Eric Butterworth Speaks: Essays on Abundant Living #127
Delivered by Eric Butterworth on January 2, 1976
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I would like to extend to those who were not with me yesterday morning, my blessings for a happy New Year. The year is young, and right now many persons are thinking of new beginings. The beginning of a new year seems to be the right time to start anew, the time to have fresh courage and renewed hope, the time to continue on in the higher aspirations of life.
Often we feel that we want to change things; we want a new beginning though we hardly know where or how to begin. Well, my friends, a change in conditions may require a change in viewpoint in many phases of your life. How does one go about making a new beginning in one's life? First of all, any feeling of helplessness or discouragement must be overcome. To make new starts we must set out on new roads; we must forget mistakes or disappointments of the past. In spite of temporary adversity there is always that in life which offers new opportunity and added success. When we continue year after year thinking in terms of what the races think, we are mentally going round and round like a squirrel in a cage. We are getting a lot of exercise, but we are not progressing in the important phases of life.
An old treadmill thought, one which man has doubtless clung to since his beginning is "Might makes right." A new way to look at this problem, which is the only way to transform us in this world, is one that was suggested to us many, many years ago—it is to overcome evil with good, and to destroy hate with love. Perhaps few persons as yet believe this, but the validity of the principle has been proved many' times over. We need a quickening of the mind so that we may see that this new way is the logical way and the only satisfactory way. The great need in the world is to build up in the mind and heart greater harmony or love. When hate is matched with hate, then we have twice as much hate; but when hate is met with love, it is neutralized. One evil may overcome another evil, but you still have evil. But when good overcomes evil, you have only good. When force is used to overcome force, we are not really that much better off; but when love overcomes force, then we have force guided by love. So "might makes right" is only one of the old beliefs that needs to be changed by new ones.
Another is the belief that man is a material being, sinful and sickly. We need to get a new thought of this old one. We need to remember that God made man in his image and likeness, that the true man is spiritual. When we begin to perceive how man is a spiritual being and has this innate potentiality within him, then we glimpse what Jesus meant when he talks about eternal life.
During the past seventy-five years the race of mankind has gained many so called new ideas; they have mostly been new thoughts about material things. These thoughts have wrought many wonderful changes in our outer experience in the twentieth century, but they haven't changed us fundamentally. In many ways we still have barbaric tendencies of our ancestors in our pulses and in our dispositions. We should not be content just to learn new ideas about machinery, electricity or astrophysics. These are good, they are wonderful, but they do not constitute the kind of ideas that will transform us. Whereas they deal with the outer, we must find a corresponding way to deal with our inner. The ideas that we need the most are those that go deep beyond the world of effect, that which deals with the divine dimension, the spirit within, which help us to understand and release the divine wisdom and substance and life and love in our lives. We do this by desiring to understand life in a larger, fuller way by spending time in a concentrated search for the realization of our own oneness with God in the quietness of our own souls, and the beginning of the new year is a marvelous time to start thinking about such things.
At sunrise we stand on the threshold of a new day. Let's never think of today as being just like all other days. Everyday has its own individuality, its own mark, and everyday is unique in that it is the first day of the rest of your life.
It is the cross-point of the eternities. This day is unlike any other day ever recorded or to be recorded; it is a very special time. The important thing is that we want to make it special in the way in which we live it, and live in it. Each day is a new beginning and should be a new birth, a new time of awakening. Just imagine being born into a new world, an entirely new world, 365 times a year. Can you imagine it?
Remember Jesus said, "The kingdom of God cometh not without observation, neither here nor there; the kingdom of God is within you." Now in our contemplation of beginning all over again, of standing on the threshold of life each day, is something which should always thrill us. If you think this play is too ideal to be true, I suggest at least you give it a try. Prove it for yourself, begin today to look for the sunrise of new opportunities. Let today give you experience for tomorrow. Every morning as you greet a new sunrise, there is a new mental vision that dawns on your horizon for as you stand on the threshold of another beautiful day, make the firm resolve to be done forever with everything limiting, with every negative belief about yourself and about other persons, conditions or things. When we behold ourselves and our lives with the right point of view, we see that we are always on the threshold of opportunity. As long as we view life from the standpoint of truth, we are never without a chance to take a new hold on life. Isn't that great?
We may feel that we are at liberty to think whatever we choose, take toward life whatever attitude we desire, and still not feel the effect in our minds and body, but this is not true. Frequently, we seek new opportunities, and yet we attempt to keep our old attitudes which is what Jesus referred to as putting new wine in old wine skins. It is refreshing indeed to find a mind that is always keenly alert to receive new inspiration. Such a mind in an individual will keep him always receiving and displaying new thoughts, which will always place him at the threshold of new opportunities. He's the one who gets ahead easily. You can hardly keep it from him; it is almost as if he attracts newer good to him constantly.
If you have been living a life of routine, a life without any measure of freshness or new interests, your way of escape from monotony is through new viewpoints, new slants on your service, new angles on your life in general, looking out of new windows. Without the ability to think on the basis of new ideas we are little more than a machine. Our only salvation lies in new viewpoints, in new insights into Truth. Our only way to a better position lies in adopting a right attitude of mind, one that aids us to perceive new opportunities. Don't let your mind be cluttered up with old, useless, chrystallized ideas. We cannot tenaciously hold on to old thoughts and at the same time be receptive to new ones. You cannot hold on to the thought that every door is closed to you, and at the same time expect to find one that will open to new opportunities.
Many teachings of the Bible celebrate the spirit of newness ... we are called to appreciate new things, new life, new conditions. We are exhorted to behold the passing away of the old and useless and chrystallized because we ourselves are made new. New opportunities follow with new channels for service, fresh avenues through which to bless and to prosper; it is wonderful for we are made new. Everyday is an opportunity to be made new and to expand our awareness filling our mind with new thoughts and viewpoints so we can look out a new window. This is the way certainly to begin again.
© 1976, by Eric Butterworth
