Spiritual Employment

[Guest guest]

You can have any job you want. You do not believe that, do you? That

is why you do not get the job you want now; you do not believe you

can get it. Did you ever hear Mark Twain's advice to the young seeker

after a job? He said something like this: " Pick out the man you want

to work for, and then go and work for him. Tell him you are going to

work for him for nothing till he decides you are worth something, and

how much. " That seems an absurd piece of advice. But it will

certainly work if you really put it into practice. Now, think a

moment with me.

If you get a job--any sort of a job--what will your employer pay you

for? For the work you do, of course. Will he pay you in advance? He

will not. He will pay you after you have worked a month, a week, a

day. How much will he pay you? What you earn, of course. Will he pay

you more than you are worth--even if he has agreed to? He will not.

If you do not measure up to specifications, he will get out of his

agreement in one way or another. He will discharge you, or if he has

made a contract with you, he will break it or make you break it, or

make your situation intolerable, or buy you off. He will certainly

not pay you for something you do not give him.

Here is that saying in the business world again, that you cannot get

something for nothing. You cannot. This means that you cannot get

salary or wages for something you do not do. Do you think you see men

getting paid for something they are not delivering? Watch them. Watch

the loafers and the quitters and the " Soldiers. "

But there is a deeper thing under this fact and these appearances

than people commonly think. It is this: Justice! Justice does work in

the affairs of men, whether they recognize it or not. You do not

believe it? Study it. Men do get what they want--what they really

want. You can get what you really want, as we have said--and you will

get it, whether you know it or not!

" But, " you say, " just as good men have failed of their aim as have

succeeded. " So? What does it mean to be " good " ? Goodness, in the

ordinary sense, has nothing to do with the matter. If it had, we

could not understand the situation at all. People who try to explain

success or failure on the ground of goodness never do understand it--

nor anything else they try to explain on the same ground.

Because " goodness " or " badness " in the ordinary moral sense is not

the reason. Law is the reason, for everything.

" Whatsoever ye shall ask in prayer, believing, ye shall receive. "

Real virtue consists in keeping in harmony with the law--or trying

to. Goodness, in this sense, is always rewarded, and badness, in the

same sense, is always punished. That is, the law works for those who

keep it and works against those who choose to go against it. I do not

dare to set any limits. I do not believe there are any limits. It

does not make the least difference in the world whether we know the

law or not--it works. " Ignorance of the law is no excuse. " And you

cannot blame some far-off God for your actions, or for anything that

happens to you, or for your knowing the law or not knowing it. It is

up to you!

Does that frighten you? Or if you believed it, would it frighten you?

Instead of frightening you it should encourage you, inspirit you,

stir you up to your highest ambition, fill you with your highest

hope, assure you of realization of your highest desire, make you

certain of success, and happy beyond your dreams! Because you cannot

lose!

Now, let us see. We have made some pretty rash statements, have we

not? From the ordinary, unbelieving standpoint, yes. But it is not

bumptiousness to state law, nor modesty to understate it. What have

we said? You can have anything you really want. Well, you can; the

thing you want is among the possibilities for you or you would not

want it. Desire is implanted in you by a power that intends you to

have what that desire calls for. You have no desires that this power

has not given you. Desire was meant to be fulfilled--consuming,

supreme desire, not the piddling little wishes that do not even last

over night or past mealtime. Your real desire becomes the great

purpose of your life; and it matters not what that purpose is, you

are going to get a reward commensurate with your single-heartedness.

Remember, your desire is implanted in you by this power we are

talking about.

This power will grant the desire--has already granted it--because

this power is the only power there is in the universe. It is the

power for which another name is ,God. He is the only power you will

ever know, and the only power you will ever get a job from; the only

power you will ever work for and the only power that will ever pay

you. You may think you ask some man or woman for a job, but you do

not really. You " ask " the universal law for that job. And because the

universal law (God) has put the desire for that job in you, you will

get it. And because that same universal law is the paymaster you will

get paid for it, and no man or woman on earth can prevent it. You are

working for God, not man. God is the one to whom you go for your job,

for whom you labor, from whom you receive your reward. You cannot

help it; that is the way it is. It is so, whether you believe it or

not, whether you know it or not, whether you like it or not!

But you remind me that I have said that all desire comes from God. It

may be well enough to think that the desire to work comes from the

one power, but does the desire of the thief to steal come also from

the Supreme Being? To steal, no. To possess, yes. Every instinct,

appetite and aspiration is implanted in man by God. But who is God?

Why, God is my Creator. God is my life, my strength, my intelligence,

my mind. Now turn the statement around. My being is God, my life is

God, my intelligence is God, my mind is God. Do you pretend to say

that you have a desire independent of your mind? Hardly. Well, that

is the answer.

The answer is that God, instead of being something outside of you, is

within you, controlling all your affairs through you. Is it hard to

believe that you have only to realize that overwhelming conception in

order to have God come forth visibly into your affairs, whatever they

are, whoever you are, wherever you are, whatever your circumstances

appear to be? You are an individual expression of God. You create

what you choose. How? First by thinking it. That is the only way

anything is created--by thought. If you think that things are created

by hammer and nails, or steam shovels, or dynamos, or lathes, or

trowels, or giant powder, or printing presses, or congresses, or

kings, you have never thought even so far back as the drafting table

or the blue pencil!

Things are created by thought in the mind, and by nothing else and

nowhere else. Yes, by your thought, and in your mind. And when you

begin to realize that, you will begin to work for the God who is

universal Mind, in you and in me and in everybody else, and in

everything in the universe. You will realize that you cannot fail to

do what you really want to do and have what you really want to have.

How shall you begin? By going after that first job with an idea in

your mind just the reverse of what you have been trying to hold

there. Think not about what you are going to get, but about what you

can give. Ask for opportunity to give, and give with all your heart

all you have got, knowing that you cannot fail to get what your

desire calls for. You cannot fail to get back what you give out. For

who are you? You are the expression of God in your individuality.

Think of that. In Him you live and move and have your being. You are

one with God, the supreme power in the universe. You are one with

supreme universal Mind. And universal Mind creates what it wants to

create. In other words, it gives out what it wants to see manifested.

Think of it. Think! You! Not somebody else--you! You cannot fail!