The easier way to live

Are you tired, worn out, ready to quit, void of energy and enthusiasm to continue tomorrow? If so, it’s time to unburden your mental back from the weights of the world, let the material concerns go, follow Christ, and be free!

It’s time to wear a lighter yoke!


I had a major epiphany this week when I heard the words of Jesus, “Come unto me, all ye that labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest….For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light.”


“My burden is light!” Jesus said.


Oh, I couldn’t believe how the meaning of those words had eluded me for so many years. When I heard them this time, my thought flooded with their meaning like never before. I felt I knew exactly what Jesus was talking about.


I thought about the depressing and painful yokes of the world I had cast off over the decades and replaced with the yoke of Christ. Oh, what freedom, what freedom comes when you serve Christ rather than mammon!


For example, I thought back to life on the farm. Farming is a good life, but there were certain aspects of it that I dreaded. For instance, frost control.

We’d work all day, eat dinner late, go to bed for some hard earned rest, then be awakened by the frost alarm around 2 a.m. Out to the orchards we went to protect our crops. And there was no more rest until the next evening. And this could go on for two or three weeks in the spring. Then there was constant monitoring of the crops for weed control, analysis of the health of the plants, watering needs, fertilizer, workers to help, and the list goes on and on.

I put my Christian Science into practice everyday, and saw wonderful results. But eventually, I asked, “Why not forsake tilling the ground for supply entirely and harvest in the fields of Mind where there is no threat of frost, weeds or disease? Wouldn’t life be much easier?”


This was a sobering question to ponder. Was it doable? Was it possible?


The answer was a resounding YES! And I followed through, eventually transitioning off of the farm to practicing deeper reliance on turning to Mind for supply rather than the soil. And I’ve never lost a night of sleep to control frost ever since! My “yoke” got much easier.


And I think this is what Jesus Christ meant...


A yoke was a harness farmers locked on their oxen to control their movements as they plowed their fields. The yokes were unyielding. Oxen in a yoke were governed and directed by the master controlling that yoke.


Jesus “yoke,” or work, was very very light because he did not look to a material source for supply. He went directly to God, the beneficent giver of all good, help and healing.


People’s “yokes” are heavy when they look to a material source for their supply. Why? Because there is nothing reliable about material circumstances and conditions. They are fraught with flaws and uncertainty.


For instance, take the stock market, interest rates, the credit market, diet plans, medical theories, and more,...they all fluctuate and change. You can’t count on them. To trust them and look to them for well being is to place their “yoke” upon your shoulders and be driven by their ups and downs. It’s a heavy and difficult load to bear at times.


Jesus was telling us to quit serving mammon, to stop living for worldly goals and purposes. Cast that yoke of bondage off, and seek our good in God, he taught. Jesus’ yoke was to learn about God, live true to God, and rely upon God. This “yoke” is a very easy one to serve compared to the harness of material desires and wants that bind us to the limited beliefs of matter-earth existence and hold us back from reaching our spiritual potential.


“My burden is light!” Jesus exclaimed.


Wow. Do you get it! When you live to serve Christ, not mammon, life on earth gets much easier. It’s not a toil or drudgery anymore. It gets lighter, happier, and easier. The heaviness of materialism fades away. The pains and fears of sense diminish. Joy comes back into your step and smiles on your face. Life is enjoyable.


The metaphysical demands on the student of Christ grow and increase, but these tasks are a joy to fulfill and follow through with compared to tilling the soil of mortal mind. Growth in spiritual understanding is the most rewarding work one could ever engage. And it pays the bills when done selflessly and for the purpose of loving one’s neighbor as the Bible instructs.


“My burden is light!” I love it. "When working for God, my workload is light," I use as a paraphrase.


Serving God is a joy. Serving mammon is a burden. Choose the easier way and lighten your load today.

Days on vs. days off

Do you look forward to a day off? A lot of workers do.

A couple of weeks ago, after listening to a professional talk about his heavy work schedule and how he looked forward to days off when he could lounge about and do nothing, a new view of time off from work struck my point of view.

