Deliberately Thankful

Deliberately  Thankful

Martin Cecil   September 30, 1979  p.m.

“O give thanks unto the Lord, for he is good: for his mercy endureth for ever.” The theme of our service this morning was that of thankfulness. This is certainly not a new subject but I trust that it was seen in a new way. It is, after all, a very practical requirement, relating as it does to this matter of being connected with the fine spiritual substance present throughout the universe, that we may thereby be connected with the creative working of the spirit of God.

Whenever we do share a consideration in service which allows for the generation of substance and consequently the greater release into our experience of the spirit of God, the power and energy of it, to all who are present—and this would include us who are here this evening as well as others who are not here—a question is posed. A question is posed because events will arise in the experience of all concerned which put the question. This morning the primary subject was that of thankfulness, and therefore the question that is posed subsequently will no doubt relate to this; [greatcosmicstory.blogspot.com/2020/03/from-magic-of-thankfulness-martin-cecil.html] events will say to us, in effect, “In this circumstance now, are you going to remember that the primary necessity is to be thankful, or are you going to forget that and simply revert into old behavior?” This has happened, I’m sure, today in one way or another with virtually all of you. I’ve been aware of this with respect to certain ones and have observed the sort of answer that was given. If the wrong answer is given, this in itself poses a question to me.

Over the years I have repeatedly found that there has been a good deal of failure in the right answering of questions that arose immediately subsequent to a service; and it has seemed to me sometimes that I might just as well not have given the service because it wasn’t received as being important relative to the practical experience that immediately ensued after the service. If this happens, as it has happened repeatedly over the years of my experience, then I have found that very few of those to whom I was speaking placed any particular value or weight in what I had said, as proved out subsequently by the attitudes that were taken when events arose so that they denied what had been offered and simply reverted to the old habit patterns which were accepted previously under similar circumstances. Then I could say, “What’s the use of my giving services if very few pay any attention?” They pay attention at the time perhaps, but it is what happens afterward that is the point.

Perhaps you yourselves can examine the events of this day in your own experience and see what actually arose. If there is a good current of the spirit moving in a service this will project what is required into the consciousness of all concerned in an individual way so as to provide the opportunity for allowing what had been experienced in the service, now to be experienced in this situation. Then when some situation arises that would cause you to start moaning about it or feeling badly done by or confused, or something else, are you going to indulge yourself in that, in those sorts of attitudes and reactions? Or are you going to say, “Aha, here is the opportunity to allow the new experience to be known,” so that primary weight is placed in what has been provided by the Lord through the words that were spoken at the service? As I say, all too often that hasn’t happened. The individual immediately becomes involved in the situation, whatever it is, and forgets that this was the opportunity—after this morning’s service in the primary aspect of it, it was the opportunity to be thankful. “Let the redeemed of the Lord say so,” let this be the thing that is given expression as being important.

If it isn’t allowed to happen that way and I observe it not happening, then I might start moaning about it and saying, “What’s the use?”—being discouraged rather than giving thanks. In other words, the question is posed to me very often by reason of the wrong answer given by all too many. Then I have to decide what I am going to do, whether I am going to say, “What’s the use?” I don’t think you have ever found me doing that, have you? It seems to me that at least I recovered by next Sunday! I have never found it a great struggle to do that. It never is if one is willing to praise the Lord, if one is willing to give thanks. Then immediately there begins to be the connection made which will allow whatever it is that has arisen to be handled in the right way. From my standpoint, whatever the experience may be subsequent to a service, relative to the victories revealed in the experience of those who are at the service, or the failures, these must be handled moment by moment, so that coming later to next Sunday when another service needs to be given I may be on hand to give it. It seems to me that I have been pretty regularly on hand to give it when needed. So we all have this question asked of us—it is not as though I was exempt. How are we going to handle what it is that arises? Are we going to take seriously the provision that has been made by the Lord, or are we going to ignore the provision that is made by the Lord and just revert into our old habits?

