So what kind of desires do you have today? It’s important to know because your desires reveal much about what kind of influences are at work on your thought.
If your desires are material, sensual, physical, then you’re acting under the influence of mortal mind.
If your desires are spiritual, you’re being guided by divine Love and seeking to do God’s will.
It was a sobering question for me to consider recently. ”Are my desires material or spiritual?” I generally consider them to be quite spiritual, considering I spend the bulk of my time praying for others and helping them find spiritual solutions to problems they face. But I had a moment of brash honesty when I made a mental list of things I wanted to get done during the day outside of my practice. They weren’t all spiritual! My To-Do list of things outside of my regular work was significant and in my managerial type of thinking, I was organizing a mental itinerary for the day to get them all done that wasn’t exactly filled with Horeb-height inspiration!
“But I have to get these things done!” I protested. “I can’t just ignore them and pretend like they don’t matter.”
“But how are you going to do them?” was the next question that begged an answer.
“Are you going to hurry, rushing from one job to the next, and forget about God in the meantime? Or are you going to stay spiritually minded with each item and strive for a spiritual outcome rather than just going through the motions and checking off another item from your to-do list?”
And there was the answer to my question.
My desires were material if I was going to simply carry out human activities and “get the job done.” My desires were spiritual if I was going to use each opportunity to grow in grace, express more patience, grow in understanding of God’s good and be more Christ-like.
As we go about our daily business, if we are driven by selfish want to “get the job done,” often we sacrifice our principles along the way and act and behave less than we are capable of. Our standards drop. We’re under the influence of mortal mind. But if our goal is to be ever-more spiritually expressive, we will still get the job done, but our goal is much higher. Our desire is blessed, and leaves the places we go better off for our being there.
What’s your desire today?
Is it selfish—to “get the job done.” Or unselfish—to bless the environments, mental and physical you enter, and leave a trail of godliness behind?
The answer tells a lot about what influence you are acting under.
I love that, Evan! Thank you!
This is good!
Recently I’ve noticed I often think “when I get this done I’ll have more time to think spiritually”. But of course, tomorrow never comes. There is always another “must do” distraction to take it’s place! This is a very helpful reminder to not fill our days with endless meaningless tasks.
Thank you very much for this article which is just exactly what I need to hear this morning. Your thoughts are always so helpful.
Perfect! This is a conundrum I’ve struggled with for a long time, but the answer, now that you’ve spelled it out, is so clear!!! I will be going through my to-do list today with a whole new purpose and an understanding about how to live in the material world without being of it :). Thank you, thank you!
This is so wonderful! Just perfect for me, as I, like you, am in the healing practice; but there are so many things to do….like taxes, planting flower pots, etc. Your answer was beautiful, keep
Spirit uppermost in thought and glorify God while doing these “must do” things.
What we want to do, or should want to do, is to be who we are: the reflection of divine Mind, God. We always know when we are off-base, missing the mark, for we feel agitated, stressed, pressured, etc.
What human mind has not felt these?
The human mind tries to mimic or counterfeit the
divine Mind, and make us think we are reflecting God.
But sometimes we need to look more deeply. After all, it is effortless to reflect God, for as His idea, we can do nothing less! The sun shines, the rays are the shining!
God is All, and man is His man-ifestation!
Let us LET God do His work IN and AS us. Then we will do what is needed to be done, and do it well, and effortlessly.
What a wonderful goal, huh!
Thank you, Evan, for helping to clarify this for us.
:<))
I love this!
More than one friend in the healing practice has said that EVERYTHING they do is “the practice,” because they are practicing always conscious of expressing grace, poise, expectancy of good, unselfishness, etc., whether they’re in the grocery store, playing tennis, riding a horse, or cleaning house.
Recently I’ve noticed several online user names read: gitRdone.
Perhaps they could read: doNgrace or something like that! 🙂
And to Anonymous above my comment: I’ve always loved thinking of man as “man-ifestation.” It means, to me, that man is manifesting the infinitude of infinite God, Love. And this is why Mrs. Eddy wrote in some sentences, “man, including the universe….”
Great insights, everyone. Now, gotta go … IN grace … and do … AS grace, and just plain old BE grace! 🙂
This is my first visit to your blog. I found this message very helpful, and I look forward to reading more. Thank you for sharing this insight into how we approach the tasks of the day.