I thought, “Instead of looking forward to days off, why not look forward to days on!”

I mean really! The concept of “days off,” is not very inspiring. It works out from a negative premise, implying that a large part of one’s life is spent doing things one would rather not do and needs to get away from.

If that is the case, then some major change in priorities needs to take place. Life is designed to be a joy to live. Yes, difficult and challenging periods occur, but overall, we should be enjoying our entire life, at work, at home, and everywhere else.

But, aside from that…why not look forward to “days on” instead of “days off?”

And by “days on” I’m talking about days that are filled with progressive spiritual exploration, adventure and inspiration.

A “day on” is not one of emptiness, idleness and frivolity, but space where worldly worries and fears are put aside and time and effort is dedicated to growing spiritually and living that spirituality. It’s a day with God.

Everyday should be a day with God. Everyday should be a “day on!”

If you can’t see that far yet, though, and still look forward to Friday evening, I’d encourage you to at least see the weekend in terms of days on with God rather than days off from work.

The rest of the week might become more enjoyable too!

Smiles…

What's in your In Box?

A worker complained of too much to do and not enough time to do it in. Her In Box was overflowing, she fretted. And it was growing, not shrinking!

Have you ever felt that way? Overwhelmed by too much to do?

In a moment of inspiration, I typed back, “God is the In Box and you are the Out Box. Your In Box is overflowing all right, but not with too much to do. It’s overflowing with opportunities to express the wisdom and intelligence of divine Mind that enable you to perform your tasks efficiently and timely.”

Back in the early 1990s, I worked at the world headquarters of my church for one year. The position I was asked to fill replaced around 10-15 workers who had been laid off. The In Box on the desk I was assigned was heaping high in letters, memos and notes that needed thoughtful replies, responses and projects completed. It’s was week’s worth of work piled up, and I, one person, was supposed to get it all caught up, quickly. My little human mind could not get its arms around how this was going to happen with even more work coming in. So, I didn’t try to figure it out humanly.

I prayed, and thought, “God does the work. I reflect what God is doing. God can do this, so I will manifest the work getting done.” I didn’t create a work schedule to follow. I just jumped in and whittled the pile down one letter at a time listening for divine direction each word of the way.

God was my In Box. God was my influx of inspiration needed to do the responding. I was the Out Box. I was God’s outflow of wisdom, ingenuity, creativity, and love that got the work done.

It took a while to get to the bottom of that pile, but I got caught up and easily stayed ahead of the pace from then on.

God is your In Box too, and it’s filled with the wisdom, joy and love you need to do your work well.

With this attitude, one can look forward to seeing what is in their In Box each day!

Finding work you love

I have a new blog post on tmcyouth.com, titled, "Finding work you love."

So if you're looking for a job you'd love to do, or would like to be happier in the job you have, check it out!

Cheers

Who do you work for?

A Small Place

“Father, where shall I work today?”
And my love flowed warm and free.
Then He pointed me out a tiny spot,
And said, “Tend that for me.”
I answered quickly, “Oh, no, not that.
Why, no one would ever see,
No matter how well my work was done.
Not that little place for me!”
And the word He spoke, it was not stern,
He answered me tenderly,
“Ah, little one, search that heart of thine;
Art thou working for them or me?
Nazareth was a little place,
And so was Galilee.”

~ Author unknown

No more time

“Time is not a spatial distance one must traverse,” I said to one inquirer who was stressed out about not having enough time to do things. “Time is a state of mortal mind that dissolves with an understanding of eternal Life.”

To illustrate:

Have you ever had a boring job?

How fast did time pass while you were on the clock? I’d guess about as fast as a creeping glacier, from my past experience with monotonous tasks.

Now, to the contrary, have you ever had a job you really liked?

How fast did time pass then? You probably forgot about time for the joy of being happily occupied.

