Chapter 30
Your Living Service
1. There are no square pegs in round holes. You are where you are because there is a need to be supplied, perhaps in the way of lessons in the positive development of the faculties that will enable you to get out of the present place into a more desirable one. If it seems to you that you are a square peg in a round hole, make yourself fit into the hole you are in, or else get into another one. Don’t stay there, rattling around and getting nowhere.
2. Your work, as you no doubt realize, is not for the purpose of supplying your own physical needs. These are supplied as gifts from the Father. Work, of whatever nature, is to render living service, in obedience to the law of giving and receiving. For you, it is for the purpose of expressing your God-given faculties and powers, to the end that you may manifest the divine ideas God has implanted, the perfect pattern of His Son.
3. Our work is our means of expressing what God is unfolding through us. And if our work does not do that, we are failures, even though we may keep money pouring in. The sooner we recognize that we are falling short, and make changes, the better. God is ever with us, taking care of our needs, while we are making adjustments. God momently provides what is needed. Our part is to recognize that we are getting what we need, and to rest in the assurance that when we are ready for something different it will come.
4. Heretofore you may have recognized and developed and made use of only a few of your talents. There may come a time when there seems to be no particular need for one of these talents, yet you feel that you should cling to this one avenue of expression and use it as a channel of service and supply. Don’t you realize that if permitted to do so you would go on indefinitely, doing the one thing and failing to make practical use of your other talents, other ways of serving? While you might continue to sell your service and even save some money you would be poor so far as well rounded expression is concerned.
5. Surely you don’t want to stay in the same rut always! Aren’t you willing to let the Spirit of God in you draw you out in different phases of expression and development? You have accustomed yourself to certain ways and acts and returns, and you don’t want to be shaken out of these habits. But it would appear that Spirit has taken a hand and is insisting that you look a little deeper into this storehouse of Mind and Substance and Love, and launch out in a different course of action and service and growth.
6. Consider, honestly and impersonally, just what there is greatest need of, where you are or elsewhere, and then ask the Father to help you to get into that line of expression and service. Give thanks that He is prospering you and providing for your needs.
7. Do not try to do too much; leave something for God to do. The Lord will bring good to pass in ways that you may least expect, when you let go and rest in the assurance that the Divine Law is working mightily. It is not necessary to “labor” for Him and “work hard” in the good cause. Just set the Law into operation through the power of the Word, and let the Law work in universal ways to bless you. It is only under the material laws set up by man in material consciousness that one has to “work hard” and live by the “sweat of his brow.”
8. So learn to relax and let go all tense, anxious, personal striving. Take life easier and let divine ideas work for you. There is nothing for you to be tense or anxious about, either in your business life or in your spiritual work. What do you think you can accomplish by being tense or anxious, or even by strenuous personal effort? It is God who does our thinking and our work—and surely He does not find it necessary to become anxious or to strain in any way to bring about that which His plans embody.
9. Tension and anxiety cause one to neglect oneself and to fail in doing that which is for one’s health. Do not tax your mind and body beyond what they can bear. It is necessary to observe and comply diligently with the laws governing the natural man, so that perfect order and harmony may be maintained in mind, soul, and body. Your poise and health are worth more to you than anything else you can possibly gain. You must give attention to these vital things if you would do a good work and have success.
10. When you give yourself to God to do His work, and then assume a lot of personal responsibility and think you have to plan and provide, can you not see that you are serving two masters? The way of the world is the way of the hireling. All the Father has is yours. You do not have to work for $30 a week or for $100 a week. The Spirit of Truth reveals to you abundant Spirit substance as the source of your prosperity. Affirm this to be true for you. Stop holding on to the old ideas.
11. Your prosperity comes through you instead of to you. And if it seems not to come, that is because you have thrown up some barrier that prevents its unfoldment through your own consciousness. Only your own changed mental attitude and living habits can cause you to work with God-Mind in bringing about the transformation.
12. Work is salesmanship. And if you find you have a line that is not in demand, or for any reason is not selling, change your line. When you wish to sell to folks, you must offer what they truly want and are willing to take and pay for. This may not always suit your personality—but then, it isn’t your personality that is to be considered first. Did you ever think of that? Then do it now! Just put yourself and your accomplishments aside. Offer what is left to humanity and be determined to give the best service that has ever been given. Something will open up, something that will prove an opportunity and a needed avenue of expression, something that will renew you and give you a new angle on life, something that will clear the way for real prosperity and congenial work.
