By Russell A. Kemp – Guest Author
SUPPOSE YOU HAD gone all out for nearly five months, taking over a superior officer’s duties because of his illness, as well as doing your own rather demanding job, and handling both jobs well. Suppose no mention was made of any extra compensation. And then when your superior did return, he offhandedly proposed that since you had done so well while he was away, you should keep on doing his work as well as your own, under his supervision–and still no mention of any raise in pay! Just keep on knocking yourself out. How would you feel?
That is just the way I felt. My own normal day’s work kept me on my toes. But when the purchasing agent took sick and I was asked to take over his duties as well as my own, I really learned what it was to be under pressure. Interviewed daily by various salesmen, all eager to exploit my inexperience, I learned to spot good buys and avoid the others. This, in addition to my own regular whirl of decisions and close checking of details, made heavy demands upon me.
But I was proud of my youthful speed of thought and snap decisions. I loved the game of buying, of pitting my wits and judgment against the seller’s. I did well at it.
Still, under the continual bombardment of rush, stress, and overwork, I was getting weary. There were brief flashes when my tired brain refused to work, my mind would go blank, and I just had to wait for it to resume functioning.
Subconsciously I had assumed that I would be promoted or otherwise rewarded for my months of double work and no extra pay, my pride was hurt, my send of justice outraged. I quit. There was no protest on management’s part.
With the optimism of youth I expected to walk right into another job with one of the rival wholesalers. But they were curiously uninterested. After calling on all of them, I gave up and loafed around home.
I was not worried, but as days went by I began to think seriously about what I might do. Other members of my family were already studying metaphysical teachings. I had picked up a smattering of them. One principle I heard was that of a divinely right place of work for each person as a child of God. I was said that in the divine economy there is a right place of work for everyone, and all that was necessary was for one to claim his rightful place from God, in order to become employed.
On a pleasant August afternoon, in my second week after quitting, I was relaxing in my room, lying flat on my back on the bed. Idly I thought about this principle of right place. In a very relaxed way I thought, “If there is right place for everyone in Divine Mind, that includes me, and according this principle, I must have this right place and be in it now.”
Suddenly and quite spontaneously, something happened within me. I fan only describe it as a feeling that something had clicked into place, as it were. Everything was all right. I felt relieved and happy, full of energy. I phoned a friend who was also out of work and we went out to an amusement park.
Two more days passed without any change in my affairs. On the third day I returned home to find the office manager of my former employer waiting for me. One of the city salesmen had been found to be short in his collections. I was offered this man’s territory. I would have a car (my first), an increase in pay and even a small expense account. best of all, I would be out in the open air, on the move, meeting people, a glamorous salesman! I accepted.
How happy I was! I walked on air. My sales jumped by thousands of dollars over my predecessor’s. I had started on a long, long trail, which finally led to my being a territorial sales manager for a large company. This later led to my entering my real life-work, the Unity ministry.
I have never forgotten that inward “click,” which of course I later came to know as “spiritual realization.” I had proved a great spiritual law, the law of right place. I knew for myself that this principle worked. In the very face of unemployment, with seemingly no demand for my services, the spiritual law acted unerringly to find my right place–and with the very firm that owed me so much. I was vindicated. My face was saved. I went back to that firm with increased respect from everybody, and began a whole new life-style.
That was years ago, and times change. But spiritual principles never change. When I became a minister and moved to California, my niece’s husband was out of work. I wrote him a letter, trying to set down in the simplest style the principle of right place that had worked so well for me.
He must have followed have followed instructions because from that time on, although he changed jobs, he was never out of work for long. The master principle of right place worked for him too. It will work for you as well, because divine principle never changes, never loses its power. Conditions change, depressions go out of style and are called something else. Appearances may seem overwhelming. All those around you may be out of work and bewailing their unemployment.
But that need not govern you, provided you know about this principle of right place, and will start applying it in faith. All the knowledge you need of this master principle is spelled out for you in the following paragraphs. You simply start believing in it and applying it. Here is what I wrote to my nephew. It worked for him; it will work for you, too.
“Lift up your eyes, and look from the place where you are . . . for all the land which you see I will give you.”
If you want employment, that Bible verse is packed with power to help you. Stop endless dreary thinking about your present circumstances, and start thinking of the circumstances you want to be in. In other words, stop thinking of where you are; start thinking of where you want to go.
“Lift up your eyes” means to uplift your attention. Your faculty of attention is really your greatest accomplishing power. Mystics say it is the eye of your soul.
When we you brood over troubles and think exclusively of appearances, you have your attention grounded, so to speak. It is on the lowest possible level the level of effects, things that have already happened. You want your attention off of those things as they seem to be, and concentrated on things as you want them to be.
To lift up your attention is to get away from things as they are. You must think of a higher level than outward circumstances. Let us nail down the idea that God-power works creatively in and through your own mind, and start to use your mind in the correct way to gain employment. In other words, turn your thought to God.
How to Use Your Mind in Gaining Employment
- Resolve to think thoughts of value to yourself. Your mind is incessantly active. You are thinking every minute that you are conscious. Yet how much of your thinking is contributing to your getting a good job? Determine to employ your own thinking and make it profitable. This is a real job, and it will challenge your best efforts. In order to accomplish it, install some mental traffic lights: STOP thinking of being unemployed. START thinking of being profitably employed. You can do this. God has given you the power to do it. Say to yourself: God implanted in me the power to control my thinking, and I claim this power right now.
- You can have a good job with good pay. There is one designed just for you. No one else can fill it, for it belongs to you, to supply all your needs. Regardless of prevailing business conditions, you can have your very own job, now, if you use the valuable creative energy of your own thinking and feeling to think creatively, think constructively, think courageously, and think constantly of having your right job. In other words, you must first employ your own thinking power in order to have employment. If your thinking faculty is unemployed, whose fault is that?
