Why am I discouraged?
Why is my heart so sad?
I will put my hope in God!
I will praise him again—
my Savior and my God!
~ Psalms 42:14, NLT
We get discouraged when we set material goals and fail to realize them.
A sure cure for discouragement is to set spiritual goals. Strive for an outcome you know you can realize.
If competing in an athletic competition, focus on being the very best player you are capable of being. All the wisdom, intelligence, understanding, and competence you need to perform well comes directly to you from God. No one else can keep you from being the best God has created you to be. It’s a goal you can reach.
If striving to stay healthy, focus on spiritual mindedness. Health is a state of Mind manifest through us. It comes directly to us from God. The body does not stop us from being spiritually minded. Disease cannot resist the good effect of spiritual mindedness and prevent it from having a healthy effect on us.
Set spiritual goals to guarantee success.
Material goals often crash and burn.
Seeking spiritual mindedness and closeness to God is a winning strategy for life.
Thanks Evan this is just what I needed today
Here’s a quote from Science and Health that I often think of:
“The objects we pursue and the spirit we manifest reveal our standpoint, and show what we are winning.” [p. 239: 20-22]
This is just what I needed today Evan … thank you!
For many people, a problem becomes their goal, They can focus on it to such an extent they forget the real goal, and the problem and its entourage becomes their life, – they don’t want to it go, for they feel the comfort of continuity, albeit at a level they don’t truly want. Jesus said “Repent ye, for the kingdom of God is at hand” and “.behold, the kingdom of heaven is within you.” This is our true goal, the spiritual recognition of what we are.
If you are travelling and get lost, and ask a local person “Where am I? ” they often reply “Where do you want to go?” (What is your goal?) And when told, the further response is “Well, I wouldn’t start from here!” When we set our spiritual goal, we do not start from matter. The spiritual “Thou are My beloved Son in whom I am well pleased” sets the goal and is a present fact. We are already there.
THANK YOU !!! Reminds me of the Bible citation regarding God bestowing blessings impartially. I am so grateful for that fact.
Thank you ,Evan and thank,you,Ken, for such strong and. helpful messages
How can this help when we are searching for employment for a long time and face only discouragement.Please guide me with any thoughts,ideas and suggestions .
Hi Michelle, trust fully on God; “he gives us his spiritual ideas and in turn they give us what we daily need” that also relates to a good job, we want.
In that sense Mrs. Eddy writes, I think it was in Miscellanious Writings.
When I was out of work for a longer time, I went to our reading room, helping there, being in God`s business. Because God is our only Boss, our only employer. And he leads you to the work which is best for you. Pray and trust your divine Boss! Lots of love to you! 🙂
Thank you very much Evan for today`s SV! “Seeking spiritual mindedness and closeness to God…” The most wonderful goal in life. That leads us to health and happyness, yes and to a job, where God needs us.
I love “ divine boss “ Never heard it. Before!
Thank you. IUta. I will start to use it in my inner
Conversation.
Dear Michelle,
This hymn opened randomly this morning and I hope you find it helpful: (189)
“Mine eyes look toward the mountains, Help cometh from on high;
From God who never slumbers, Whose care is ever nigh.
My foot shall not be moved, My keeper is the Lord,
He never shall forsake me; I trust me to His Word.
God keepeth me from falling, Fulfilleth ALL MY NEED;
His love doth e’er uphold me In faithful word and deed.
He keepeth me from evil, My onward way doth trace
My going and my coming He crowneth with His grace.”
Trust in God that just the right employment is waiting for you or is
becoming ready for you. Step by step, spiritual guidance is always
with you. Material seeming lack is not the Truth. “Divine Love
always has met and always will meet Every human need”.
Wow dear Angel, thank you very much for this comforting and healing hymn. I love it and it’s very helpful and needed to me, too!♡
Dear Michelle, thank you for reaching out and asking for suggestions and spiritual thoughts about your employment situation. The thought that came to me for you is that nothing can keep from you what is yours by divine right.
