If you were asked the question, “How wealthy are you?” what might come to mind?
I answer this question from my own experience in an article I wrote; published in the Christian Science Sentinel, December 27, 2021.
Click here to view, “Leveling wealth with honesty.”
Excellent article. Thank you.
What a great article. It not only answers the question of true wealth but also gives insight into listening to God regarding career choices. Much thanks
-Wow Evan, I loved your article. It was very inspiring to read the details of your heartfelt journey of spiritual growth to reach that full understanding of true wealth. It was like watching a flower open and blossom. A great lesson for us to examine our own spiritual honesty in all areas of life, as God leads us step by step.
-To Lisa from Vancouver- again offering congratulations and support in your new non-profit venture, please read replies left for you on SpiritView yesterday and Wednesday of this week. All the best!
Your article expresses the beauty of life when honesty and truth are guiding principles. thank you, Evan.
Good article Evan! I like it as long as it is not self-justifying a certain position or occupation or taking a “holier than thou” stance. I am grateful you chose C.S. and enjoy the light you share here. Thank you and thank you to God for sharing it with you so you can share it with others!
Yes, this and a great article. I love how your ideas keep reminding me of things that I’ve known but have unfortunately put away in the back of my consciousness. I love how they are brought up to the “front”. Thank you so much.
Well-written, much-needed, and dearly-appreciated as a reminder of so many healings and their testimonies bringing about more healing that communicate the same truths that Evan wrote.
While bicycle camping solo across the United States, I learned ever more the truth of what Evan wrote. Especially one night when terrified by men loudly boasting how they would commit all sorts of horrible crimes against me. God told me:
“Pray.”
I knew that for me to pray effectively I needed to love, and the easiest way for me to get to love is to be grateful, and I knew I could always find something to be grateful for. I was grateful that the only night anyone had come to protect me or that there a strange stray dog come to defend me was that night and the only time in my life I have seen fire flies was earlier that evening for which I felt great gratitude. The dog was risking its life trying to protect me, standing it’s ground growling outside my tent.
But God said:
“ No! Your safety and the dog’s safety and their safety is not dependent upon the presence or the absence of a dog or a tent mate or the neighbors or the police. It is solely dependent upon the ever-presence of Me, God. Now pray for them, defend their innocence and protect their purity.”
I wholeheartedly did my best to obey God and I felt such a sense of heaven that I was totally oblivious to the intense feelings of my body or the noises of their guns and scary comments or the smells or my human imagination and fears. Sometime during my prayer the men had left. They left ample evidence of their ill intent from the bullets and trash and damage to the environment etc. but they only slightly damaged my tent and they did not harm the dog or me. They left just enough evidence to not be oppressive, but for the healing to be so impressive for me. For the first time in my life even though every day of my memory I felt God talk to me, this was the first time I felt dearly specifically concretely known. The logic of God’s rebuke continued to protect me and enrich me.
Months later I was bicycling solo In Europe with hardly any money and when it was illegal for me to take the job of a European and different earning opportunities seemed unethical to me, and several banks had either stolen or mishandled or neglected my money and refused to be accountable. God told me:
“Pray for them.”
I knew I needed to defend the bankers’ innocence and protect their purity. I knew I could be grateful for all the ways that I had had the food and shelter and safety I needed during the year of traveling alone. I had worked hard and earned money and had saved and had packed good supplies or planned smart routes and pre-arranged work for room and board. At the right place and time I could find drinking water or a place to camp. During a Montana blizzard, seeking some fruit or vegetable I could buy in the only place open, (a bar) strangers from Germany gave me their contact so I would visit them and another customer went home and brought me a sad tomato as a gift and someone offered me the free use of their hotel room empty in the snowstorm to dry out my soaked down sleeping bag. I was able to work in exchange for room and board or I could travel long hours without food or rest and still have the nutrition and energy and clear thinking that I needed. But once again, God rebuked me for settling for gratitude for such small things that seemed miraculous to me or other witnesses. God demanded more of me.
“ No! Your safety and health and wealth, and their’s, it’s not depend upon the presence or absence of the quantity of money in the bank. It is solely dependent upon the ever-presence of Me, God, and the quantity and quality of love and principle, integrity, in your life and every detail of it.”
