Neville Goddard and Setting a Course of Ministry
A bit of a breakthrough for me here. I have been trying for some time to compose a short and succinct success manual for the poor and homeless to learn from and to market, and kept feeling blocked in getting it published here. I knew something wasn't right about it. My auto repair man, of all people, showed me what it was.
In the manual, I was focusing on revision of imagination, as in Neville's Pruning Shears of Revision, as a means of correcting one's world. Which is cool, except no matter how much I emphasized having the right attitude, it still wound up being about getting things by "manifestation." Causation by imagination is wonderful news, but it is not enough. There was a missing ingredient.
Mike, my auto repair man, told me about his son. We are middle-class people here, so I was a bit surprised to hear that his son has been accepted to Stanford--one its top 5% of applicants. Good kid. Mike said he had recently gone to his son's graduation from high school, and his son had not told him that he was one of the Valedictorians. You can imagine Mike's surprise and pride when his son was announced to speak. His son wants to become a neurosurgeon. "You have to dream big, dad."
It all clicked for me. Oh. Manifestation is not just for getting things; it is for a course of ministry for GIVING things. God is interested in our out-flow. Yes, we acquire, but what is gained is loosely held. We get what we need to be enabled to serve. I have been enabled to write this blog. Mike repairs cars, among other things.
A quick story about Mike: My Chevy Metro started running like crap on the 91 freeway on the way home one night. I barely kept it alive to my exit where there are a number of garages, and I was praying that I could at least leave it in front of a shop overnight to be repaired in the morning, afraid I wouldn't be able to start it again. All the shops close at six PM, but the bays at the local Purrfect Auto were still open at six-thirty. They were staying late to get people's cars ready for them. Mike greeted me, told me exactly what was wrong with my car from the sound he heard as I drove up, ordered the parts and installed them in the driveway that night. I drove away in a smooth-running car, floating in a dream of shock and amazement. I had gotten there after they closed, and they were still working after I left. "People need their cars," Mike said. They do not always stay open late like that, but guess where I have gone for service ever since?
It turns out that auto repair is just one of Mike's ministries. He lives a life of ministries, not the least of which has been raising his son. Like father, like son, eh? I see now that life is for ministry: "The Father makes the rain to fall . . ." Pray to be equipped for the ministry of service. But what if you do not have any ministry? What if you are panhandling at the freeway exit or gas station or in the parking lot of the supermarket? How do you minister then?
Like I said, I am working on a short success manual the poor could learn from and then market. Founding a life of ministry will be central in that instruction. For anyone, repentance to a life of ministry should be essential to growing in spiritual maturity.
Repentance is a sailing term. A sailing ship has ropes tied to pens to hold the sails for the course the ship is on. When you radically change the ship's course, you have to retie all the ropes for the new course; i.e., you have to re-pen them. Switch to a life's course of ministering--and repent.
Let's suppose you imagined what you need AS THOUGH YOU HAVE IT, and it worked. In its working, you discovered that God is real, and present, and powerful. Not only that, you discovered that the real God is your imagination. Well, everybody else's consciousness, too--the divine imagination. That divine imagination is us, the life in these bodies! Now time for a nap. No! Got to tell people. You discovered the living God and are sent for one purpose, to preach Christ--that is, that God is IN us AS us and is becoming THROUGH us--through our imagining.
Choose a course of service. Do not ask for things just to have them, but ask to be equipped for your ministry of service. Dream big. What do you think Abdullah, Neville and Joseph Murphy were doing? They were not manifesting bullion of gold for themselves--they needed things for preaching and teaching: dinner tonight, passage on the morrow, home and family. The Law served them as they sailed their course.
Set a course. Choose a work where you contribute to others, to God in them. It is a wide spectrum--there is a LOT you can do that will help and bless others, even in commercial ventures. Take God as being real, and minister.
Added June 24th, 2015:
Service to others is one of the major premises of Napoleon Hill's study of the Law of Success. Doing things for others can be very profitable. Said Hill in Think and Grow Rich: "Capital consists not alone of money, but more particularly of highly organized, intelligent groups of men (and women) who plan ways and means of using money efficiently FOR THE GOOD OF THE PUBLIC, and profitably to themselves" (parenthesis and emphasis mine). Hill learned this from the titans of industry who did massive works of benefit to society . . . and charged a bit for it.
