October 11, 2022
I recently read several blog posts by Pamela Toussaint Howard that moved me.
She is a young native New Yorker who is now working out of Atlanta. She is a journalist and author or co-author of eight books. Her spiritual insights apply ancient truths to dealing with very modern situations.
Pamela believes it is very important to “regularly rehearse the triumphs” Spirit “has orchestrated” in her life. One of Pamela‘s giant areas of concern has been finances.
“When I decided to freelance, it was often difficult to believe Jesus would provide for me long-term. If I were hired to write a book, I would hoard the advance money because I feared there might not be another deal anytime soon. Even one year when I had a salaried job, I lived meagerly on one paycheck a month – and banked the rest like the world was ending,” she noted.
One day she remembered what happened to her family when September 11, 2001, devastated New York City’s economy. “At the time, my mom and I had a catering business that regularly serviced restaurants. In an instant, orders completely ceased (following the attack on the twin towers),” Pamela recounted.
This situation went on for months. No money was coming into their catering business, but they still had many bills to pay. “We didn’t know how we would pay back our large business loan with no customers,“ she said. The level of fear and panic increased every day. There was no solution in sight. The possibility of bankruptcy loomed large for Pamela and her family.
Then Pamela and her mom started to kneel on the living room carpet and fervently pray. They didn’t know the solution, but they started thanking God that all was in Divine Order. They started doing affirmative prayer and believing in a positive solution to their circumstances.
The solution did come! “Our loan was reduced to a fraction of what we owed,” Pamela reports. This gave them the breathing room and time they needed to bounce back as the New York economy regained steam.
Now when she faces financial challenges, “the Holy Spirit reminds” Pamela of how God came through for her family back then. Her confidence builds when she remembers this previous incident, and she knows that Spirit “will surely do it again.”
One of Pamela‘s favorite verses from scripture is 1 Samuel 17:37 (“The Lord who rescued me from the paw of the lion and the paw of the bear will rescue me from the hand of this Philistine.”)
What is going on here? Well, Young David has just volunteered to face Goliath. On the face of it, this seems like a hopeless challenge. But King Saul is telling David, “Here is what I do: I remember the times in the past when Divine Order saw me through. Then my fear starts to turn into real faith!”
Pamela suggests that we take a genuine faith step when our life circumstances seem to be quicksand. She suggests you keep a log of God’s “faithfulness in specific circumstances so that you can look back and be encouraged like David was.”
These spiritual tools do work! In my case, it was back in the 1990s. I was fired from being the chief economist at a leading think tank in Washington, DC. I went through real resentment and anger. Then I went through real fear: How would we pay the bills? Who would ever hire me again in such a position?
I decided to try Unity’s concept of affirmative prayer. Jesus states this principle so well in Mark and elsewhere: “When you pray, believe that you have received and you will receive” (Mark 11:24).
I did not have any job prospects in sight, but I wrote a prayer letter to God in which I thanked Him for the new job that was on its way. I thanked Mother-Father God that it would be an excellent opportunity to do social good and help people. It would be an opportunity to lead a creative bunch of economists and social researchers and a financially rewarding position.
The fear left me, and instead, I had real faith. I knew I had to keep on doing the next right thing. There were some days when I had a bad 10 minutes. I even remember one day when I had a bad 20 minutes. But I never had a totally bad day! I just kept doing the next right thing.
Somehow the money always appeared to pay the bills. Then at the end of eight months, the United Way offered me the opportunity to be their vice president of research and chief economist. It was the right position and right job, and I would never have made the switch had I not gone through unemployment. I was also offered a salary at a higher level than what I had been paid before.
On top of that, two years after I started with the United Way, the think tank that fired me went bankrupt. In other words, what I considered a horrible tragedy was actually God’s way of giving me an early lifeboat off the Titanic.
When I face challenges or fear starts to raise its ugly little head, I remember what God did for me back in the 1990s, and any fear gets turned into faith. It is so powerful to remember how Divine Order has worked in my life.
Today’s Daily Word for October 11th is Divine Order. The affirmation is: “I am in the flow of divine life and order.” The Daily Word suggests, “I nurture my unfoldment with faith, patience, and trust in the activity of God in me.”
I believe that a good way of doing this is remembering how Divine Order has worked in the past in our lives. When we have journaled and listed previous examples of God’s faithfulness in our lives, we can counter any negativity by remembering that we were born blessed and remain blessed!
Many blessings,
Rev. Rick
Rick will continue writing his blog after he leaves Unity of Roanoke Valley.
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