The Foundation for Life Transformation with Josh Reeves

[00:00:00] [SPEAKER_03]: Welcome to the Mile Hi Church Podcast. We're so glad you're here. I'll bet you're

[00:00:05] [SPEAKER_03]: here because you are a spiritual seeker and we just happen to have all sorts of

[00:00:10] [SPEAKER_03]: classes at Mile Hi Church online and in person. Come and learn more about the

[00:00:16] [SPEAKER_03]: depths of your spiritual nature. Come and learn about how to expand and create

[00:00:22] [SPEAKER_03]: the life you want. Our classes start the week of September 9th. Go to

[00:00:27] [SPEAKER_03]: MileHiChurch.org and click on classes to learn more.

[00:00:31] [SPEAKER_00]: There once was a woman who couldn't sing very well and so she made the

[00:00:37] [SPEAKER_00]: commitment that on her best friend's birthday she would call and sing her

[00:00:42] [SPEAKER_00]: happy birthday and the day arrived and she called and the phone gets picked up

[00:00:47] [SPEAKER_00]: and she just goes right into it. Happy birthday to you. She wraps up the song

[00:00:54] [SPEAKER_00]: and it's not her friend but a gentleman on the other line who says first of all

[00:00:58] [SPEAKER_00]: it's not my birthday and second of all I think you may have the wrong number. Then

[00:01:03] [SPEAKER_00]: why she said did you let me sing the whole song? Well ma'am I could tell you

[00:01:08] [SPEAKER_00]: needed the practice and the message for all of us there is we all need the

[00:01:16] [SPEAKER_00]: practice and it's practitioner recognition month but what I would

[00:01:21] [SPEAKER_00]: like us all to recognize here this morning is we are all practitioners. We

[00:01:28] [SPEAKER_00]: are all practitioners of this thing called life and the question is do you

[00:01:33] [SPEAKER_00]: know what you're practicing because that which you practice consistently you'll

[00:01:40] [SPEAKER_00]: get good at. A spiritual practitioner is one who brings reverence to that which

[00:01:51] [SPEAKER_00]: they practice. They bring a level of intentionality and awareness and creative

[00:01:57] [SPEAKER_00]: spark to their practices. A licensed practitioner like we have here at Mile

[00:02:03] [SPEAKER_00]: High Church is one who has committed themselves to helping others become

[00:02:09] [SPEAKER_00]: aware and bring intentionality and reverence to that which they practice. The

[00:02:17] [SPEAKER_00]: message title today is the foundation for life transformation but before I get into

[00:02:24] [SPEAKER_00]: that I want to talk to you about what to me the essence of a practitioner is.

[00:02:29] [SPEAKER_00]: Again pointing out that I'm not just talking about our licensed

[00:02:32] [SPEAKER_00]: practitioners here at Mile High Church that I may just be talking about you

[00:02:36] [SPEAKER_00]: as well. The first core aspect of the essence of a practitioner is daily

[00:02:43] [SPEAKER_00]: spiritual practice, daily meditation, daily prayer, daily bits of solitude, walks

[00:02:52] [SPEAKER_00]: in nature whatever that spiritual practice may be. As practitioners we

[00:02:59] [SPEAKER_00]: believe in and operate in the real world. We simply don't believe that

[00:03:06] [SPEAKER_00]: it's the most real reality. We believe in an invisible reality, a golden cord of

[00:03:14] [SPEAKER_00]: the sacred, a unity of all life, a deep found awareness even when it is most

[00:03:25] [SPEAKER_00]: forgotten in the sacredness and dignity and beauty in the majesty that is life

[00:03:32] [SPEAKER_00]: itself expressing and evolving as you and as I. The great spiritual

[00:03:41] [SPEAKER_00]: practitioner Howard Thurman said, life moves at a deeper level than the

[00:03:46] [SPEAKER_00]: objective and the data of our senses. We are most alive when we are brought

[00:03:52] [SPEAKER_00]: face to face with the response of the deepest thing in us to the deepest

[00:03:56] [SPEAKER_00]: thing in life and that's what spiritual practice does. It doesn't finish

[00:04:01] [SPEAKER_00]: when you say amen. It reverberates through our days as we experience the