What was the difference between the boring job and the interesting work in terms of passing time? It wasn’t the number of minutes counted, but the state of mind during those ticks that made time feel like an onerous burden in one case, and non-existent in the other.

One of the lessons we gain from this illustration is a glimpse that time is not space in life, but a limited constricted view of life.

The more material our concept of life, the more a burden time appears to be. The more our understanding of life is spiritually inspired, the less time is a factor.

The life God created for us is eternal, without beginnings and ends, but involves one continuous flow of joy and love.

Life is more than 8 hours of sleep, 3 meals a day, commutes to work, and bills to pay. Life is more than blood rushing through the body, a body rushing through a day, and a person rushing through a schedule. Life is spiritual. It is love, peace, harmony, compassion, generosity in action. These are qualities of Spirit, and they are eternal. To express them is not a strain or stress, it’s a joy. The more our daily commitments are filled with activities of the Spirit, the more timeless our work feels.

"Life is without beginning and without end. Eternity, not time, expresses the thought of Life, and time is no part of eternity."

~ Mary Baker Eddy

Time disappears in eternity. The more our thinking is spiritually occupied, the closer to eternity we feel. We are governed by God rather than by a clock.

Life is not X number of hours passed, but God’s qualities of love expressed.

"Love vanquishes time. To lovers, a moment can be eternity. Eternity can be the tick of a clock."

~ Mary Parrish

Living by the clock is like owning a huge mansion, but residing in one small dark room in the corner of the building, and never leaving that spot. Our whole world becomes that itsy-bitsy space, to the exclusion of all the adventures we could have in the other rooms if we were to venture out and explore.

Don’t get mentally stuck in the prison cell of time. You have an eternal Life to live and discover. It’s in Spirit, and is expressed in Love.

The more we think true to our spiritual life, the less time is considered, and becomes as nothing, even to the point of realization that John saw in his heavenly revelation from God that “there should be time no longer.”

Come out of the circle of time.
And into the circle of love.

~ Rumi

Have a spiritual day today. It’s the stress-free way.

Faithful work

‘Father, where shall I work today?’
And my love flowed warm and free.
Then he pointed out a tiny spot
And said, ‘Tend that for me.’
I answered quickly, ‘Oh no, not that!
Why, no one would ever see,
No matter how well my work was done.
Not that little place for me.’

And the word he spoke, it was not stern;
He answered me tenderly:
‘Ah, little one, search that heart of thine;
Art thou working for them or for me?
Nazareth was a little place,
And so was Galilee.'

~ Meade MacGuire

No job too big

“Is the job too big, or your thinking too small?” a friend asked herself out loud to me recently when figuring out how to tackle a major project at her office.

It’s a good question.

Have you ever felt overwhelmed by work demands? Wondered how to get everything done before a dreaded deadline arrived?

August 2001 was a month when I was tempted to throw up my hands and declare I had more to do than I could handle.

With an unusual turn of events I suddenly faced a Mt. Everest sized proportion of critical decisions and activities that had to be finished within a three week period.

At the end of July 2001 I had been asked to work in Boston at my church’s world headquarters. I needed to sell our house in Washington State, buy a house in Boston (3000 miles away), move my family and report to work ASAP. I had a two week class to teach in the meantime. Unfortunately, my mom passed on in early August, and being the executor of her estate, I suddenly had the responsibility of speaking at her funeral, managing her possessions, selling her house, and buying another smaller house for her husband. On top of that I had to carry on my own full-time job which was very demanding. I was overwhelmed with things to do. I felt like I needed three of me to get it all done.

“With God, all things are possible,” I reminded myself daily.

Was the job too big or my thinking too small?

I prayed to get a limited personal sense of things out of the way.

From a human perspective, the work demands were daunting, to say the least. From a spiritual perspective, the work was done. God had the details already figured out.

Just like the principle of mathematics has solved every possible math problem we could ever face, the divine Principle of the universe, God, has already solved every human problem we ever face. My prayer was to yield to the divine plan and let it happen through me. The job was not too big for God.

