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Sunday, June 17, 2001
"Father,
I thank thee that thou hast heard me.."
- The
Master Mind, Jesus
Today,
Sunday, June 17th is Father's Day in the United States. It is a
time to honor and remember our earthly fathers and a time to celebrate
what they each have given us as their earthly children. Those of
us who are fortunate to have our fathers still with us will no doubt go
shopping and buy them a special gift for today. Whatever it is, it
will be given in love, and that of course is the most important gift of
all. For regardless of what our relationship has been with our
earthly father, we must give him our love, just like we must love the
Father of us all, God.
Our earthly fathers, like our Father,
God, have given us the best they could possibly give us. This
best, of course, is dependent on their very own consciousness of love
and fatherhood. The most important of that which they have given
us is not the material things, the baseball gloves, the clothes or the
college education, but their love, their support and their belief in our
ability to grow up and demonstrate wisdom, love, intelligence and
integrity. These are the things that God realizes for us as well.
Like our earthly fathers, God is always giving us every good
thing we can imagine for ourselves and more. But do we accept it
as Good or do we look at it from a consciousness of doubt, disbelief and
inferiority? How many times do we allow our ego to tell us that
what God is providing for us is not good, not what is best for us?
How many times do we allow ego to convince us that we know what is good
for us better than God does? God always gives us that which is for
our highest and greatest Good. "Would
your father give you a stone if you asked for a fish?" - of
course not! Our earthly father wouldn't and neither would our
Divine Father, God. Father means "provider." In
other words it is the Divine nature of God to
provide - to fulfill our every Good desire. Let me
illustrate this point:
A client came
to me for spiritual counseling. She was living in a situation with
another person who, at first, was very harmonious with her. But
the situation had become discordant and living with this person became
less than heavenly. The client asked me to pray that she would
demonstrate a living situation with someone that she would be in harmony
with and realize a peaceful home. I immediately went to work in
prayer and the result was a wonderful arrangement where she would live
in a guest house on an estate with a lovely family. After a few
months the client came to me again and told me that the living situation
had become intolerable. She stated that this family was "just
as bad if not worse" than the person she had lived with previously.
As I listened to my client talk, I soon realized that although she had
initially been very confident in this new situation, she had quickly
brought all the old assumptions and experiences that had demonstrated
discord in the past, into this new situation. In other words, God
had given her a beautiful new beginning, something Good - but she could
not let go of the past doubts, hurts and experiences to accept it as
Good.
Her consistent belief in discord and disharmony
demonstrated exactly that, in other words, she turned the
"fish" into a "stone."
Beginning this Father's Day, let's
make a commitment to ourselves to ask our fathers, both our earthly
father and our Father, God, only for those things that bring our highest
and greatest Good. Let's
trust that this request is granted, and let's look at everything in our
life through the eyes of Love and Goodness, and let the past doubts,
hurts and experiences dissolve into the nothingness that they are, and
not allow them to poison the Good that God is giving us this day.
Let's trust that Father Knows Best, always and in all things!
And
So It Is!
Letting Love use me
in Its own Good Way,
Henry Lee
Bates
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