[00:04:09] [SPEAKER_00]: deepest thing in ourselves connecting over and over again with the deepest

[00:04:14] [SPEAKER_00]: thing in life. Your practice doesn't have to be perfect. The great

[00:04:23] [SPEAKER_00]: supermodel Cindy Crawford once said, even I don't wake up looking like

[00:04:28] [SPEAKER_00]: Cindy Crawford. You may meditate and feel like crap. You may pray and feel

[00:04:37] [SPEAKER_00]: that your faith is wobbly at most and yet the key is the consistency, the

[00:04:45] [SPEAKER_00]: everyday nature of having reverence and bringing it into our daily lives.

[00:04:52] [SPEAKER_00]: Another essential aspect of the practitioner, it's uncanny, but it

[00:04:58] [SPEAKER_00]: is the practitioner's ability to accept you as you are and at the same time hold

[00:05:06] [SPEAKER_00]: you to who you are becoming. Perhaps the greatest gift in my spiritual life

[00:05:15] [SPEAKER_00]: have been practitioners who've accepted me as I am and held me to

[00:05:21] [SPEAKER_00]: who deep down I can be. How many of you in your life have someone who accepts

[00:05:30] [SPEAKER_00]: you absolutely as who you are? It can be a rare thing. How many of you have

[00:05:39] [SPEAKER_00]: someone in your life that consistently holds you to who you're becoming, who

[00:05:44] [SPEAKER_00]: you say you want to be and what spirit has in mind for you to be? Yeah. How

[00:05:49] [SPEAKER_00]: many of us have both? Someone who represents both of those? I bet you

[00:05:53] [SPEAKER_00]: that's your practitioner in your life, that person that holds you to a greater

[00:05:57] [SPEAKER_00]: truth. I had a great practitioner when I was 17 years old. Her name was Madeline

[00:06:01] [SPEAKER_00]: Fielding, wonderful woman and I think perhaps for the first time she just

[00:06:08] [SPEAKER_00]: created this sanctuary of acceptance and I can tell you at 17 years old the

[00:06:14] [SPEAKER_00]: last thing I was was accepting of myself. My body was flangling everywhere.

[00:06:23] [SPEAKER_00]: I didn't like my complexion. I couldn't wait to grow up and be an adult so I

[00:06:29] [SPEAKER_00]: wouldn't have any more problems where I could finally be free. And Madeline

[00:06:38] [SPEAKER_00]: just loved me. She accepted me as I am and perhaps instilled in me the gift

[00:06:45] [SPEAKER_00]: to learn how to create that sanctuary for other people. And yet Madeline

[00:06:50] [SPEAKER_00]: was hard on me. She saw the truth of who I was before. I saw it about myself and

[00:06:57] [SPEAKER_00]: she held me up to it. I was struggling with money being 17 and she said,

[00:07:03] [SPEAKER_00]: Josh, I want you to practice this daily affirmation. God is my source. God

[00:07:10] [SPEAKER_00]: is my source. And what I want you to do is when you say it, to take turns

[00:07:14] [SPEAKER_00]: emphasizing each word so you can embody it and get the feeling of it.

[00:07:19] [SPEAKER_00]: God is my source. God is my source. God is my source. God is my source. You

[00:07:28] [SPEAKER_00]: want to do it with me? God is my source. God is my source. God is my

[00:07:34] [SPEAKER_00]: source. God is my source. This also helps when you're trying to do your

[00:07:39] [SPEAKER_00]: Chris Farley, Matt Foley impression from Saturday Night Live except you

[00:07:44] [SPEAKER_00]: emphasize two words. You're going to wind up in a van down by the river.