The more of the current of the spirit there is moving in a service the more we may anticipate the question being put to us loud and clear, in one way or another. Would any of you say that this was true in your experience today? Did you notice anything of the sort? I’m sure that it occurred. I was aware of one or two areas where it did occur within the range of my observation. I know that it occurred with respect to me. But I trust that we begin to see, particularly in relationship to this theme of this morning’s service, namely thankfulness, how it is one of the most practical instructions that could be given to anyone. It isn’t just something that would be nice if we were all thankful—we’d get along so well together if we were thankful and didn’t complain so much and bellyache so much; we’d really have a nice time together. Well that’s really not the objective. We’re not here to have a nice time together. We’re here to get a job done, and in order to get that job done we need to have the first flush of feeling being that of thankfulness. No matter what arises, the first flush of feeling is thankfulness. We are no longer looking around for things to be thankful for. That is a very childish and elementary approach, because if we do that we’ll find far more not to be thankful for than to be thankful for.

The fact of the matter is that when we begin to let our lives be characterized by the real qualities of the spirit of God there is a sense of thankfulness just because of that; we don’t need to have blessings showered upon us to be thankful. It is our expression of blessing in living that brings with it our sense of thankfulness, which is our awareness of the creative movement of the spirit of God through this fine substance which we ourselves have generated by reason of the quality of our living. As that is so, there is a sense of thankfulness that we don’t need to hook to anything particularly. We may recognize that it would be natural to be thankful for the creative movement of the spirit of God, because when that is moving, which it is constantly, it is producing what should be produced on the basis of that movement, and of the factors that are present in the field through which it is moving. If there is resistance in that field, then the movement of the spirit of God will probably generate heat of some kind; it will be extremely uncomfortable for somebody, maybe for us. Praise the Lord! Praise the Lord, because here is the evidence of the movement of the spirit of God; and that is, after all, what we are here to allow to happen in our own experience. When we allow it to happen in our own experience thankfully, we are opening doors for other people.

An opportunity is being offered for the easy movement of the spirit of God in our experience. That easy movement will be known when we are thankful, and here is the evidence then of the beauty and the joy that is natural when the spirit of God is being experienced in expression. There is nothing more wonderful than that experience. Whatever blocks the spirit of God may run into, of which we become aware in our own field of experience, in our own worlds—we become aware of these things because obviously there is a lot of resistance in the world to the movement of the spirit of God—the spirit of God is going to move anyway, whether anyone likes it or not. It has been doing this for millennia. It has been doing it always, as far as that is concerned. But within the experience of resistant human beings the spirit of God has been moving, and in that movement it has produced a certain amount of enjoyment for human beings who are not resisting it at the moment; it has produced a good deal of discomfort and a great deal of pain for those who were resisting it. This is true of everybody from time to time presumably. But we are thankful for the movement of the spirit of God, no matter what it produces, because it is the spirit of God for which we are responsible in order to permit the re-creation that is to occur. So regardless of the results that may appear in any particular experience, we know that those results are there because of the movement of the spirit of God and we are thankful for that movement; not for the results necessarily, but we are thankful in a way for those too because here is the evidence of the movement of the spirit of God. It is what should be happening; even if it is painful it is what should be happening. 

So we accept naturally the movement that occurs and we have a sense of thankfulness for it. There is no other reason for our being present on earth except to participate in the movement of the spirit of God into expression. We are thankful for that movement, and we are thankful therefore for the results that occur by reason of that movement, even if it may be a disastrous result from the human standpoint, even if it may be a painful result. You may say, “Well if that pain is my pain, how can I be thankful for that? It may be easier with someone else’s suffering over there.” You are thankful that the spirit of God is moving. Do you think that is a possible attitude to assume? We’d better assume it because this is the only way that we can sustain and maintain our connection, establish it to start with, and sustain and maintain our connection with that fine substance through which the spirit of God is moving freely. We are associated then with that free movement and we will find that it keeps moving on further out, producing whatever result will naturally occur by reason of the attitudes and the actions, the behavior, of people all around. If disaster comes, praise the Lord! That’s what should come.

