Naysayers

I'm not here to tell you what to believe.  I can only tell you what I know and what I have experienced.  I am emphatic about it, cause I know miracles exist and that belief and leap of faith work - without a doubt.

I've seen a lot of miracles in my life, and I have experienced two very dramatic "180-type turn around" miracles.  Miracles that had no reason to happen other than they were miracles.

First, what is a miracle - when I use the work I mean something completely out of the blue that is a turn for the positive or good.  If something bad happens it's not a miracle - at least to me - it's a challenge.

First Miracle:

My first miracle was when my mother was diagnosed with squamous carcinoma of her tongue.  She was told that she would undergo radiation (no chemo would help), and she would have surgery to remove the remaining tumor, which would leaver her drooling and difficulty eating (probably have to have nutrition through a tube) until she died - probably in 2 years. Mother came to the city where my sister and I lived to receive her radiation treatment and stayed with her mother, our grandmother.   My sister and I involved Mother in all manner of prayer circles, faith-based programs and techniques as well as a positive-visualization therapist and just doing all we could to make sure her life was saturated with positive input during her summer of radiation therapy.  About half-way through the summer, the radiologist announced to me after one of her treatments, "We're going to heal your mother!"  I looked back and him and told him I had no doubt of it, and he smiled knowingly that he knew the positive power that was circling her and knew she would survive.  Mother lived till she was 80 years old - well past the diagnosis of 2 years.

Second Miracle:

As a settlement in my divorce, I received my home and a shopping center.  The center lost ²/₃^rd of its tenants, and I lost ³/₄^ths of my income, 30 days after I received ownership of it. Fast forward 5 years, Wal-Mart puts an option on a piece of land on the other side of the small town of my center.  Walgreen's was in negotiations to locate in downtown of this small town - away from my shopping center.  Dec 23rd a friend called to tell me the Wal-Mart deal was a done deal - locating across the street from my center and that the location the Walgreens wanted happened to be a major optic-communication switching location and it would cost the owner millions to relocate - so no Walgreens on that location.  Within 30 days I had a contract to build a Walgreen's for the pad site in front of my center.  The following summer while building and a mess in front of my center, the tenants who were left were having increased sales.  One tenant wants to expand their space - another tenant cleans up their store and has a 30% increase in sales - the following summer I am in negotiations to fill the center.  My shopping center had no reason other than a miracle to have succeeded.  As a matter of fact, there was every reason to believe that nothing could help it, but my belief that the center was headed for good times and that the location was a prime location.  It is now succeeding which is followed by more success in the future.

Having experienced both of these miracles, I know what it takes to get there.  It takes almost an obsession with the belief that you can do this;  your dreams can be accomplished;  there is a good ending to all your dreams.  You can not divert from that belief.  You can not let the naysayers have their way.

So what happens when you meet the naysayers.

There are the people who tell you, "No, it was just a coincidence." or "Miracles don't just 'happen',"  or "Do you realize how stupid you look?"  Maybe, but in both my cases, there was no explaining away - both cases where headed in a devastatingly negative direction and had a 180° turn.  That doesn't just "happen" - something must and has to interfere to change that into an opposite direction.

There have always been the naysayers, the debunkers and the doubtful and there always will be.

This has been going on for ages....even in Jesus's time - the Jews, Gentiles and Romans, in the end, all debunked Christ - he wasn't king of anything - he was laughed at and rebuked...King of the Jews was his label at his cruxifiction - - little did they know.

The existential philosophers even thought themselves into the belief that as long as we exist, we "are", but as soon as we die, that's it.  Intellectualism lives and that's all that matters - exist now and when you die, you're gone.  Or even better - how about you believe, because if there is no God then you don't loose, but on the chance that there is a God you win....huh?  Yeah, that isn't really believing.

There is always going to be someone tell you that the Law of Attraction is a physical law, but it doesn't work in this case.  It doesn't "draw in" positive or good feelings.

There will always be someone to debunked or rebuke or tell you what a fool you are for believing that all you have to do is "believe"....ask, believe, receive....uh-huh?....according to them, this is just too simple and if it were really that easy we would all be on easy street.

How do they know so much?.....have they ever experienced a miracle?....why?....probably because they never had faith in anything other than the physical world.  How limiting a life philosophy is this.

This is a little like C. S. Lewis's remarks after quitting his writing of the Screwtape Letters.  The work became such a drain on his spirit, thinking and cajoling and machinating on the plots and characters of such wickedness that he stopped doing it.  This was C. S. Lewis's intellectual argument with nonbelievers in a very unique form.

You are certainly welcomed to believe what you want, and you are certainly welcomed to feel that this is a bunch of bunk.  You are cetainly welcomed to feel that it is too simple-minded.   It is a free country - you are always free to make a choice either way, but you will reap the rewards and suffer the consequences.

My personal history has been that it works - that's all I can tell you.  For someone else who doesn't believe or believes that this is a bunch of baloney, it probably doesn't work, and that's probably why it doesn't work.

I'm not trying to sell you on an idea.  There is no motive here but just to impart what I know has worked for me.

I marvel at the atheist.  How do they get through tough times?...because there are always tough times.  How do they survive w/o doing themselves in?  How can they risk achieving something better and wider in scope w/o being eaten by the inherent fear always a part of these endeavors?

They can't.  Most of the atheist and pragmatists I know live very monolithically;  very two-dimensionally, when in reality there possibly could be more dimensions than 4 (time is considered the 4th dimension).  But they are there and they make their choice like any of the rest of us, it's just important to really look at their words and their results and then you too can make your own choice.

C.S. Lewis is a great read for the intellectual argument that religion is tired;  it doesn't apply;  that belief is a bunch of hogwash and folly;  more infamously put: that religion is the opiate of the masses.  Here's a collection of his more popular books, and I like listening to books, so here's a list of them on iTunes.  They are remarkably intense, logically presented, with an intellectual tone that addresses the argument far better than I can.

I do know that belief works.  I know that "do you believe" is mentioned over and over again in the four gospels.  I know that it requires a leap of faith, and it requires a strong faith.  I also know that most successful people have all had their deeply dark moments and that pulling themselves out of those moments causes them to be a greater person than they ever thought possible.  It also causes them to be inspiration to the rest of us while we are pulling ourselves out of our own dark moments.  That's what they are there for and they would want us to use them for inspiration.

So for the naysayers out there.  Go ahead and poo-poo our little belief system here.  That's fine.  For those who don't want to participate, they can change the channel - or change to another blog.  For those of us who want to become something more than we thought we could;  who want to make a better contribution to our community and world; who want to accomplish great things;  who have dreams beyond their station and expectations - here is a system that works.  It's worked through the ages.

Now you don't have to become the greatest person of the universe tomorrow - fortunately you can do it in little steps....but you do have to

Ask,

Believe,

Receive