There is an article called ‘Place’ that was presumably written by Adam H. Dickey, a close aid to Mrs. Eddy which discusses the very thing you are grappling with. Try this link I found on the website Healing Unlimited-Christian Science Healing Resources:
http://christianscience.org/index.php/unpublished-items/476-place
Many blessings and hope you keep coming back and participating here on SpiritView.
When I was looking for my first job a C.S. Teacher quoted to me Mrs. Eddy’s words: “Be active, and however slow, they success is sure: toil is triumph; and – thou hast been faithful over a few things.” I found a job which led to an even better job I had for 20 years.
I have done the course work at NYU for career assessment and do career assessments locally through our town’s continuing education. Here’s some activities that could help in employment search. It’s an overview which is rather long but may inspire some ideas you even like better. If an individual searches online list of personal strengths, or list of skills for careers, list of values for careers, and career fields, they’ll find lists and assessments to take to make a list of your top 7-10 in each category and then prioritize them in what’s most important. Of course, praying Thy will be done not my will is a powerful prayer attracting to the right work while doing these.
* make a list of your strengths – a strength is something you are good at and enjoy using. Strengths can be things like: organizing, communicating, dealing with details, meeting new people, grace under pressure, expressing compassion, coming up with ideas, analyzing – you can ask friends and family members you trust what they see as your strengths. Sometimes a strength comes so easily to you that you don’t realize you’re good at something which others find challenging. A strength is one of our gifts from God. You can also take Clifton Strengths Assessment from Gallup for about $20 – it’s an online assessment. Knowing your strengths and skills you like using are helpful in job interviews.
Then look at your top strengths and see if they suggest the kind of work they would be especially helpful in. You can show the list to trusted people and see if they notice a pattern or what kind of job can use those strengths.
* make a list of values you appreciate in a work life – I use card sorts of values from a Career assessment company for these where folks pick top 10 values out of about 30-40 values written on cards. But there are online career values lists. Values in a job can include a job that enables me to: help people, learn a lot on the job, have work-life balance, travel in my work, financial security, stability, work with others, work alone, be creative, has variety etc. You can find lists of career values online – write down ones you like and add to ones you thought of. Put them in order of importance to you.
* make a list of skills you like using – there are lists online to help with this. But skills include: creating, persuading, researching, communicating, writing, selling, organizing,teaching, presenting, Think of former jobs and what you liked doing most and why. Your top 3-5 skills, values, strengths that you like are good to focus on. Skills and strengths are similar.
* make a list of fields of interest you like – tech, fashion, hospitality, education, animal care, working with children, seniors, nature, business, entertainment, engineering, finance, etc. are examples. What courses did you enjoy most in high school and college might suggest fields of interest. If you were to return to univeristy now, what would you like to take courses in? What fields are they aligned to? Put in order of which you’d like to explore. You’re going to start to notice patterns in how your strengths, skills, values could match up to the fields of interest which interest you. But, of course, always good to ask God to guide us in how to use these – put them on the altar. Asking God where do you need me is unselfed love and is powerful. Then you look at your top 3 fields of interest and see what companies are in that field either near you or somewhere you’d be willing to commute or move to. Choose one field of interest to explore, research the companies and look at what job openings they have available. What skills do they need? You can look at Indeed for companies and jobs in the area. Then explore next field of interest. Is there a position you could apply to or talk to their H.R. manager about?
* Take courses through Coursera for free or discounted amount – a friend’s daughter was an occupational therapist visiting clients in home and chose that field because her parents were in health field. We did the assessments and it turned out she loved working with data and a value very important to her was learning. She said she wanted to know everything about everything and had been a statistics professor’s assistant at University. I saw Google and Coursera offered free, or for a small amount of money, courses in data science and she took several online. She now has a career in market research for a company and can work from home most days. She loves it. Look at Coursera which has courses offered by top universities you can take from home to put on your resume in something you find interesting that might be helpful in work. They have certificates if you pay for and finish a course. I think you can audit most of them. Companies usually value Coursera courses and certificates from them. You have to pay and do the course work for a certificate.
* Get a job, even if it’s a small job, with a company you like – if you’re honest, hard-working, motivated, cheerful, positive, kind you often get promoted. I loved a local restaurant and got a job there on weekends and evenings as a hostess to earn money for my classes at NYU in Career Assessment – because they saw my honesty and enthusiasm they asked if I wanted to be part-time business manager.
