August 6, 2006

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Meditation

Reading

Message

Martin Luther King, Jr., in being asked to publish some of his sermons, wrote in the preface to his book, ““. . . a sermon is directed toward the listening ear rather than the reading eye. . . I offer these discourses in the hope that a message may come to life for readers of the printed words.”” This is my hope for you, dear reader.
——Rev. Linda

August 6, 2006

SET YOUR SAILS:
WHAT FLOATS YOUR BOAT?

I want to begin this morning by thanking Dr. Roger Teel for so many of the ideas I’ll be sharing with you in this message.

If your life experience could be likened to a voyage, what’s it been like lately for you? Where’s the vessel of your life been going and taking you lately? Have you been sailing and regaling on the open seas of calm waters or have you been floundering in the shallows of the swamp?

Today as we launch out into the deep, I invite you to a choice: to a monumental decision that you really are empowered to make, I invite you to decide that your life will be a voyage of abundance. Sound good? You willing?
Affirm with me: Henceforth and forever more my life is a voyage of abundance. (Repeat) Absolutely. Congratulations, we’re on our way. Do you know you deserve abundance? In Jeremiah God says, “I know the plans I have for you, plans to prosper you and give you a future with great hope.” The Universe offers us abundance.

But the sad thing is that without realizing it, most people say, “NO,” and sail the vessel of their life into the swamp, or sail into the rapids of fear, or into the River Denial, or the Barrier Reef, or they run aground on Someday Isle.

Our founder Dr. Ernest Holmes writes, “It is the nature of the Universe to give us what we are able to take. It cannot give us more. It has given all. We have not yet accepted the greater gift.”

Now why would anyone say “no” to a life voyage of abundance—of joy, loive, peace? Because so much of the time we haven’t figured out how it is that we answer the invitations of the Universe. We say “no” and we don’t even realize we’re saying “no.” We must learn how to answer in new and prospering ways. We must get to the root causes of lack and limitation and depravation so that we can stop steering away from our divine abundance and free ourselves to prosper.

Our founder Dr. Holmes also had a favorite expression. He said, “Change your thinking, change your life.” A while ago the Gap put out a brochure, a mailer. And on the front it had some symbols, and then it had the words peace, love and change. And inside, this is what it said, “Change your underwear, change your life.” I’m serious! It did! Then it went on to say, “Well, think about it. Changing your shirt can give you extra confidence. Changing your socks gives you a little extra bounce in your step.”

You see the world is always trying to sell us its magic wands. Always trying to convince us that if we change the outer, we’ll change our lives. Even to the extent of changing our underwear, change our lives. But eventually we get it. Eventually we understand that those magic wands don’t work. But then not knowing what does work, we tend to drift and find ourselves in the shallows, marooned in the swamp.

Maybe you’re there now. We’ve all been there, in those times of discouragement, self-doubt, when self-worth and our sense of possibilities is greatly diminished. It’s when self-confidence and enthusiasm are at a low ebb. And in all of this, it’s like we become stuck in the shallows, and things aren’t working and it seems that everything that we’re creating, all that we’re creating is just more lack, more blockage, more frustration in our lives.

The blocks to our greater abundance, and I’m talking abundance of every kind, the blocks to our greater abundance, our greater good, are our own thoughts. Now I’m not just talking about our casual surface thoughts. I’m talking about the deeper thoughts and beliefs held in the subconscious mind. Because nothing is going to bring forth lasting abundance for you and me if our subconscious thoughts remain rooted in limitation.

So our subconscious has to be reprogrammed and fine-tuned for abundance. Because as we think and believe in our subconscious minds, so shall it be unto us. That’s the most powerful principle for abundance. And that’s what puts us in this swamp, and then we feel like we’re living at the effect of the world out there, the effect of the money issues, and at the effect of jobs and all that out there, because that’s pulling our strings, and not who we really are. Our deepest beliefs form the creative intentions, but then go to form the fabric of the reality of our lives. And so it’s the invisible realm of mind that we have to change.

Outer forms of abundance usually seem like the carrots we’re going after. But outer forms of abundance, money, possessions, jobs, opportunities, relationships, whatever they might be, outer forms of abundance are byproducts or results of inner causes. Any blockage, any scarcity in our lives is actually a symptom of inner thought processes imbedded in our subconscious mind, and these thought processes are like instructions that are constantly going out to the all-powerful creative law of the universe to continue to produce lack and limitation in terms of our abundance.
Everyone of us already carries in the vessel of our lives powerful programming about wealth and abundance, but are you clear what that is? Most of our programming was etched into our subconscious mind when we were children. And these messages often would reinforce fear and scarcity and limitation. And these imprints within us become automatic responses, automatic commands in the universe, and automatic responses that run us, that set the tone of our moment-to-moment thinking and our reactions and our evaluations, and they chart the course for the voyage of our lives.

But it’s time we changed that. The good news is we can. The old tapes that have been running us do not have to continue to sabotage us, we can learn to send new instructions into the subconscious field of mind, and as these internal commands are transformed, we step to the helm once again, we set our sails and catch the wind of Spirit, and we can pull out of the swamp and out into the open sea, the open waters of peace and infinite possibilities.

On any voyage, you have to have three essential elements: You have to have a captain; you have to have the course; and you have to have the command.

You are the captain. William Ernest Henley was laying in a hospital bed, racked with pain, dealing with what they told him was an incurable ailment, and it was in that moment that he wrote these words. “I am the master of my fate. I am the captain of my soul.” No matter what was going on in his body, no matter what they were saying to him, he stepped to the helm. He took over as captain.