[00:07:53] [SPEAKER_00]: Lastly, the essence of a spiritual practitioner is they're an example of

[00:07:57] [SPEAKER_00]: spiritual living especially in their willingness to struggle. It is such

[00:08:07] [SPEAKER_00]: an honor when I'm hanging with one of our practitioners and they're willing

[00:08:12] [SPEAKER_00]: to let me in on where they're experiencing challenges, where they're

[00:08:17] [SPEAKER_00]: stuck, where they're confused, where they've been praying for a breakthrough

[00:08:22] [SPEAKER_00]: and nothing's broken yet. And it's so beautiful because they serve as an

[00:08:28] [SPEAKER_00]: example to me that says living in a spiritual life in a real world means

[00:08:35] [SPEAKER_00]: there's going to be some challenges. There's going to be some ups and

[00:08:38] [SPEAKER_00]: downs, but you hold on to your practice. The practitioner has the

[00:08:44] [SPEAKER_00]: ability even in the midst of brokenness to hold on to a shred of their

[00:08:50] [SPEAKER_00]: wholeness, even an immense uncertainty to hold onto a deep knowing of

[00:08:58] [SPEAKER_00]: divine clarity. Even when hitting a wall over and over to have a consciousness

[00:09:06] [SPEAKER_00]: of grace. This is the great gift that all of us can achieve through being

[00:09:14] [SPEAKER_00]: practitioners. The title of my message today is the Foundation for Life

[00:09:22] [SPEAKER_00]: Transformation and it speaks to the tool that all practitioners use in

[00:09:28] [SPEAKER_00]: co-creating their lives and in assisting others in co-creating theirs. And we

[00:09:33] [SPEAKER_00]: call it affirmative prayer. Our founder Ernest Holmes called it spiritual

[00:09:37] [SPEAKER_00]: mind treatment. We often say affirmative prayer because we just

[00:09:41] [SPEAKER_00]: think it sounds a little less weird, although we like spiritual mind

[00:09:43] [SPEAKER_00]: treatment too. And all it means is a prayer that has a methodology, an

[00:09:50] [SPEAKER_00]: intention. You can't get what you want if you don't know what it is, right? And

[00:09:55] [SPEAKER_00]: so you clarify what it is that you're seeking to pray for this or

[00:09:58] [SPEAKER_00]: something better and you get to work. And I'm going to share my

[00:10:02] [SPEAKER_00]: interpretation of five steps for affirmative prayer today. The first

[00:10:07] [SPEAKER_00]: is recognition or casting your net. Casting your net. Try this just as

[00:10:18] [SPEAKER_00]: soon as that coffee's done brewing or your cup of tea, you just sit down

[00:10:24] [SPEAKER_00]: and you cast the net of your consciousness in order to receive a

[00:10:31] [SPEAKER_00]: grander idea of the divine than you have ever had before. Cast your net if

[00:10:39] [SPEAKER_00]: only a little greater idea than the one you had yesterday. We can do this

[00:10:45] [SPEAKER_00]: through verbal practice. God, you are pure love. God, you are the oldest

[00:10:50] [SPEAKER_00]: part of me and you are eternally brand new life and creativity. We can

[00:10:57] [SPEAKER_00]: continue to cast that net and experience the divine as the most

[00:11:01] [SPEAKER_00]: profound wisdom. As the most full silence as the feeling of tears and

[00:11:11] [SPEAKER_00]: laughter coming together in a fluidity of grace. Sometimes we achieve this

[00:11:20] [SPEAKER_00]: realization verbally. Sometimes we shut up and we listen to what the

[00:11:27] [SPEAKER_00]: divine would have us know about what it is, who we are and why we're here.

[00:11:36] [SPEAKER_00]: The question that bothers me most in all religiosity is the most basic

[00:11:43] [SPEAKER_00]: question. Do you believe in God? Do you believe in God? Answer yes or no?

[00:11:50] [SPEAKER_00]: Oh, thank you. And I know there's exceptions but I'm going to go on a

[00:11:56] [SPEAKER_00]: limb here and say that the question when forced to answer yes or no forces an

[00:12:01] [SPEAKER_00]: ingenuine answer. The correct answer for almost all people I know is

[00:12:09] [SPEAKER_00]: sometimes. Sometimes I believe in God, sometimes I don't. Even the most

[00:12:16] [SPEAKER_00]: stringent atheist has moments of awe and wonder and unity where they at

[00:12:25] [SPEAKER_00]: least find themselves in agnosticism. And even the most strident evangelical

[00:12:33] [SPEAKER_00]: can find in quiet moments asking themselves the question is this but a

[00:12:40] [SPEAKER_00]: defense mechanism against the hard realities of life? Do you believe in

[00:12:47] [SPEAKER_00]: God? Sometimes, sometimes in moments of unity holding someone's hand as they