* Volunteer – you can learn skills, get updated references and meet people. I volunteered at my sons’ high school as hospitality head in charge of back-to school lunches for staff, open houses, Teacher Appreciation Day. The school asked me to apply to be Student Activities Director – a paying job and a vendor wanted to hire me. There are smaller volunteer opportunities that can lead to developing skills, confidence, references and contacts.
* Self-education – Toastmasters speaking club is not expensive. One can learn how to communicate better and give presentations. A friend said their research company had an in-house Toastmasters club and you could always tell in meetings who attended Toastmasters and who didn’t as the Toastmaster folks always spoke better, ran meetings better and gave better presentations.
One successful CEO said create a lot of activity and clean it up later. Or as Mrs. Eddy encourages: be active and however slow thy success is sure. And a goal is to express spiritual mindedness – humility in asking God where do you need me – throughout the process.
Thank you for both the metaphysical AND practical ideas—wonderful gift for those feeling discouraged.
I’ve found it helpful to realize that we align with God…God doesn’t align with us. Having humility and giving up willfulness puts us in alignment with God and thought that is open to God’s plan, not ours, or how we feel things should play out. My experience has been that when I get myself out of the way, unfoldment has come in ways that I never could have outlined or imagined; it’s always good and has blessed others, not just me.
Sometimes the mirror is so tick, difficult to break ,we can’t see behind the eternal perfection and harmony of our being. Eddy calls it By different names: “ magnetism , also hypnotism.
Thank Evan to remind us to cultivate our spiritual forteresse.
This is my prayer, from a poem titled TO THE BIG CHILDREN by Mrs. Eddy, when I am cherishing a desired goal;
Father-Mother good, lovingly
Thee I seek, —
Patient, meek,
In the way Thou hast, —
Be it slow or fast,
Up to Thee.
(Miscellaneous Writings 1883–1896, Mary Baker Eddy, p. 400:19–25)
So wonderful – these uplifting thoughts this morning! Gratitude to all.
The first thing that came to mind when I read today’s encouragement of Truth, was,
from Mrs. Eddy’s S&H pg 322, under Science of Being,
“The sharp experiences of belief in the supposititious life of matter, as well as our
disappointments and ceaseless woes, turn us like tired children to the arms of
divine Love”. What a comforting place to be.. in the arms of divine Love.
being too used to a situation, can hold one back, from realizing what spiritually is unfolding , one can be resisting…magnetism, hypnotism…being unaware of wearing a mask called mortality, and to truly take it off… how ‘hidden’ WONDERS can seem.
Let Truth Shine thru…God has endless surprises…
Thank you for such Inspiration, SV-ers
This is brilliant to apply to spirituality. It is making the process the goal rather than the achievement. I was fascinated by this story: A woman once wanted to find a compatible husband. So she made a goal of meeting 100 men for coffee and just getting to know them and see what she liked companioning with. Every meeting was a success because her goal was learning about what she liked to companion with, instead of being a failure to find a husband. She did find someone after she wanted to go out with more than once after (and later married) about 90 meetings with others. So spiritual goals that focus on process might be something like pick a spiritual quality and find ways to express it that day, read 10 pages of Science and Health, find an inspiring spiritual fact in articles in the periodicals or in the lessons and apply it all day. I realized somewhat recently I needed to practice patience more. So am standing in hotel check-in and some guy is taking forever to discuss his large bill with the clerk. I thought why doesn’t the clerk move him to the side and let the other clerk deal with the line? Then I thought this is a great time to practice patience. So I started being grateful for everything good and beautiful in the hotel. When I got to the clerk she said, “Thank you for your patience.” I almost laughed and told her I’ve been trying to practice patience more so thanks for noticing! She upgraded our room reservation I realized later and gave us a great room. Patience had its perfect work. But love this idea of focusing on spiritual mindedness as a goal. My brother mentioned SMART goals to me: specific, measurable, achievable, relevant and time bound.
So a goal of expressing patience or Principle or Love today or this week would fit that. Thanks for this idea on goals.