I call you to the helm. Now who I’m calling to the helm is not your old tapes. I’m not calling a little fearful ego to the helm. This is about spiritual activation. I’m calling the I AM of you to the helm. I’m calling the God-inspired Essence of you to the helm. I’m calling the Spiritual Light, the True Self, the Higher Self, the Spiritual Essence to the helm. So that It can assert the quality, spiritual leadership your life has always deserved. And when you do that, you’ll steer into the Port of Abundance. I promise you that. I’m calling the I Am to the helm that knows that you’re more than your thoughts.

All the forces of the Universe will support you, when you step to the helm. I invite you to spend some more time communing with the God-intended being you are, that already is power. There’s already spiritual power within you. You don’t need to become spiritual. You already are Spirit. Spirit is already whole. It doesn’t need to become whole. Bring that to the helm of your life.

A captain is very aware of everything going on in the journey. Aware of the nature of the ship and the situation with the ship. Aware of the crew and how they’re doing, Aware of the winds, aware of the currents that might pull them adrift. And as you step to the helm as captain of your voyage of abundance, I invite you into an acute awareness, a highly fine-tuned awareness of your thought systems. Watch what naturally and spontaneously comes up in you. When you think about money, watch what comes up in you when you think about your dreams and your desires. Watch your knee-jerk reactions and responses, because they give you clues as to what has already been etched in the subconscious that you can heal.

Ask yourself, “What did I hear as a child that I took on?” Maybe you heard, “You have to work hard for everything” or “you have big ideas.” And things like that. What did you observe going on? Did you observe fear? Did you observe upset? What did you observe about the ideas of life and abundance? And also ask, “What experiences were significant that you or your family went through? Maybe it was depression times or your family came out of the depression, or maybe it was a bankruptcy or a divorce or a business failure or a setback or something like that. Awareness is power. Clarity is power. The more the captain is aware of the old instructions that used to run the ship, they lose their power, and you’re further anchored as captain. You need a captain.

And then the second thing you need is the course. You need the course for the journey. You know Seneca, two thousand years ago, said, “No port is the right port if you don’t know where you’re going.” It’s time to ask your I Am Presence, the real you who is at the helm, “What do I really desire?” Have you been chasing after a bunch of stuff that would justify me or build me up or that somebody else thought I ought to have? What do I really desire in my heart of hearts?

A real creative guy named Randy Peyser wrote a book called Crappy to Happy and in it he says, “Ask these questions of yourself.” He says, “Ask, what do I love?” Ask your heart that. “What do I love?” “What are my inner gifts?” He says, “Ask what do I value and want to give my life to?” And finally he says, “Ask what are the environments that most support me and the situations in which I thrive?” He said to ask all of that and you’ll begin to discern the course for your life.

And when you understand that, write down each one of those deep heart desires as though you already had them. Write them down in that way and then read them out loud at least three times a day, morning, noon and night. And then the third step is to hold them in your heart. Love them, bless them, visualize yourself being them. And don’t tell anyone about them unless you’re absolutely sure those few people can truly support you. Hold them in your heart. You’ll find that you have a new course. You, the captain, are steering the new course.

Ella Wheeler Wilcox, the great poet writes:
One ship sails east and one sails west
by the self-same wind that blows.
It isn’t the gale, but the set of the sail
that determines the way it goes.

Yeah, it’s not the gale but the set of the sail that determines the course. Set your course.

And then the third element, a captain with a course asserts the command. Command. I’m talking now about spiritual authority, that it’s now time to fulfill and express your spiritual authority. You’re directing an all-powerful Law. Subconscious old tapes are no longer at the helm. You, the captain, are at the helm. So command the power. Express your spiritual authority. An inner realm of thought and mind. Allow the course to be stayed. And if you find that there are cross-currents of thought, negotiate them, navigate them and keep the course in mind.

Take command. Take command first of all of your reactions and your responses, because so often those can steer us off course. Like Henry Fawcett, a brilliant young Englishman, a lad that everybody thought was going great places, wealthy son of a wealthy father. They were out hunting and accidently the father’s gun discharged and Henry was blinded.

His whole life seemed to be deflated. And of course he would have naturally entered into deep despair and discouragement, except for one thing. Henry was highly aware that his father was in absolute agony, almost insane with grief for what inadvertently he had done to his son. And he so loved his father that he said to himself, “I’m not going to let him see this other stuff in me. I’m going to come forth and be cheerful, even though I don’t feel cheerful. I’m going to be hopeful, even though I don’t even know if I have a shred of hope. And I’m going to be interested in this life of mine, even though I have no interest any more. I’m blind for the rest of my days.”

But he came forth in a different way so that his father would stay alive. And an interesting thing happened. In a few short months, Henry began to authentically feel hope. He began to authentically have renewed interest in his life. He felt the genuine joy and cheerfulness about his life. And he not only saved his own life, he saved his father’s life. He went on to do great, great things. He was elected into parliament, and he became the Postmaster General of England, creating a bunch of reforms. A life well lived because he took command.

It is written, “Act as though you are and you shall be.” At the helm, take command. See it through. And in time your command will be new instructions to the subconscious mind, that the greater Law of the Universe can then operate upon.

Be in command. You are the captain of your soul. The ocean is of great abundance—infinite possibilities. The universe offers it. Chart your course. Set your sails and let the winds of Spirit float your boat and take you out of the stuck places, out of the shallows of the swamp, take care of your being, exalt your being. You’ll find a natural prosperity begins to flow through you as you are a YES in this universe.