Hi everyone and welcome to what I hope will be the first of many blogs from me and other members of this community. This will be a place where we can share with you how the principles and practices that we learn about on Sunday morning have made a difference in our lives. Occasionally, you may also find little extra pieces from my Sunday lesson that I wasn’t able to get to because I ran out of time. Truthfully there is so much wonderfully inspirational material for me to draw from that some of it ends up on the cutting room floor so to speak. So check back twice a month to see what it is that is on my mind or the minds of members of our spiritual family at Unity Church of Overland Park.
This week, I would like to share a concept with you that I ended up having to leave out of the Sunday lesson on February 12th. As you may recall, on Sunday I talked about the process of manifesting your prosperity through realizing and utilizing Divine Ideas. However, there is an important part of this process that I simply didn’t have time to address and that is being persistent in our practice. It is vitally important that, once we have grabbed ahold of that divine idea and are using all of our thoughts, beliefs, and actions to manifest it, that we be tenacious in maintaining our practice. In his book, Prosperity, Charles Fillmore compares our need to be persistent in our demonstrations of abundance to the story found in 1 Kings of the prophet Elijah praying for rain. In the story, which can be found in 1 Kings 18:41-46, Elijah is persistent in his prayers for rain. Praying and checking seven times before his servant Ahab reports seeing a cloud.
Mr. Fillmore tells us that this story should serve as a reminder to be persistent in our spiritual practice. The manifestation of our good is frequently not an overnight occurrence. He writes, “This shows a continuity of effort that is sometimes necessary. If your prosperity does not become manifest as soon as you pray and affirm God as your substance, your supply, and support, refuse to give up. Show your faith by keeping up the work.” (Prosperity p. 34)
It’s easy for us to become let down when we feel like we aren’t manifesting our good, but it’s important to remember that often times there is a difference between our timeline and the timeline that God has in mind. When we allow ourselves to become distracted by the thought that we have failed, we tend to miss the divine idea that we were waiting for in the first place. So, my advice to you is to remain persistent in your spiritual practice. Do not allow yourself to become discouraged because it appears as if the rain hasn’t shown up yet. Instead of worrying about whether or not this is working, keep at it and refuse to give up. Your good is out there ready to be claimed by you. You simply have to stick with it and never give up.