There are few, even among the most worldly, who are not able to respond in a measure to the wonders which are portrayed in the various aspects of nature. You treasure memories of this and of that, not many of these perhaps because your life has been very shut in, but still every one can recall a mental picture of great beauty. It is as if photographed on the mind, and although that impression is covered up for the most part the veil can be removed at will, and there is the original undamaged and complete in a most remarkable way.
This may seem to you as just one of the many good gifts which come from the Father given to make things more pleasant; the power of memory and the capacity to visualise that which has long since passed beyond your view. To a certain extent you are right in thinking this, but that is only the outside physical aspect which, of necessity, very often to the children of earth represents the thing in its entirety.
It is true that the mind of God is shown in a variety of ways; portrayed, written down in symbols that all can understand; embedded in the flowers, in the rivers and in the sky; imprinted upon the face of the world so that they who have eyes to see may at any moment see the God-Mind in evidence. At any moment because there are few who do not have the power of seeing, even if it be but an inch, the wonder of the night or the unsurpassed glory of the dawn. So many in their daily existence, surrounded by strife and bitterness and injustice, almost despair of finding God anywhere within their own reach except within. Although the resources of Divinity within are unlimited, to those bound by physical ways of thinking it is not easy for them to lose themselves in that Divinity when evil is rampant without.
"The Peace of God which passes all understanding" does need with the majority a certain environment to bring it into being to the extent that makes it apparent. All of God’s children do find it so hard to keep that inward harmony when the vibrations without are crossed and re-crossed with discord and mistrust.
Your Heavenly Father never overlooks this! Because you lose that precious sense of inward peace by living for the most part in inharmonious surroundings that loss shall be counted as gain hereafter. Yet do not think that a very large measure of peace is not obtainable, if you remember to call upon the Christ frequently and with faith. That is the whole secret of it all. Those warring notes without, loud and blatant as they are, have a way of overwhelming the Voice of the Spirit, of suffocating it by their very volume; and to the victim it appears that the voice they shrink from most is in evidence everywhere.
The second thing to do after calling upon the Christ is to look around, if you can, and try and find God's handiwork. It is to be found even where light and the sky are blocked from view. God's handiwork is in all. You cannot look at another person without seeing the wonder of God. The mechanism of the body is to many minds the greatest manifestation of God in all creation. His children often forget this. To some the body seems as a dead weight of the material that troubles the spirit. They find nothing to admire and everything to dislike. The imperfections of the body, its weakness and its faultiness, loom ever before them.
Suppose that the body is incomplete from a health point of view, that it does not function as it should, that there are many obstacles to its smooth running. For the sake of argument admit all those bad marks which some are forever adding against the body side. Isn't it wonderful, considering that the mechanism is not perfect, that it is able to produce so much, that it is able to do so much, and that it is able to endure so much. With the perfect thing this does not assume the nature of a miracle; it does what it is appointed to do and that for which it was brought into being.
It is the same with any mechanical device put together by the mind and hand of humanity. The perfect engine does its work, but if there was a flaw in the construction of that engine, if there were weak links here and there, you would agree at once that it would be absurd to expect it to do the same work. And yet in physical life you have this demonstrated over and over again. Those who are physically handicapped by will and courage are able to triumph over their disabilities and keep march with the strong and the hardy. It is a wonderful thing! Those who are so handicapped should revise their opinion of the body in their possession, and should not view it as an enemy, as a struggle, almost as a curse, but see in its very weakness the wonder of it all.
As you go along you will find on every subject that there is the big view and the little view. When you think it out you will see at once that the big view is the only common-sense one there is, and the little one is really a contradiction of fact itself.
Each day you are taken a step here or a step there. You are shown the outline of this thought or that, and left to fill in the detail. That is a very good way of learning. In the question of teaching that which is taught in every detail, with not only direction pointed out but the pupil even taken to the end of the journey, produces very little from the individual point of view. It is not the best way of learning, and certainly it is a very imperfect way of teaching. The people of earth say that in the schools today the children have their lessons learnt for them. Of course this is an exaggeration, but with most sweeping comments of this kind the fraction of truth is there as well. However, the children so taught make very little knowledge their own because the soil has never been dug down deep and the planting has been done merely on the surface of the physical mind.