We have noted before that when we’ve been associated with some difficult experience, later we have become very much aware that it was a valuable experience for us. Well we’re not thinking of it so much as being valuable for us in a self-centered way; we’re thinking of it now as being valuable for the fulfilment of the creative purposes of God, and that is all that matters to us. If there are those who are caught in the self-centered trap in the world and find themselves in difficulties of various sorts, then we are quite willing to lend a hand, to allow people to emerge out of those difficulties if they are willing. It is not that we sit back with folded arms and say, “Well it is coming to them; let them suffer.” No, we have something to offer; there is what is called compassion. But the compassion does not seek to change the natural working and movement of the spirit of God. We do not try to get God to change His mind, so to speak. We seek to assist human beings to change their minds and to change the quality of their emotional experience, to let those things change so that they may not resist the movement of the spirit of God. If you don’t resist that movement then it is found that the movement is a blessing. In fact the resistance may subsequently be discovered as having been a blessing because it had caused the person to wake up sufficiently to consider what would be necessary to harmonize with the movement of the spirit of God. I think all of us have required a kick in the pants once in a while in that regard. “O give thanks unto the Lord, for he is good.” His way is the right way, and His mercy endureth forever, fortunately for us.

So this morning we shared the creative movement of the spirit of God which allowed a deeper experience of thankfulness, as we were open to it, and of the necessity for thankfulness; and of how it is, when there is that thankful spirit, we discover that the creative power of the spirit of God is available to bring forth in a way that has never been possible on earth as long as human beings have insisted upon functioning below the veil, in this little box of human concept. We all have firmly established, firmly accepted, patterns of experience. Some of these have come down to us out of our hereditary past, some of these we have established for ourselves; and in the immediate sense we all have tended to contribute to the maintenance of these restricted states of experience.

For instance, it is quite impossible to walk on water, you know. Certainly from the standpoint of the usual human approach it is thought to be impossible as long as the water remains a liquid; and the story with respect to Jesus walking on the water is looked upon with a little suspicion, I think, by most; perhaps it may be accepted if someone has a lot of faith. On the other hand maybe it was true, maybe it was an actual fact, because He certainly was not restricted in this little box of human concept which says, and proves by every means at its command, that it is impossible to walk on water. By the same token they say that a bumblebee cannot fly, it is aerodynamically impossible; but it goes ahead and flies anyway. There are various things of this sort that are impossible but they nevertheless happen.

We, all of us, as we advance in years as it is said, are supposed to grow older. As a person does grow older—me, for instance—then attitudes of others toward him change somewhat. Now I am just using myself as an example; other people grow older too, you know. But there is a tendency to assume that when a person grows older thus-and-so should occur, and everybody is inclined to lay this sort of concept on the person who is growing older. That is one aspect of it. Then the person who is growing older may accept what other people are trying to lay on him or may invent a few things for himself. Everybody is supposed to go through this business of growing older and gradually disintegrating. This has been going on for millennia on earth; everybody has done it. So this must happen; this is the view, isn’t it? And we all tend to lay things on each other, not only with respect to the matter of growing older, but in other ways too. We lay things on each other. And sometimes when people lay things on us we accept them and say, “Well that must be so; it is being laid on me, after all.” Other people fight desperately against it, try to fend it off. Well this is all happening in the darkened human nature state below the veil where human beings exist in this little one- or two-dimensional world where nothing really very spectacular can happen. The things that are deemed to be spectacular in this little box in which human beings exist are only spectacular in the little box. They wouldn’t be deemed to be spectacular anywhere else.

Allowing the generation of the spiritual substance to occur in living, the veil may be dissolved, the connection may be made with the spiritual substance which permeates the whole universe and thereby with the spirit of God which is present in the whole universe. Within this substance then is all that is true of the spirit of God. I don’t think anyone would say that the creation of the universe was a very little thing. It required a certain amount of intelligence to do it and certainly a lot of power to stir the pot, so to speak, and a lot of continuing power to sustain it: this perpetual motion machine. Human beings have their concepts with respect to it: It is really running down! If you wait long enough it will all quit finally. This is looking at it from the standpoint of this little box. There is no awareness of the unlimited source of power, of variety of design, present in the spirit of God and therefore in this fine spiritual substance, the substance of love, which fills the universe. It is all there available for right use when, humanly speaking, there are those on hand who would let it be used rightly. It is not available for wrong use, or only very little of it is available for wrong use.

