1-25-02, Sunday Journal
YOU ARE NOT RESPONSIBLE
By Dalton Roberts
IPS Features
My friend Virginia Guffin
was a Christian Science practitioner and a fine writer. In one of her writings
she said, "Sometimes people with hearts full of love feel so responsible
for a child or a spouse or a parent or a friend that the burden becomes almost
more than they can bear."
She went on to tell how
deeply distressed she became over a family member. She was obsessed with her
welfare and felt totally responsible. A friend in her personal spiritual support
group – and we all have our own – told her she was confusing love with
worry. She told her only God is responsible for our loved ones and the sin of
worry can never contribute to a good outcome.
In this or a million
other areas of life where we inject the negative energy of our worry, we are
reducing the chances of positive outcomes. Worry is a manifestation of fear and
all fear is the opposite of faith. Faith is the steadfast attitude that a
challenge can be met and manifests in specific actions, not in stewing, fretful
reactions.
Never describe your worry
as love. Un-see that connection and re-see love as creative action of some kind
designed to improve the situation. Clearly see it is an impediment to a solution
that can be erased from the blackboard of your mind and erase it. Right where
you erase it, replace it with even a single step you are taking in faith.
Faith is not the making
of ignorant assumptions. It is the careful crafting of the highest possible
ideals to which we can clearly commit ourselves.
SHAKE YOUR WAY
When I was
teaching, I explained that the amoeba had no spine and travels by extending it's
protoplasm in the form of tentacles. Then it merely shakes its body protoplasm
in the direction of the tentacles.
On a test I asked how the
amoeba moves, and one student wrote, "He just shakes the way he wants to
go." I gave him credit for his answer.We're are like the amoeba. We never
get anywhere until we shake the way we want to go. We can sit still and shiver
and quiver and never move one inch in the direction of our dreams. We extend
tentacles of faith, ever reaching toward our goals. As the tentacles find firm
ground to move upon, they pull the full thrust of our being in the right
direction.
Just because we shake
does not mean we have no faith. Every faith that has ever resulted in a
magnificent outcome, whether it was the Pyramids or a better gall bladder
operation, started on shaky legs – extending a finger of faith to probe for
possibilities. Each successful probe of a faith finger motivates the whole being
to move forward.
Like an amoeba, we can really get something going when we shake the way we want to go.
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