[00:12:54] [SPEAKER_00]: transition to the other side, reading a great book, seeing the miracle of my

[00:12:58] [SPEAKER_00]: children. Oh, how can I not believe in God? But there are other times,

[00:13:06] [SPEAKER_00]: especially times when I've allowed myself to fall into a consciousness of

[00:13:10] [SPEAKER_00]: victimhood or prosecuted or separated from life that I don't have a lot of

[00:13:17] [SPEAKER_00]: faith in God. I've come to believe that I'm the only whiny power that

[00:13:21] [SPEAKER_00]: there is in my life. And I shut God out so we have that opportunity to have a

[00:13:29] [SPEAKER_00]: greater recognition of the divine by casting that net, taking that realization

[00:13:33] [SPEAKER_00]: and weaving it into our lives. The second step, unification. The life living

[00:13:42] [SPEAKER_00]: me. Yes, your life belongs to you but it doesn't just belong to only you.

[00:13:50] [SPEAKER_00]: Yes, you're living your life every day. But guess what? There's a greater

[00:13:56] [SPEAKER_00]: higher life that's also living you to and in the unification step, all that

[00:14:03] [SPEAKER_00]: we're doing is setting aside the life we are living in order to have a

[00:14:08] [SPEAKER_00]: genuine experience of the life living us. I set the life I'm living aside

[00:14:15] [SPEAKER_00]: just for a moment to remember that life living me alive, abundant with the

[00:14:23] [SPEAKER_00]: qualities of spirit of wisdom, love, healing. And the strange paradox is in

[00:14:34] [SPEAKER_00]: order to experience that life, we have to accept ourselves right where we

[00:14:40] [SPEAKER_00]: are. Rumi many centuries ago told the story of a man who has died and

[00:14:49] [SPEAKER_00]: finds himself knocking on the door of heaven and hears a voice saying,

[00:14:54] [SPEAKER_00]: Who is it? And the man responds, It is I and the door is not opened to him.

[00:15:01] [SPEAKER_00]: He goes and meditates and prays for a whole year and returns and knocks

[00:15:05] [SPEAKER_00]: on the door again. Who is it? It is the and the door is opened and he enters

[00:15:11] [SPEAKER_00]: into the consciousness of heaven. We accept that the divine life lives in

[00:15:19] [SPEAKER_00]: each one of us through the power of humility, through the power of

[00:15:24] [SPEAKER_00]: surrender, through the power of opening ourselves to a new transparency,

[00:15:30] [SPEAKER_00]: to the most intimate connection there is with our source from unification.

[00:15:39] [SPEAKER_00]: We move into realization. This is where we begin to open up to the

[00:15:45] [SPEAKER_00]: possibilities of a demonstration that can occur in our lives. Notice in

[00:15:52] [SPEAKER_00]: those first two steps, I'm not talking about my relationships or my

[00:15:55] [SPEAKER_00]: finances or my work or my health. I'm just focused on me and that

[00:16:01] [SPEAKER_00]: life divine. But in this step, we begin to imagine now that I've renewed my

[00:16:09] [SPEAKER_00]: conception of the divine. Now that it has renewed me by helping me to

[00:16:14] [SPEAKER_00]: know that there is a divine life in through and around me. What does that

[00:16:19] [SPEAKER_00]: mean about my marriage? What does that mean about my finances? What does

[00:16:24] [SPEAKER_00]: that say about how I'm showing up to work? I'm so grateful here at

[00:16:29] [SPEAKER_00]: Myle High Church for our prayer and care center directed by Patty

[00:16:34] [SPEAKER_00]: Lucanbach, coordinated by Lee Carlson. So appreciative, Sandy,

[00:16:39] [SPEAKER_00]: Treona and all the practitioners that work there regularly. They help us

[00:16:43] [SPEAKER_00]: know the truth for us. And one of my favorite practitioners who works

[00:16:47] [SPEAKER_00]: regularly in that prayer and care center, she's been supporting people

[00:16:50] [SPEAKER_00]: there for 17 years is a Luna Chen. And I figured she'd be much better

[00:16:54] [SPEAKER_00]: than I to speak a little bit to the power of the demonstration that can

[00:17:00] [SPEAKER_00]: come forward through being a practitioner for ourselves or allowing

[00:17:04] [SPEAKER_00]: a practitioner to serve us. So let's hear it for Luna.

