The Very Present Help

One moment, please! What are you worrying over at this instant?That thing which seems so important will in a short time be ancient history. It is only important because you have your eyes glued upon it and are giving it the power which belongs to God. Before long it will be nothing—no more real than the dream you had last night. In the grand scheme of things it is entirely unim­portant and meaningless.

This stance once taken in consciousness, things will be relegated to their proper place. It is only when the attention is fixed on appearancesthat the importance of what you are doing, or what has to be done, assumes such gigantic proportions as to be impossible.

This making of all things unimportant does not lessen the integritywith which you “go through the mechanics” of that which you have to do. It relieves you of the personal responsibility. As soon as Jesus saw how unimportant the manifestation was, and how all important the POWER of the PRESENCE is, he immediately performed that which was utterly impossible to him otherwise.

The more you contemplate the importance of what you are about to undertake, the more you detract from the beautiful flow of inspira­tion which is to bring the desired results. The moment you get out of the way and treat the whole matter as Jesus did, that moment can you attain,and do the impossible.

Contemplating the “giant” was what put the fear and trembling into the hearts of the Philistines. Had David spent any time considering the importance of the task before him, he would have been unable to select the exact stone which felled the Goliath of human belief.

When the integrity of the Principle of the Presence is with you, you will not pass over lightly the part you (as the temple of the Living God) are to play. There is none of the “indifference” of the human mind which glibly says, “It is of no importance.” There is a Divine indifference which frees you from the limitations of the conscious thinking. If you are going to”go thou and do likewise,” you cannot afford to make that which you are doing of such tremendous importance that it overpowers you. The more you realize, “It is not I, but the Father, that doeth the works,” and make your alignment with this Father within, the more you will go about doing the works naturally and normally, with­out the emotional importance attached to these works.

Too much stress cannot be laid upon the integrity of the individual. When he has even heard the command, “Be careful over no­thing,” he is at the place of freedom which requires him to Divinely pass the substance of life out freely, but which in the same gesture demands that the “pieces be picked up and that nothing be lost.” It is wonderful when we begin to understand and see the WISDOM of God in contradistinction to that of man.When man is “careful over nothing,” he becomes reckless and goes from bad to worse, and they say of him, “Too much freedom.” There is no such a thing as “too much freedom” in God.

When you have arrived at the understand­ing of the unimportanceof things, and are governed by the integrity which has gone unto “your Father,” then things that “eyes have not seen and ears have not heard” are revealed to you.

The revelation of Jesus Christ reverses everything the human mind has conceived, even its most cherished science which so many imagine is going to eventually discover God. God cannot be found on the dissecting-table or through the high-powered microscope.

Stage fright is a product of conscious think­ing making something out of nothing. What the performer is to do becomes of such para­mount importance, and so vastly eminent, he imagines that the whole world revolves about his little sally into the limelight. If it becomes too important, it destroys him. He has magnified it until it has dominated everything else. No audience is more than casually inter­ested in the personality, unless it is in some degree freed from the importance of what it is doing. And yet this very freedom needs such a sense of integrity. Nothing is too small, nothing too large, to have infinite atten­tion, but everything is too small and’ too large to be made important. The more you magnify the Power within, the more perfect will the performance be. It carries on and on into the dimension of infinity, if such a paradoxical phrase could be used. Presently you see that you do not need to think what you are to say­” Open your mouth and I will supply the words,” and this lovely abandon is only possible to him who has the integrity to carry out the instructions, and forget theimportance of what he is doing.

Jesus spoke of this in an infinite variety of ways—“Absent from the body and present with the Lord”—away from the manifestation and present with the “Father within,” who “worketh hitherto,” is the sure way to success. No matter what the picture on the outside, good, bad, or indifferent, it is all the same. A good picture can become so important that it destroys you. You can exag­gerate its importance until it dominates you,just the same as the evil condition that presents such a horrible and powerful aspect to you. The first thing, in any case, is to begin the devitalizing of the appearance by making it unimportant.