In my prayers, I knew it was the one Mind that was going to coordinate the move of my family, sell and buy four houses, teach my class and heal my patients. The one Mind fully comprehends and knows all things. There is no lack of knowledge, no lack of understanding, fear or worry in the one Mind, I accepted. The one Mind was my Mind, and I could trust the guiding hand of the divine influence to coordinate all the activities before me in the best possible way for the most appropriate, timely, and efficient outcome.

I clung like adhesive bond to these truths, and events evolved in almost miraculous ways as every task was accomplished on schedule and to everyone’s satisfaction. All loose ends were tied up quickly, jobs finished and my family in Boston by the end of August. I took a deep breath of relief when finally reporting to my new job the first day, and very grateful to God.

What we cannot do, God can do.

If God can keep the planets in their orbits, and the seasons in their places, He can keep our workload under control and in order. Our prayer is to let it happen through us.

Is there any job too big for God? Not really. As we let God take over our thinking, He’ll figure out a way to get the work done.

Why work?

”The highest reward for a person’s toil is not what they get from it, but what they become by it.”

~John Ruskin

You are already approved

Have you ever grown frustrated waiting for someone else’s approval before you could proceed with a project or idea?

Maybe you’re waiting on a boss to give the go-ahead on a proposal? Perhaps a spouse is taking forever to decide on a course of action? Or you’re waiting for someone unknown to snuggle up to your side and simply approve of who you are as a person?

While working as a department manager in a large administration for two years I had to learn great patience while my superiors decided whether to let me proceed with new proposals. This was a growing experience for me because I had been self-employed most of my working life, and successfully so. I was not accustomed to waiting for other people’s approvals before acting. After what seemed an interminably long waiting period on one project, I asked God for a new perspective that would keep me calm.

“I wanted approval for the project so I could proceed,” I agitated.

In a flash of divine inspiration, I was told that maybe I would never get approval for the project, but nonetheless, I did have approval to be content, happy and joyful anyway.

Aw…a spiritual perspective that took away my temporal fears.

The most important approval is not yeas or nays we receive from bosses, other people, or mates. It’s the divine permission we already have to live a joyful life regardless of whether or not our human ideas are accepted.

Our happiness and success as a living being is not conditional upon other people. It’s predetermined by God, and it’s scheduled to be good, fulfilling, and eternally enlightening.

We all have times of waiting for other’s to agree or disagree with our suggestions and ideas, but life does not have to go into a holding pattern in the meantime. Our most important activity is spiritual reflection. And we already have approval to do that!

So, what are you waiting for?

“Study to shew thyself approved unto God, a workman that needeth not to be ashamed…” II Timothy

Feeling pressured?

Do you have too many jobs to do? Uncompleted projects piling up? Not enough hours in the day? People demanding your attention?

How does one cope with too much to do?

One way is to love more. There's always time to love.

Love calms thought. Love eases the tension. Love reveals answers. Love points the way. Love lightens the load. Love helps out. Love uplifts, inspires and comforts. Love is a healing presence that resolves conflict, solves problems and makes life more enjoyable.

It’s not time-consuming to love. In fact, love doesn’t require time at all. Love makes its own time by revealing more efficient possibilities and healing troubles that are major time-consumers, like worry, anxiety, and despair.

Love is about being patient, kind, caring, thoughtful and forgiving. Love doesn’t fritter time away fretting and fuming. Love doesn’t worry, agonize or torture. Love is easy, ready, abundant and generous. Love is not a hard thing to do.

Love never gets mad (a huge time waster). Love doesn’t get angry, upset or jealous. Love is positive, upbeat, hopeful, pleasant and expectant. Love is not a heavy weight, but a morale booster. Love is quick to favor, happy to help and a joy to have around. Love calms and comforts.

Don’t waste time complaining you don’t have enough time. Use your time better. Love more!

There’s no pressure in expressing love to others, but there’s a huge amount of peace, harmony and goodwill to be gained.

Love more. It's the path to no pressure living.