In the manual, I was focusing on revision of imagination, as in Neville's Pruning Shears of Revision, as a means of correcting one's world. Which is cool, except no matter how much I emphasized having the right attitude, it still wound up being about getting things by "manifestation." Causation by imagination is wonderful news, but it is not enough. There was a missing ingredient.
Mike, my auto repair man, told me about his son. We are middle-class people here, so I was a bit surprised to hear that his son has been accepted to Stanford--one its top 5% of applicants. Good kid. Mike said he had recently gone to his son's graduation from high school, and his son had not told him that he was one of the Valedictorians. You can imagine Mike's surprise and pride when his son was announced to speak. His son wants to become a neurosurgeon. "You have to dream big, dad."
It all clicked for me. Oh. Manifestation is not just for getting things; it is for a course of ministry for GIVING things. God is interested in our out-flow. Yes, we acquire, but what is gained is loosely held. We get what we need to be enabled to serve. I have been enabled to write this blog. Mike repairs cars, among other things.
A quick story about Mike: My Chevy Metro started running like crap on the 91 freeway on the way home one night. I barely kept it alive to my exit where there are a number of garages, and I was praying that I could at least leave it in front of a shop overnight to be repaired in the morning, afraid I wouldn't be able to start it again. All the shops close at six PM, but the bays at the local Purrfect Auto were still open at six-thirty. They were staying late to get people's cars ready for them. Mike greeted me, told me exactly what was wrong with my car from the sound he heard as I drove up, ordered the parts and installed them in the driveway that night. I drove away in a smooth-running car, floating in a dream of shock and amazement. I had gotten there after they closed, and they were still working after I left. "People need their cars," Mike said. They do not always stay open late like that, but guess where I have gone for service ever since?
It turns out that auto repair is just one of Mike's ministries. He lives a life of ministries, not the least of which has been raising his son. Like father, like son, eh? I see now that life is for ministry: "The Father makes the rain to fall . . ." Pray to be equipped for the ministry of service. But what if you do not have any ministry? What if you are panhandling at the freeway exit or gas station or in the parking lot of the supermarket? How do you minister then?
Like I said, I am working on a short success manual the poor could learn from and then market. Founding a life of ministry will be central in that instruction. For anyone, repentance to a life of ministry should be essential to growing in spiritual maturity.
Repentance is a sailing term. A sailing ship has ropes tied to pens to hold the sails for the course the ship is on. When you radically change the ship's course, you have to retie all the ropes for the new course; i.e., you have to re-pen them. Switch to a life's course of ministering--and repent.
Let's suppose you imagined what you need AS THOUGH YOU HAVE IT, and it worked. In its working, you discovered that God is real, and present, and powerful. Not only that, you discovered that the real God is your imagination. Well, everybody else's consciousness, too--the divine imagination. That divine imagination is us, the life in these bodies! Now time for a nap. No! Got to tell people. You discovered the living God and are sent for one purpose, to preach Christ--that is, that God is IN us AS us and is becoming THROUGH us--through our imagining.
Choose a course of service. Do not ask for things just to have them, but ask to be equipped for your ministry of service. Dream big. What do you think Abdullah, Neville and Joseph Murphy were doing? They were not manifesting bullion of gold for themselves--they needed things for preaching and teaching: dinner tonight, passage on the morrow, home and family. The Law served them as they sailed their course.
Set a course. Choose a work where you contribute to others, to God in them. It is a wide spectrum--there is a LOT you can do that will help and bless others, even in commercial ventures. Take God as being real, and minister.
Added June 24th, 2015:
Service to others is one of the major premises of Napoleon Hill's study of the Law of Success. Doing things for others can be very profitable. Said Hill in Think and Grow Rich: "Capital consists not alone of money, but more particularly of highly organized, intelligent groups of men (and women) who plan ways and means of using money efficiently FOR THE GOOD OF THE PUBLIC, and profitably to themselves" (parenthesis and emphasis mine). Hill learned this from the titans of industry who did massive works of benefit to society . . . and charged a bit for it.
posted by Daniel C. Branham-Steele at
3:48 AM
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