Listen/Download Audio of Avoiding Tomorrow’s Jolts
Remember that most of us are doing today what we yesterday dreamed we should be doing. The average person devotes some time each day to dreaming of what he will be doing tomorrow. Time spent in this way is important, because it can be either very helpful or very harmful.
When we are dreaming in this way we are making a mental blueprint of our future activities, and we should therefore try to make sure that this blueprint contains what is really good for us and will make us happy. We can use our imagination to make constructive plans for our future happiness and peace of mind, and time thus spent will be well worth while. But if we use our imagination to conjure up difficulties and failures, we shall be blueprinting an unpleasant future for ourselves.
For example, suppose I have secured a job and I am to begin work in a few days. It is not exactly the kind of work I should like to do, but it is the only work that I could secure just at this time. I am therefore planning to endure it temporarily until I can find something that suits me better. As I think about my new job I begin to feel resistant toward it. This is a wrong start, because my work begins when I begin thinking about it, and when my thoughts are resistant the work will be hard.
If today I think of myself as being unhappy and dissatisfied with my new job tomorrow I am making a blueprint for failure and unhappiness. Furthermore I am loading my soul with an unnecessary burden today.
Let me be wise and look forward to finding happiness and success in my job. Then I shall be happy today and tomorrow also. Because today is the only day that I shall ever know, I must be happy today, for when tomorrow comes it will be just another today.
How can I be happy today? Simply by mentally putting all my affairs in God’s hands, knowing that He will help me work things out satisfactorily and in divine order. I can have happiness and success to the extent that I am able to accept them. I cannot accept happiness when I am expecting unhappiness. If I plan to have a good attitude toward my new job, anticipating the joy of meeting new and interesting persons and learning new ways, I cannot help finding much that is pleasant and worth while in it.
If I take joy, good will, and courage with me I am bound to succeed and be master of my affairs. I shall then succeed in my new work, but I shall do more; for with no borrowed burdens of worry about the future to mar my present state of mind, I shall keep my soul sweet and happy today. I shall look forward with pleasure to my new work as an opportunity to learn, grow, and radiate good will and so fill my being with satisfaction and spiritual power.
If you dread some coming event, stop harboring negative thoughts about it for negative thoughts are saboteurs of your future and present happiness. Replace these thoughts with protecting, success-building thoughts. Begin to bless the coming event fearlessly and lovingly in Christ’s name, and you will find that you cannot dread the thing that you are blessing.
Good thoughts are powerful, and they will help you to become fearless and victorious over outer conditions. When you dread something in the future and permit yourself to feel unhappy about it, you join forces with the enemy and thus limit your spiritual power, and when you do this you fail to meet your problems confidently and victoriously. When you realize that God is helping you, and you keep your mind open and responsive to do His will, many new ideas will come to you to encourage you and help you succeed.
When you are afraid that something is going to be too difficult for you, the task is made harder than it need be. When you are afraid, you use only half your wits. When you are courageous—and you can be courageous if you take God with you—you will have all your wits plus divine wisdom to help you. When you know that you are right and you have dedicated yourself to righteousness, you can go forward fearlessly and joyously to do all things in Christ’s name.
The hardest part of any task is overcoming our own resistance to it before we begin work on it. Thoughts of resistance are a burden to us. How can we be rid of this burden? By casting it on the Lord and accepting His good way. His promise is: “My yoke is easy, and my burden is light.”
We should learn how to “agree with” the task that seems to be our adversary. If tomorrow’s task seems to be an “adversary,” we should try to cultivate a friendly feeling toward it. We can do this by blessing it. If there seems to be no good in it, then we should try to find some way to put something good into it even though it be only our good will. We can place it in the hands of God and thus drop the mental burden of resistance that we have been carrying. A good attitude to take is this: “I go forth to meet good instead of adversity. When I have God with me He shows me a good and joyous way to succeed that I cannot find without His help.” When thinking of work to be done in the future do not limit your possibilities of success in it to some certain procedure that you now have in mind but make your plans in accordance with Truth principles. Do not limit yourself with the idea that there is only one way to accomplish your purpose. If there is something to be done tomorrow do not imagine yourself as being able to do it in only the one way you have in mind.
It is all right for you to plan a way that you consider good, but you should at the same time be ready to accept a better way if it should present itself. It is good to work out a plan or perhaps several different plans, if they are unselfish ones. But you must not be disappointed if a particular plan does not work as you had expected. A better plan may come to you later. Be ready to accept it.
Do not be disappointed that your original plan did not prove workable. Be glad that a better one came to you. Be open-minded toward the Spirit of truth. Stand firm upon principle and let details change as they will while you let God’s wisdom and love bring all things under divine law, where they will all work together for good.
You can prove that all things do work together for good to them that love the Lord by fulfilling your part of the contract. You will not fail and you will not need to be afraid when you take this thought with you: “I can do all things in him [Christ] that strengtheneth me.”
SUGGESTIONS FOR DAILY MEDITATION
SUNDAY: Because I keep my thoughts in tune with God’s law I am happy, prosperous, and healthy.
MONDAY: Because my soul is free in Christ no trouble borrowed from the future can possibly depress it today.
TUESDAY: I am happy and successful today. I will not put off enjoying my good until tomorrow, because I know that today is eternal.
WEDNESDAY: I find joy and success wherever I go because I always take the joy and wisdom of God with me.
THURSDAY: Christ is knocking at the door of my consciousness. I gladly open the door and invite Him in to sup with me on God’s vital words.
FRIDAY: I do not resist the future. I bless it, and I know that when it becomes today God will be here to help me enjoy it.
SATURDAY: God’s way is always good and pleasant. I will therefore walk in His good way always, and I will fear no evil.