[00:17:13] [SPEAKER_01]: Thank you, Reverend Josh. My name is a Luna and my superpower is

[00:17:18] [SPEAKER_01]: brilliant. And I'm so honored to be here this morning to share about

[00:17:24] [SPEAKER_01]: prayer and the gift that the prayer and care center is and has been

[00:17:28] [SPEAKER_01]: in my life and the gift that it is for our community and for all of

[00:17:33] [SPEAKER_01]: our congregants. Yes, and I just am so grateful that I get to be here

[00:17:38] [SPEAKER_01]: in the very heart of our spiritual mind treatment. You see, for the

[00:17:43] [SPEAKER_01]: third step, the realization step is the center. It's the heart.

[00:17:48] [SPEAKER_01]: There's two above and there's two below. And the thing that

[00:17:51] [SPEAKER_01]: resonates most for me about this part of treatment is not so much

[00:17:55] [SPEAKER_01]: demonstration, but transformation. Right? Because when we show up

[00:18:01] [SPEAKER_01]: willing and available to be transformed, the demonstration

[00:18:05] [SPEAKER_01]: takes care of itself. And I want you to know that we're named

[00:18:10] [SPEAKER_01]: practitioners because we practice. We're not arriving

[00:18:13] [SPEAKER_01]: in arriving anywhere. We're not arriving. We're practitioners.

[00:18:18] [SPEAKER_01]: Right? So what a gift to find yourself a partner and to

[00:18:21] [SPEAKER_01]: practice that transformation. The second thing that I love so much

[00:18:25] [SPEAKER_01]: about prayer is that it is self regulating our nervous system.

[00:18:31] [SPEAKER_01]: All that we're finding about the brain and the new neuroscience

[00:18:36] [SPEAKER_01]: speaks to ritual being a way to calm our nervous system and to

[00:18:42] [SPEAKER_01]: change our brain. So thank you so much for bringing that gift

[00:18:46] [SPEAKER_01]: to our children because that was a ritual. And that's going

[00:18:50] [SPEAKER_01]: to affect their nervous system and it's going to affect their

[00:18:53] [SPEAKER_01]: brain. What a gift. So remember, self regulation is a superpower.

[00:18:58] [SPEAKER_01]: Next time you step up to pray or you move into prayer, you're

[00:19:01] [SPEAKER_01]: putting on your cape. Okay? And that we're moving from reacting

[00:19:06] [SPEAKER_01]: from fear to responding from love. And isn't that what we

[00:19:11] [SPEAKER_01]: need right now? Yes, we need that in the world. And my

[00:19:15] [SPEAKER_01]: favorite story, I just want to share a little story about

[00:19:19] [SPEAKER_01]: all my time at the prayer and care center is one day I was working

[00:19:23] [SPEAKER_01]: and I didn't have any clients. So I was up front and we answer

[00:19:27] [SPEAKER_01]: the call to prayer. And so I got this call and it was this young

[00:19:32] [SPEAKER_01]: woman who was very distraught. So what would we do? We spend

[00:19:36] [SPEAKER_01]: time with them, we listen and we go into prayer. Right at the

[00:19:40] [SPEAKER_01]: end, I was getting the sense that I should just invite her

[00:19:43] [SPEAKER_01]: in, right? I didn't have any clients. Maybe she could come

[00:19:46] [SPEAKER_01]: in and spend some time. So I did. And she said yes. And she

[00:19:51] [SPEAKER_01]: came in and we had a ordinary session where it was beautiful

[00:19:55] [SPEAKER_01]: and blessed. And what did you say, Josh? It's the accepting

[00:20:01] [SPEAKER_01]: the cloak of acceptance, right? When we accept people and be

[00:20:05] [SPEAKER_01]: with them. And so she left. I didn't think much about it.