After that deeper and higher and broader prayer for everyone, I learned that a totally unexpected amount of money was available to me that was far more than the amount that I had earned or the banks had stolen and never been accountable or apologized for. That has given me a sense of security throughout periods when others stole from me or did not pay me, when I had no housing or a job, or when I had unexpected and unfair high expenses, or when I was severely disabled or when I was caring for severely medically needy and demanding children, or when I was addressing centuries of systemic economic injustice. Those commands from God and the resulting prayers and healings and testimonies were exactly what we’re needed when I was placed as the right person in the right place at the right time to share them with people who needed them. And each incredible coincidence divinely coordinated was healing in itself for me and other witnesses, all making us in awe and humbly receptive and in building more faith and confidence in God and willingness to obey those commands.
When I was feeling exhausted and impoverished, confused and overcome by the physical and emotional pain and all the ever crazy-making crises and slander and social isolation and betrayal/rejection, the care of a high need child or more… once again God rebuked me and gave me the needed healing.
“No! Your rest and restoration is not depend upon the presence or absence of the quantity of hours of unconsciousness but the quality of moments of divine consciousness.”
For about 37 years that healing rebuke has sustained me and helped others when most nights I have 0 to 4 hours of sleep for 24 hours and if any sleep very interrupted. It has help me have the confidence in prayers and the wonderful opportunities to witness people being healed in the midst of dying or after dying. God is our life and energy and intelligence, not sleep or freedom from physical pain, and not social status and support.
So the healing truths that Evan wrote have comforted, disciplined, protected, enriched and empowered me and countless others who needed those healing’s and testimonies that intern brought more healing’s and testimonies. Each incredible situation in which they were shared made them more powerful. In the lobby of a low income apartment complex, in the waiting area outside of a tax preparer, on the streets of Portland Oregon choked with teargas and the smoke of military weapons, in a camp of people denied housing. Outside of a jail awaiting to provide love, food, clothing, and taxi money to those wrongly arrested. In a grocery store checkout line, etc. Each time I shared that expanded sense of church and service and testimony meeting, the person who first needed it had such a transformation that the witnesses were also inspired and shared additional healings and rebukes from God that helped them in their lives. Sometimes these strangers have come up to me quite some time later to say how those healing truths and the incredible situation in which they were shared have continued to bring additional healing in their lives.
What Evan wrote is true and the truth meets every human need. And when we accept the assignment to know it and show it, and share it, it continues to empower our prayers and enrich our lives and others. Thank you for the reminder, Evan!
Thank you for your sincere heartfelt comments.
Thank you Edith for sharing. I appreciate your willingness to listen to those messages from God to you and obediently follow God’s commands to you. I especially am grateful for your bicycle camping experience. You demonstrated the safety, goodness, purity and innocence of God’s allness which transferred to all involved, God’s perfect ideas.
Thank you Edith. Your comments today contain a number of profound truths (especially regarding leaning completely on God for all our good and the good of others) that will help many of us. I am always impressed that you take the time to write out long and detailed shares for our benefit. Blessings to you.
An excellent article Evan, thank you for writing it. I liked your comment: “I could see that a wealthy life is an honest life guided by a clear conscience, by the moral and spiritual fortitude to do the right thing, and by the courage to face wrong and the understanding to correct it.” Reading this makes me think of a family member who recently risked losing a high paying job by choosing not to give their vaccination status at work. The issue for this person wasn’t the vaccine, but this family member felt it is morally wrong to segregate and shun those that choose not to get the vaccine. Our true and only status is beloved children of God.
Thank you Evan so much for this reminder. Beautiful absolutely true. Thank you all for your contributions today. This subject has inspired and empowered so many. What an inspiration. “Gratitude is riches, complaint is poverty.’ I will be bringing this subject up of true wealth with a neighbor today that I take a daily walk with. Such a simple way to share science.
Thank you for the beautiful and inspiring blog today and for all of the wonderful comments and inspired sharing.
This is also part of our true wealth and I’m so grateful for it.
Thanks Evan! I read this while up in Seattle over Christmas, was going to share it with our two boys and then couldn’t remember where I had seen it. I searched all your SpiritViews, JSH Online (I guess it wasn’t posted there yet) but couldn’t find it. It has now been shared!
Thanks!
Larry