We have a little power in the box in which human beings live, and human beings play around with this in the box. There are those who have sensed something of a greater power somewhere which somehow could be gotten ahold of, for human purposes. Nowadays, if there is an energy crisis, “Well let’s get this perpetual motion machine operating and we’ll generate lots of power, and there won’t be any more crisis.” Then human beings can go on happily the way they were doing before, which wasn’t very happily anyway. Well what would be the point of that? This power that is available is available for right use according to the true creative design; and when there are those present, humanly speaking, who are properly connected up with this spiritual substance because their lives have generated the connection and therefore there is the experience of righteousness, then the power is available for use according to the creative purposes of God. Human beings themselves were not really created to die but to be the means by which this creative power could be released into expression increasingly in the fulfilment of the purposes of God, of which human beings now know nothing. But there are such purposes, as witness the universe itself—it is operative. So here we are to allow this to occur in our own experience. But to let it occur in our own experience we must meet and handle the events that arise in our worlds, by the power of the spirit of God. Then we do not have an attitude that whatever is required in the fulfilment of the purposes of God is impossible.

With God all things are possible—with human beings certainly not, but with God all things are possible. Are we with God? Then all things immediately become possible, not in the fulfilment of human purposes but in allowing what should be unfolding in the creative purposes of God. These creative purposes immediately relate to what we have referred to as the restoration of man, the restoration of the means by which this creative power, this creative energy, may be channeled into the world for the requirements of the divine design in this field. So what is necessary to happen does not happen on the basis of the little bits of power which human beings now manipulate. It is a totally different way of approach. It is beyond the comprehension of the human mind, fortunately.

From the standpoint of those who live in this little human box, what rightly must occur would be looked upon as miraculous. This was exemplified rather beautifully, to the extent that it could be, by the One called Jesus. There were miracles in a rather restricted way because He wasn’t allowed very much space. Now there are those who are beginning to move in a way which will make available more space for the right use of the creative power of God. While we have been moving toward the increased generation of the spiritual substance necessary and the consequent experience of the increased intensity of the spirit of God in expression in our lives, we have made use—knowing no better anyway—of whatever energies and powers are available in the world the way it is. We drive around in automobiles, for instance. The question arises as to why you drive around in an automobile. We use automobiles now, but what for? I would say that many of the uses of the automobile are what might still be termed human nature uses. If we cannot use the available power in this human nature world the way it should be used—righteously—then certainly we couldn’t be trusted with the larger power which is necessary to make possible the restoration of man. The restoration of man is not going to come because we can drive around in automobiles; it is not going to come because somebody invented television; it is not going to come because we can travel around in aircraft. It is going to come because the power which makes it possible, which isn’t the power in this little box but the power which is present in the substance of the universe, is allowed to work. When that is used righteously then the restoration can come; then the end can come. The end can’t come now because we can’t even use the power that is available to us rightly, let alone a vastly increased power. If we’re honest this is true, isn’t it?

One of the powers that we now use relates very particularly to that larger power, and that is the power of life in expression through our physical bodies and our minds and our emotional realms. This relates very particularly to the creative power of the spirit of God—this is the way it emerges. How is this used? I have emphasized the fact of the question that is being asked of us constantly as to whether we are willing to let it be used righteously or whether we are going to continue in our old habits; and a dividing line can be drawn rather specially by reason of this matter of thankfulness. Give thanks in and for all things. It is a matter of giving thanks in things, in whatever arises, but we can also give thanks for things. So everything, whatever it is, whatever the events are that come, come because of the movement of the spirit of God. So we are flooded with thankfulness. It doesn’t matter which way we turn, we are thankful.

We consequently experience an increasing connection with the creative working of the spirit of God, and we find that we use whatever is at hand, in the box where we live, righteously. When we do that, when we can be trusted with that, then maybe the lid can come off the box. But I doubt if the lid comes off the box all in one operation—that would blow most of us out, I would think. It is, even then, a more or less gradual process. But first of all we need to be trusted in the box, be trusted in the realm of structured human concept, so that we are not any longer using the power that is available to us to sustain the structures. And some of those structures I have pointed to, relating to growing old, for instance. Well everybody grows old! This is the inevitable thing; this always happens; it has happened in every generation. People grow old and they die—in the box. Maybe that is why people are put in boxes when they have completed the cycle. They were in the box all along! Let’s stop laying things on each other and laying things on ourselves, so that there may be a dissolution of the lid of the box a little bit.