- Remember that you were born with a job: the job of employing and directing the wondrous creative power of the inner man of you. This inner man is always employed in creating what you, the outer man, seem to be and to have. The only materials he can use are what you give him by your thinking. Therefore, if you will properly employ your own mind and its powers, you will soon be employed in the actual everyday world.
- Employ your wondrous faculty of good judgment in deciding what you really want to do and can do best. You need the prompting of your higher Self in order to know what kind of job or work you really want. You don’t want “any old kind of job.” You don’t want “anything as long as it is work.” Sometimes I have sat in the office of a woman who runs an employment agency, listening to people who came in seeking work. She ask each one: “What kind of work do you want? What can you do?” And so often the applicant answers, “Well, uh —anything”. If he says this, she always says: “No one can do any thing. Thousands of things you can’t do. What can you do?” So you will not make the mistake of wanting “anything.” You want the right thing. It is far easier to demand and get your right job than to wish vaguely for “anything.”
- Pray for guidance. To receive the guidance and inspiration you need, reason with yourself along these lines: “Divine Mind within me is a Mind full of intelligence and love. It loves me as Itself, and gives me the intelligence I need, all the time. In order to be helped by Divine Mind within me, I have to believe in It. I must take the mental attitude that I know what I need to know, and then expect to receive exactly the ideas or information I need.” Here is a powerful affirmative prayer: By the power and wisdom of Divine Mind I am now and always employed and I receive the best wages. I enjoy my work and am very happy in it. My work is appreciated by everyone. My ability is recognized and rewarded. I give and receive perfect cooperation in my work. Thank You, God, I am grateful!
- Employ your love nature by thinking of how you would love to have such a perfect job. Wouldn’t you love receiving those good wages? Feel that first paycheck in your hand. Think of getting up in the morning with a job to go to. It would be a pleasure to go to work, wouldn’t it? Mentally appreciate and take delight in the feeling of security that goes with your good job, the sense of having a recognized place and standing in your community. Anticipate the pleasure of having an orderly and well-balanced life in which work makes rest and recreation enjoyable, and worship expresses your thankfulness for all your blessings. In other words, don’t just wish or long for work; that is negative, and may intensify dissatisfaction. Employ the mighty power of love, and direct it into working for you to attract the fulfillment of your desire.
- Employ your imagination by picturing yourself working at what you would love to do, and can do best in service to others. Employ your willpower by believing that your prayer for employment is now fulfilled. Pray believing, as Jesus Christ told us to do. Give thanks to God as heartily as though the job you want is already yours in actual fact.
Do you see now that it is impossible to be out of a job, to have “nothing to do”? Because, until you get your job in the outer world, you already have the job of employing your own thinking in these various ways, in order to demonstrate outer employment. You are already employed at the job you were born with: the work of expressing the inner man, of givinghim the kind of thoughts and feeling he needs to give you need.
Truly the state of your outward affairs, such a work and finances, is only a reflection, an out-picturing of what you habitually think and feel within. The outer man is only the mirror of his own mind. Employ your mind properly and you will soon be employed in the usual sense of the word. This assertion is based upon a master principle, actually upon a law governing the transmission of a television broadcast.
So, “lift up your eyes,” just as a young woman, whom we’ll call Bobbie, did. She wanted to work, so she prayed for guidance and thought earnestly about what type of work would best suit her. It seemed that she should be an assistant to a dentist whose practice included many children, for Bobbie loved children.
She even decided upon her new employer. He was just working up a practice and beginning to get established. He had no assistant, but he needed one. Bobbie prepared for the job. She showed her faith by buying herself some nurse’s uniforms and shoes. Then she went to the this dentist and applied for a job as his assistant.
He said, “I need an assistant but I can’t pay much of a salary.” Bobbie said: “That’s all right. I’ll work for nothing if you want me to, because I’ll be learning.”
“When do you want to go to work?” he asked. “Right now, this minute,” she replied.
He answered, “Oh, but you can’t do that. You’ll have to get yourself a nurse’s uniform and white shoes.” She told him, “Oh, I brought those with me.” What could he say?
She went to work and loved it, because the dentist did a great deal of work with retarded children, and Bobbie like to work with them. Of course she was successful, having been guided by the same successful, unfailing Power that runs the universe. When she prayed and made up her mind, when she showed her faith and confidence by following her own inner promptings, the master principle of right place was activated, and she went to work.
Put your own mind to work, employ it properly by practicing these simple methods, and soon you will be employed in actual fact. This also applies if you have retired, but are not happy and long for something to do. The principle of right place where you will serve capably, receive bountifully, and contribute the most to those around you.
This master principle will work for anybody who really tries to follow it, because it is based not upon wishful thinking or “conning yourself,” but upon the law of believing prayer. Believing prayer sets into action a law as exact and infallible as the laws that govern the movement of the sun, moon, and stars. Just as they have never been known to fail to be in their right place, so you cannot fail to be in your right place, because you will be guided by the same incredibly successful “wisdom magic” and all-powerful goodness that rules the heavenly bodies and runs the universe. Remind yourself often: “I am working with this wonderful law of right place, and my success is certain. I am thank for my divinely right place now!”
Question helps
- What was the first principle that the author found in regard to employment?
- what are the “mental traffic lights” that we should install?
- How are we to first employ our thinking power in order to have employment?
- How do you receive guidance and inspiration?
- What other faculties should you stir up to find your right place?
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Provided as a service by Golden Key Ministry-Unity, Rev. John W. Adams, minister. – P.O. Box 30989, Phoenix, AZ 85046 USA. RevJohn@GoldenKeyMinistry.com
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