[00:20:09] [SPEAKER_01]: And then two years later, I'm out in the parking lot. And I

[00:20:13] [SPEAKER_01]: see this figure coming towards me. And all of a sudden her little

[00:20:17] [SPEAKER_01]: son comes running up, grabs my leg, looks up at me with his big

[00:20:23] [SPEAKER_01]: beautiful eyes and he says, Oh, thank you so much for saving my

[00:20:29] [SPEAKER_01]: mummy. I was shocked. My heart stopped. I had no idea. And I

[00:20:35] [SPEAKER_01]: looked up and here was this beautiful dear soul. And she

[00:20:39] [SPEAKER_01]: told me in that moment, but she hadn't said it in the

[00:20:42] [SPEAKER_01]: moment when we got together, that that phone call that she had

[00:20:46] [SPEAKER_01]: made was going to be her last phone call. That call for prayer

[00:20:50] [SPEAKER_01]: was going to be her last prayer. And I'm just in awe of the

[00:20:55] [SPEAKER_01]: grace that when we are available to be transformed by love,

[00:21:01] [SPEAKER_01]: that love transforms us, all of us. So I invite you in. I

[00:21:08] [SPEAKER_01]: invite you into prayer. I invite you into the prayer and

[00:21:11] [SPEAKER_01]: prayer care center. I invite you into finding a practitioner that

[00:21:14] [SPEAKER_01]: wants to be transformed with and as you through you and for you in

[00:21:20] [SPEAKER_01]: the alchemy of prayer. And I know, I know that that's what our

[00:21:24] [SPEAKER_01]: teaching is about. As Ernest says, the divine can only do for

[00:21:29] [SPEAKER_01]: us what we allow it to do through us. So thank you. So

[00:21:34] [SPEAKER_01]: blessed.

[00:21:42] [SPEAKER_00]: Thank you, Luna. This is a thank you to all of our

[00:21:44] [SPEAKER_00]: practitioners. But I think of the hundreds and hundreds and

[00:21:47] [SPEAKER_00]: probably more people that you've created that cloak of

[00:21:50] [SPEAKER_00]: sanctuary and acceptance for it's an immense achievement. We

[00:21:53] [SPEAKER_00]: are so grateful to you and how blessed our community is to have

[00:21:56] [SPEAKER_00]: dynamic people like a Luna available to support us through

[00:21:59] [SPEAKER_00]: lifetimes and towns. Briefly, two other steps. The next

[00:22:08] [SPEAKER_00]: will just call gratitude. Gratitude. It's about embodying

[00:22:13] [SPEAKER_00]: what's essential. Gratitude seems like a nice polite step of

[00:22:18] [SPEAKER_00]: prayer. Say thank you. Thanks, God. But there's something deeper

[00:22:24] [SPEAKER_00]: about gratitude that helps us accept in body kinesthetically

[00:22:29] [SPEAKER_00]: take on the feeling tone as well as the actuality of that

[00:22:35] [SPEAKER_00]: which we seek to demonstrate. I have a wonderful friend named

[00:22:39] [SPEAKER_00]: Larry Sen who wrote a wonderful book called The Mood

[00:22:42] [SPEAKER_00]: Elevator and he has a little graphic that he shows and he says

[00:22:45] [SPEAKER_00]: that everybody's mood elevator may be a little different and you

[00:22:48] [SPEAKER_00]: can see where you can go down or up. But for him, gratitude is

[00:22:53] [SPEAKER_00]: at the top of the list as I'm sure it is for so many of us.

[00:22:57] [SPEAKER_00]: And what it tells us pragmatically is that when it

[00:23:02] [SPEAKER_00]: comes to making the tough choices of your life, those

[00:23:04] [SPEAKER_00]: creative choices make sure you do so when you're at the

[00:23:08] [SPEAKER_00]: top of your mood elevator. It also tells me that gratitude

[00:23:13] [SPEAKER_00]: isn't just about what we see in giving thanks, it's about how

[00:23:18] [SPEAKER_00]: we see. Gratitude helps us see life from a panoramic view

[00:23:24] [SPEAKER_00]: from the highest most whole state we can. So when we

[00:23:27] [SPEAKER_00]: practice gratitude, we see life wholly and it becomes perfect

[00:23:31] [SPEAKER_00]: to do so in affirmative prayer. Lastly, I'll call this

[00:23:37] [SPEAKER_00]: last step incubation. Loosening the creative process. In science,

