Chapter Three: Getting What You Want

Prayer, when by prayer we mean meditation, and worship, and work, and service, and listening to God, and every spiritual exercise, is the greatest motivating force in the world. Not because man's prayers alter God or His unchangeable laws, but because of the influence of prayer on our own soul.
       — Charles Edward Locke.

IN SEEKING to demonstrate prosperity, there is one point upon which we must become truly clear. We must know what we want.

You answer: "That is easy. I want a position. I want an increase in salary. I want a greater volume of business. I want to sell my property. I want to rent my rooms. I want;------" and so on, listing the thing or things that seem, to your understanding, to be the best answer to the need that you feel.

But are you sure that what you ask is really what you want?

For instance, a woman comes to a practitioner of Truth. She tells him that she wants to sell her home, and asks that he pray with her for that outcome. Before committing himself to that course, the practitioner asks a few questions. Her home is a charming dwelling, and she has lived there all through the years in which her children were growing up. Now they have left the home nest, and she is alone. "Now," with a catch in her voice, "I should like to sell it. Will you help me?"

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"Of course; but let us put it this way. Let us know that this home is God's home; that His presence fills every room; that this presence attracts just those who will most appreciate the home, in ways that will be for their highest good, and for yours."

"Would it be wrong for me to advertise?" she asks.

"No, not if you feel divinely led to do so. When we place any matter in God's care for adjustment, we should do everything that we honestly believe God would have us do; and nothing else." She puts an advertisement in the paper, and a sign on the house; and there, for quite a while, the matter seems to rest. Nothing happens; at least nothing visible.

Finally a prospective buyer appears. He likes the house and makes a fair offer. The deal is about to be closed, when the owner bursts into tears. "I cannot sell it," she says.

Deep down in her heart she has not wanted to sell, but has believed that she should do so to save expense, and because she feels lonely. It has not seemed practical or sensible to retain a big dwelling all to herself.

However, there is a wiser purpose in the turn of events than she can see. The work of one of her sons brings him and his wife back to the home town to live. "We should like to come to live with you," they write her. And so the home nest bids fair to be less lonely, and to serve new purposes of good, without the sale.

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Sometimes, too, when it apparently is in divine order to dispose of property, the desired outcome is delayed by resistant thoughts in the mind of the owner. We forget sometimes that "the earth is the Lord's, and the fulness thereof." We think of property as being our own. We mentally claim it, and do not release it, even though ostensibly we desire to do so. Also, we often work against a sale by our acceptance of the negative thought of the world. We mentally concede that "no one is buying such property now"; that if it were smaller, or larger, or more modern, or in a different location, it would be easier to sell it. We impose mental restrictions upon the sale that may be contrary to divine selection and order. We accept a mental picture of the type of person or firm that is to buy it, and close our mind to every one else.

These vagaries of the human mind must be met in Truth, and they can be met easily and harmoniously by impersonalizing the hoped-for transaction.

This can be done by realizing the truth that God's love "always has met and always will meet every human need"; that God is a wise and loving, as well as a just, Father; and that if we work with Him in seeking the solution of our problems they will be solved in bounty, justice, and divine order. Know that "every good gift and every perfect gift" comes from God; that, in truth, all things are His, simply intrusted to us to instruct us and to bring us joy; and that, if anything that He has

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shared with us no longer meets our need or brings us joy, there must be some one else who should be finding help and joy in it. Therefore gladly, freely, and willingly relinquish all claim upon such a possession. Bless it, and give thanks for the good that it has brought. Know that, if in God's sight it can serve some one else better than you, He will attract the purchaser who will find greatest good in the property, and who will give you a just and generous recompense. Be alert to respond to whatever the Father would have you do toward bringing about His divine adjustment, but be careful to keep your mind at peace, so that you will not mistake the pressure of your own anxious or impatient thought for the urge of Spirit.

What, really, do you want? You want happiness, health, abundance, and the freedom to enjoy these blessings, do you not? Do you insist that they come to you by just the route that you see? Must your prosperity come from the sale of property? Suppose that oil should be found on it; suppose that in another year it should be much more valuable than it now is; suppose that soon you should have need of it: would you still insist upon selling it immediately?

What each of us wants, with a desire past all description, is to know and to express God. Your desire for abundance is His desire in you. Your desire for health is His desire in you. Your desire for happiness and freedom is His desire in you. Does not God know how to fulfill His own desire?

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Mistaking our own desire for His is the most serious mistake that we make. It is the cause of all our other mistakes. Claiming things, persons, possessions, as our own is the source of countless woes. It leads us to imagine that others, that circumstances, that life, that even God, is opposed to the fulfillment of our good. It produces fear, selfishness, panic. It is all a woeful, grievous mistake.

Actually, no one ever desires anything but his own highest good—God's desire for him and in him. Actually, the way for the fulfillment of this desire is already prepared. But we cannot discern the way when our eyes are dimmed with tears, when our heart is gripped by fear, and our mind races with anxious, selfish thoughts that put the nerves on edge and tense the muscles of the body.

We can really know what we want—that is, what God in us wants—only when we, in our personal, selfish nature, cease demanding and insisting. In order to hear God's "still small voice" of direction, we must listen. To listen, we must become still.

Be neither anxious nor listless, but be poised in the consciousness that the Father knows your need and has answered it even before you ask. Your part is to catch the answer, and to accept it.