The human mind cannot do this, “Look, we are about to be destroyed.”  The servant, the body or conscious thinking, looks out and sees the awfulness of life in the flesh, but his attention is called to another Presence. “Look, the hills round about us are filled with legions of angels.” You do not have to be fanciful, and believe in winged beings, to receive an immeasurable sense of help imme­diately from this recognition.

No matter what the situation may be, the moment you recognize the”Father who worketh hitherto” you will experience an immediate relief from the effects of your conscious thinking. It is wonderful, and in the twinkling of an eye all is changed and you are exclaiming, “Where are my accusers?”It is all so magical to the human mind. Man has been so hypnotized to the long standing of his case; the seeming attempts to change or set aside the belief; or the panic that followed the suddenness of the terrible mani­festation. He has no time to think. “Quicker than thinking” it operates.”Before you ask”—-at a “moment ye think not.”

“Be not afraid ; it is I”—this VOICE is eternally speaking to you—yes, at the precise moment that human thought-voices are shrieking an awful story of lack, limitation, disease, and fear. When your “ear” is single to the VOICE, then your whole temple will be filled with light. Judging from appear­ances is the “wolf in sheep’s clothing” which works such havoc.

Such simplicity is used to express the new dimension that it confounds the “wise and prudent” and throws dust into the eyes of human intellect. There is no “reason” why the whole manifestation should change”in the twinkling of an eye,” and from the human standpoint it cannot possibly take place, but, in spite of all this, it does. It is true that Jesus could not walk on the waters as a human body. But he did. It is true that he could not feed five thousand out of appar­ently nothing. But he did.Who can explain the modus operandi of it all? He knew that it was the power of the Christ consciousness, indigenous in every man, which had”power to pick it up and lay it down,” and did not at any time ask permission of man to perform a natural law in its own province.

“His ways are past finding out.” Do you believe this? Then no one isgoing to “find them out,” and so that settles all the opinions and beliefs of the “Knowing Ones.” If you are among those who have come to the place of”Choose ye this day whom you shall serve,” and have chosen the Power which considers the wisdom of man foolishness, then you will so consider it, and will not go again to man seeking answers.

You can see the need of secrecy in all this wonderful Christ life. Who will believe you? The very one who gets you to expose the “pearl of great price” is the thief who will say to you, “Well, it didn’t work after all.” 

There be those who will insist that it is for “all” and that you have no right to bury the pearl of great price, etc., etc. You may be caught by this sympathetic talk and expose he precious thing. You will find how far the philanthropy of a sympathetic person goes it reaches barely to the narrow limits of his personality.

“Behold, I make all things new.” What is going to take place? The same thing that took place when the blind man suddenly opened his eyes.He perceived an entirely new universe. How did it happen? What did he do?He had been trying for years. He was frozen into a place of “blindness” by race consciousness. He was incurable. He was blind because of accident, etc., etc. So the old story goes—-the human mind can raise up one belief after another and defy God with its strength. Its lying voice says, “Yes, I know, but—-” and then it sets out again to establish some reality apart from God. Either God is the ONLY Power or there are two powers, and, if this is so, it is time the proper recognition was given to both. Man sees nothing but foolishness in all the teachings of Jesus. “In some places he did not many mighty works because of their unbelief.” It is so subtle, so simple, and so evanescent that it appears to the human mind as imagination.

“What went ye out for to see?”  Answer me. What are you going out to see, to do, to have, or to express? If it is to be important, then the chances are you will fail, but if you go out” shod with the preparation of the gospel and clothed with the garments of light ” —if you go forth with theintegrity to perform that which is set before you without glorifying or minimizing the temple-body—-then will you “see” and “hear” and “look”and perceive some of the dimensions of the new Life. It is glorious! It is wonderful! “Praise the Lord, 0 my soul, and forget not all His benefits.” The blessings are pouring down about you in a never-ending stream—-a flood of substance, of light and power are over you —you are baptized by the Presence even now as you read. It is wonderful. “How wonder­ful are thy mercies, Lord—Thy blessings—if I attempt to count them they are as numerous as the sands of the sea.”

“Arise and go forth into your new day.” Nothing you are going to do is important of itself—it is only another opportunity to glorify God.

 

Walter C. Lanyon