In regard to the manifestation of God in daily life, commence the construction of this habit. Instead of saying what a dreary day it is when the dreariness is impressed upon your memory, look around. In those you meet, in the very horses that drag their load, do not see the cruelty of humanity, but the wonderful constructive mind of God; Who did not create animals to be ill-treated by their owners but to be of help and service to humanity and fulfil their own destiny upon the earth. If you will undertake this little task you will find it will bring you happiness, because it is impossible to think of God, even in this restricted way, without drawing nearer to Him, and that always brings happiness!
It is in this connection with the impressions that are photographed upon your memory that you must acquire most the habit of looking at the mind of God all around you.
With most of God’s children, when the veil is lifted from this picture or that, they most hurriedly wish to let it fall back again. Some sadness, some unspoken grief, the bitterness which followed unnecessary humiliation, the slights, and that sense of injustice which goes hard with all. In many cases the picture gallery is only fit to be locked and barred. No sun ever shone through it, and all that is inside is that which is best forgotten.
These thoughts grieve the heart of the Saviour because it is so totally against that which the body was given for. The impressions left upon the mind may bear a different character altogether, and when they are uncovered a thrill of pleasure will come. Like the remembrance of the sweet scent of a flower in a garden that once belonged to you! That's what memory should be, and that is what your Father intended should belong to those who love Him.
There are all sorts of things you could say about the flowers in the past that suddenly lost their sweetness and were as the deadly nightshade. But that is past, and today and tomorrow the story is going to run on totally different lines. The background of the story should be in harmony with what is going on; the old sad ways of thinking should be relegated into the past, and the sun should leave some of its rays on what is going to be. Then memory will come into its own, and you will be able to turn back its leaves; not with pain because of this or because of that, not with that shrinking with which you now regard yesterday, but with confidence that there written on the pages was that joy and the recollection of services that God put in your way to render to others.
God, out of the bigness of His Heart, now and again crosses your life with another who is in need of help. You give and you do, and to you the incident is closed, but these things remain for evermore. Some, most in fact, are grateful to God when He allows them to do something for another who is in need. They are grateful because the privilege was theirs, and when they pass out of the body they shall see indeed that it was a gift direct from God; a gift that left an impression like a strong shaft of sunlight shining on something which before was dark and in the shade.
There is much to learn on the subject generally, not only of the power of thought but in the manipulation of that power; the many and varied ways in which God Himself is shown and is made manifest for humanity to see.
When you are building up any good habit, in order to make room for it, it is wiser to cast out those which cause you distress. So go in thought into the future; stand for a few moments and look back over those years of training. See where the trouble has come in, and whether, after all, in viewing things in their right perspective, it has been over-long for what is has produced.
You see, in regard to the things of the spirit and the working out of those things, it is impossible to get the right view at close vision; you only get the seemingly destructive side. A little further on you find that that which seemed to destroy only destroyed the rubbish and the good grain remained untouched.
Still more you are called upon for courage and for trust in God. If these two things are there, then patience to wait will not be needed, because in place of impatience will be certainty and confidence of the ultimate end.
You are bound for a far shore. The waters have been rough and the winds cold, but the far shore is worth the experience. You shall yet find that even those rough waters did not produce devastation and destruction, as so many have thought, but in reality have created things of beauty and of worth which no tongue can tell because they are of God.
Rest then in the thought that the past and the future are going to be shown as one, each a counterpart of the other, for the one purchased that which the other holds. They are blended together and sealed by the Christ for His use, for the service of humanity and the glory of God. It is impossible to divide these two; in serving humanity you are manifesting God, and you cannot love God unless you seek to serve mankind.
Be sure of the blessing, the protection, the care, and the love. They are there intact, your own, purchased in days of sorrow to be cherished by you for evermore.
© The Greater World Christian Spiritualist Association 2025
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