Every morning I read the daily entry from Sarah Ban Breathnach's devotional, "Simple Abundance". Today's entry touched a core in me. She wrote about the parable in the gospel about how Jesus, despite his disciples disbelief, fed the hungry crowd with only 2 fish and five loaves of bread. She used this example to speak further on abundance consciousness....or should I say...our lack of it.
Many of us, like the disciples, really need to work on our faith...our faith that life will provide what is needed and then some if only we believe that it will. We tend to focus on the discrepencies in status among us...we see that many have and many have not. I often wondered why some were inflicted with so much suffering...hunger...so to speak and others seem to have so much of the "good stuff". Circumstances and spiritual motives do differ from person to person but I am starting to believe how we react to those circumstances, determine whether or not we will be able to turn the limited amount we have into something that will feed our selves and others, with 12 baskets left over. It is simple belief in the abundance of our equal opportunity universe that will save us from our hunger. There is plenty for all.
The thing that holds us back from tapping into this plenty is our "we are limited" consciousness, our sense that unlike our wealthy neighbor , we are not quite worthy of such riches... or our belief that he is taking it all and leaving nothing for us...In truth, there is plenty for all. We just shut the door on that plenty with our negative thinking.
I do believe we can intend and manifest what we need from life..."ask and you shall receive." ...but we don't ask. It's like the child, wanting extra privileges saying to their friend. "No I didn't bother asking because I knew Mom would just say no. " So many of us believe that the universe will just say no to our requests so we don't even bother asking for what we want...we settle for living limited lives.
I have a daughter who just can not get the concept of "No" into her head. She will persistently ask for privileges that I definitely want to say no to because often even the notion of her request may seem absurd...but because of the way she asks, so convincing of how she deserves to have a certain thing or do a certain something that I find it extremely hard to refuse her. She actually sees herself in that situation she is asking permission to be in...despite the improbablility or challenge of it, she has it all worked out in her head. If it is a something she wants...she will lay out pictures of the items around the house as she continues to ask me and visualize herself using those things. You know what...she usually ends up with those things if not from me , coincidentally obtaining them in some other way. She truly believes all things are possible and lives in a limitless world. Abundance therefor comes to her.
I also have a son who "doesn't try hard" at things because he believes that he will not get what he wants, be as good as he wants or as good as his buddies. He asks for little and when he does ask he is usually very accepting of my "no"s...a little too accepting maybe. Unlike his sister, he limits his world of possibilities.
I mean I would really love it at times if my daughter were less persistent and I am thankful that my son does have a practical mind and accepts my refusals in some cases....but I also see how they could truly learn from each other.
Life is abundant and full, offering enough for everyone. We just need to believe that. We need to first recognize and appreciate what we do have. If there are times, however when it just doesn't feel like enough, we can reach out our hands to the universe and do as Oliver Twist did. We can say, "more please." Who knows, we just may just get an extra scoop of the that thing we are looking for.
