. TOP
If this
is true of man in the outer realm, how much more true it
is of man in the inner realm, the mental realm, because
God is Principle not merely governed by principle. The
God-governed man is never in doubt as to the results to
be gained by following the principle, for principle is
based on law and obedience. So this Law can have only
one result: happiness, peace, and prosperity.
All that
is required of us is to learn obedience to the Law of
Truth and not to obey the petty things that arise
steadily as We allow our visions to be disturbed and
harassed.
Blessed
are they that hear the word of God and keep it.
"Obey my
voice and I will be your God and ye shall be my people.
" When
we obey the voice (Law), then we understand with the
Master the statement, "All that is mine is thine."
This is
the Law acting through us.
As we
obey the Law, we humble our personal self to the Divine
self within us. TOP
We
refuse to accept the outer appearances of things as
being final and true but we turn within and seek that
which is real and true as God, the Law, intended it to
be.
Let us
live with God in His work, not after we die, not
tomorrow or next year, 'but right here and now.
God's
kingdom is all about us, awaiting our acknowledgment or
obedience of His Law.
We must
be able to converse and live with God, the Law, in our
daily life.
Then we
shall live with love and joy,
with
hope and wealth and
peace
here and everywhere.
It is
ours for the decision.
"If they
obey and serve Him,
they
shall spend their days in prosperity and their