Another attitude that is often taken, and it has a certain truth to it, is that no one can allow these things to happen alone, just for oneself: “Well I am going to be a person who never grows old”—this may be a dream that some people have—but it does involve all of us. It isn’t something that if changes are to occur can occur just for one person. It may be said that it occurred for Jesus, because that was the only way He could go, the only way He was allowed to go. He wasn’t allowed to include anyone else with Him. That has been done, but now it has to be done on a collective basis. So we can say, “Well of course now the way things are we’re all likely to get older and sicker and disintegrate some more, and this is going to happen.” But that is an argument, isn’t it, to support the wrong things, to maintain the box. Let’s not argue to maintain the box. And while we may, in a rational sense, see that it is a matter that is actually now a collective thing, let’s not excuse ourselves on the basis of the fact that we somehow must stay in the box, because it is only as we begin to emerge individually that we begin to emerge collectively. If we are still waiting for everybody else to do it, it will never be done. So, as I say, we stop laying things on ourselves and we stop laying things on other people. We let things begin to be freed up and we have no foregone conclusions with respect to anything. We’re going to let it work out the way the spirit of God will work it out, but we are concerned that we should be sufficiently connected up and therefore sufficiently resilient to let it work out easily and naturally in the fulfilment of the creative purposes of God, which requires the restoration to occur.

In order for the restoration to occur there is the necessity of the one who comes in the name of the Lord, the collective one who comes in the name of the Lord. There is the need for the focus of enlightenment on earth for this to happen. But that focus of enlightenment doesn’t insist upon all the human nature limitations—all things are possible with God. Perhaps we are beginning to see that this is a true statement and that we do not have to insist that everything must work according to the concepts of the human mind. Things do work this way in the box, but how would they work if we come out of it? Well we’d better find that out. The main requirement is to come out of it: “Come out of her, my people.” Let us let these structures dissolve because we take seriously what is needful to let them dissolve. One of the most important things is this matter of thanksgiving.

Be thankful in all things, for all things, that the connection may be reestablished, the lid of the box dissolved. The lid of the box is the veil. Then we may find that vast freedom that is available. It has always been available but not in the box, or only a very slight fraction is available in the box. “Give thanks unto the Lord, for he is good: for his mercy endureth forever. Let the redeemed of the Lord say so.” Let not those who think of themselves as in the process of being redeemed say all the things that support their failure to give thanks: “Oh I didn’t expect things to work out this way. How can I give thanks therefore?” Give thanks first and it will work out the way it should, and don’t try to lay your trip on it, and don’t imagine that because you see possibilities you know how it is going to work out. That is something that people are inclined to do, aren’t they? They see a possibility and, “Ah that’s it! Now I’ve got to make it work out that way.” And off they go on a tangent. Well it may be that way—on the other hand it may be over here. Let it prove itself out because we are willing to be proven out ourselves, that we have accepted what is needful for righteousness. The primary factor here, as we noted this morning and note again this evening, is thankfulness.

“O give thanks unto the Lord, for he is good”; for His mercy surely endureth as long as is necessary and possible for us. But let us be willing to say so. Somebody wrote that they had found it helpful to give expression in words to the spirit of thankfulness, not for the benefit of other people—perhaps other people wouldn’t be present at all; one was just speaking in one’s own secret place—but giving actual expression to words in this regard. That can be very helpful. It can bring something to focus in consciousness. So when something crops up and is not working the way you thought it would work, or the way you wanted it to work, don’t get carried away with that. You stop, you pause, and deliberately give thanks to the Lord. That is the first thing to do; that is the way you establish your first flush of feeling. It is not going to establish itself all on its own; you have something to do about it. You establish the right feeling deliberately for a while, and then it comes as second nature, as they say.

No matter what arises, you see the most important thing to do is to give thanks, not to try to figure out why this came up or why it isn’t working out some other way, whatever. That is all entirely secondary. You won’t be able to understand any of that until you have first given thanks and established the connection rightly. Then whatever is to work out is fine with you, praise the Lord!

© emissaries of divine light