[00:23:45] [SPEAKER_00]: we have the idea of the creative process and the first thing

[00:23:47] [SPEAKER_00]: that you do is you define the problem. You get all the

[00:23:51] [SPEAKER_00]: information you can about a problem that you want to solve

[00:23:54] [SPEAKER_00]: and you get clarity around it and then what do you do? You

[00:23:57] [SPEAKER_00]: forget about it. You forget about it. And this process happens

[00:24:02] [SPEAKER_00]: called incubation, which we might say is a mind that is

[00:24:07] [SPEAKER_00]: different than the one that we are consciously aware of gets to

[00:24:11] [SPEAKER_00]: work on the problem. This is why it's often said that Einstein

[00:24:15] [SPEAKER_00]: got his best ideas while shaving. And this is very much

[00:24:20] [SPEAKER_00]: the process of prayer. It's not about letting the prayer go

[00:24:24] [SPEAKER_00]: so much as it is doing what our beloved Dr. Roger would

[00:24:28] [SPEAKER_00]: call little me move over big me take over. We're taking that

[00:24:35] [SPEAKER_00]: mind of ours that we love that can get stuck and we're

[00:24:39] [SPEAKER_00]: recognizing that there's an aspect of our intelligence that

[00:24:42] [SPEAKER_00]: knows even better than we do, and we allow its creative

[00:24:46] [SPEAKER_00]: process to do its thing to demonstrate in our lives and

[00:24:51] [SPEAKER_00]: to commit ourselves to being ready to listening and to

[00:24:56] [SPEAKER_00]: embodying our most divine truths in our everyday lives.

[00:25:01] [SPEAKER_00]: Moving into prayer this morning, I invite any of our

[00:25:03] [SPEAKER_00]: wonderful prayer practitioners to stand and join me knowing

[00:25:08] [SPEAKER_00]: that so many of these individuals are available to do an

[00:25:11] [SPEAKER_00]: affirmative prayer with you in front of the stage after

[00:25:13] [SPEAKER_00]: service. Bringing Emerson into our prayer, he says a little

[00:25:18] [SPEAKER_00]: consideration of what takes place around us every day

[00:25:21] [SPEAKER_00]: which show us that a higher law than that of our will

[00:25:24] [SPEAKER_00]: regulates events that are painful labors are very

[00:25:27] [SPEAKER_00]: unnecessary and altogether fruitless that only in our easy

[00:25:31] [SPEAKER_00]: simple spontaneous actions are we strong and by contenting

[00:25:35] [SPEAKER_00]: ourselves with obedience, we become divine knowing indeed

[00:25:41] [SPEAKER_00]: the wonder of recognizing that there is indeed an infinite

[00:25:45] [SPEAKER_00]: energy a limitless intelligence a divine love not only

[00:25:56] [SPEAKER_00]: surrounding us inspiring us but calling to be embodied in

[00:26:02] [SPEAKER_00]: through and ask us to live life and awareness that we are

[00:26:08] [SPEAKER_00]: surrounded by a creative power of mind and heart gives us

[00:26:13] [SPEAKER_00]: the ability to have that extra layer of awareness to live

[00:26:17] [SPEAKER_00]: each day to make each choice to feel each feeling held

[00:26:25] [SPEAKER_00]: in a sanctuary of gracefulness and a palace of excitement

[00:26:33] [SPEAKER_00]: in a home of solid unity which that which embraces us and

[00:26:39] [SPEAKER_00]: brings us to stillness and that releases us into a world with

[00:26:46] [SPEAKER_00]: a sense of adventure freedom and anticipation co-creating

[00:26:51] [SPEAKER_00]: our lives with joy we use this tool of affirmative prayer

[00:26:55] [SPEAKER_00]: as our foundation and we build a life filled with

[00:27:00] [SPEAKER_00]: demonstrations of richness of healing of love and connection

[00:27:05] [SPEAKER_00]: thank you spirit and so it is thanks for listening to the

[00:27:12] [SPEAKER_00]: mile high church podcast this podcast is made possible by

[00:27:15] [SPEAKER_00]: the generous contributions from listeners like you to make a

[00:27:18] [SPEAKER_00]: donation please visit milehighchurch.org