Thanks Lindajane for your excellent comment. If we made all our goals spiritual ones I think we would see whatever material things that are right and necessary flow naturally into our lives.
Evan I know we all missed you yesterday and are grateful to have your wisdom to inspire us today.
I often look on Bible Gateway to read all the translations of certain verses, sometimes there’ll be one that jumps out and hits the spot. Here’s a link to the page that has the various translations of the wonderful verse in Psalms that Evan shared (it is actually Psalms 42:11).
https://www.biblegateway.com/verse/en/Psalm%2042:11
Here are 2 that I enjoyed:
–Why are you down in the dumps, dear soul? Why are you crying the blues? Fix my eyes on God— soon I’ll be praising again. He puts a smile on my face. He’s my God. (The Message).
–But, O my soul, don’t be discouraged. Don’t be upset. Expect God to act! For I know that I shall again have plenty of reason to praise him for all that he will do. He is my help! He is my God! (The Living Bible).
Yes – it would be fun to come up with a list of spiritual goals. It could be infinite. LOL.
Thanks, Rose. Some creative goals could be: see one spiritual truth about everyone I meet today. Rejoice in evidence of abundance wherever I go. Find signs of love in your environment.
Rose, I would like to ditto what you have written about being grateful to have
Evan’s inspiration back again, today. These Spiritual views are definitely a
blessing in our lives. Thank you, too, Rose, for the Adam Dickey article above. Very much appreciated.
In grocery shopping today, there were so many friendly people, most with responding smiles and it made the day pleasant. One lady I was chatting with said, ” ‘they’ keep saying every thing is alright. Things are Not alright”. She was referring to the
ever increasing prices of the groceries, some of which doubled since I was there last
month. After speaking with her, it inspired me to ponder – that yes, there are many
Seeming lies, but there is in Reality, the Truth, of God’s abundance and provisions for us, despite the seeming negativity that tries to appear so pervasive these days.
WOW! Thank you to ALL of you for your wonderful comments. All were so uplifting!
“Infinite supply and peace of Mind” by Todd Goldman:
https://sentinel.christianscience.com/shared/view/2iegz62zhaa
“Trust God more—a goal for the new year” by Joan BernardBradley:
https://sentinel.christianscience.com/shared/view/lckfreewrs
Thank you Evan for this important incentive to keep our thoughts and aims focused on Truth.
Karen,- I love Mrs. Eddy’s poem to the big children. It tempers and balances our aspirations in such a gentle and loving way. Thank you for sharing this.
Michelle, my mom tucked this in her bible many years ago – it comes from Journal of 1883 by Mary Baker Eddy.
She begins with: “Realize for yourself daily, more than once, that fields are already white with harvest; that divine Love always has met and always will meet every human need – the need of work as well as any other, and there is plenty of work for all. That yours belongs to you and to no one else, and it comes to you directly. Supply is abundant; know all the time that this is so, Never let a sense of lack of anything stay for a moment with you,”
I know this statement helped my mom many times during her lifetime and helped me get through tough times as well.
Peace.
That’s an excellent admonition from the Journal. I copied it to realize more often. Thanks Margie.
Thank you Evan and all. There is already much work for Christian Scientists. There is much to study. Michelle take up this job. Use the hours you would put into any job into the study of Christian Science. Know it is employmen,, a full time job. You will praise God for this.
My Gratitude for this healing and inspiring SpiritView Blog of Evan including all the blessing and comforting comments is overflowing! It meets also m y spiritual needs; thank you all very much indeed!♡
I’m sure this all will also help Michelle who asked for help here.
Thank you so much for all these precious comments and advice .Truly so overwhelmed to read all these lovely responses.Love every one of it..reading each post to imbibe the advice and truth in each message .Thank you so very much .Truly appreciate every response.
To the comment about the practitioner, looking out the window while the patient explained the problem, reminds me of the story in the book “Christian science in Germany “by Francis Thurber, Seal when a woman brought her blind mother and Francis had just finished reading “miscellaneous Writings . “and Francis and was so inspired , she just kept looking out the window did not even hear what the patient was saying but when they left and got on the bus, The Mother was seeing.