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Accepting God's Greatest Gift
<STYLE TYPE="text/css"> <!-- h2.bwtitle {color: #4488FF; font-family: "times new roman", arial, verdana; font-size: 30pt; font-weight: 600; line-height: 80%;} .thinking {font-family: verdana, arial; font-style: italic; color: #532525; font-size: 11pt;} LI.bw {margin-bottom: 7px; color: #000000;} .iborder1 {border-style: inset; border-color: #E1E1E1; border-width: 3px; margin-left: 10px; margin-right: 10px; margin-top: 5px; margin-bottom: 5px;} --> </STYLE> <DIV ALIGN=CENTER> <h2 class="bwtitle">Accepting God's Greatest Gift</H2> through <A HREF="#author">David Nelmes</A><BR> (11/20/2004) </DIV> <P>Depending upon the season or special occasion, we will often buy or create gifts to give to those individuals in this world that are important to us. Depending upon who a person is and how close we are to them, our gifts will often vary from "<I>all we have</I>" to "<I>a polite smile</I>". This "<I>forced</I>" moment of having to give that is manifest by holidays and special occasions, is a great reminder of how we should be every moment of every day, but it often comes at the price of creating a sense of bondage, entrapment and loss since our hearts are not generally capable of giving equally and unconditionally to all...or even wanting to give or receive at all.</P> <P>In God's eyes, all things that he has given us are equal. There is no single special person. There is no single special place. There is no single special item. We might see things this way, but God is spirit and his thinking is not contaminated by the way our eyes see.</P> <P>The moment you make something special, you have put another god before God. This item, person, place or thing you consider special, puts your mind in a place where you are not thinking like God and therefore it's harder for you to hear him and be the best you can be.</P> <P>There is not a single one of us that doesn't have somebody or something "<I>Special</I>" in our lives. Actually, most of our lives are filled with special people going special places, doing special things. This was, is and continues to be how religion and society teaches us to live, and we do it very well.</P> <P>God, on the other hand, sees no single thing or person as special. He isn't that limited. He isn't that confined and narrow minded. To him, everyone and everything is equally special on a level so high, we can not even begin to grasp the wonderfulness of how he really sees us. There is a bright light beyond all light we can imagine, deep within the center of all of us. This light is the essence of who we really are. This light is really the only thing that God sees because it's the only thing in this world that is eternal and nothing that is not eternal really exists.</P> <P>When you make a single thing special, all you are really doing is opening the door for frustration, anger, jealousy, hate and murder. Our narrow perspective of specialness usually puts us in the position where we are much worse off after having "<I>Lost</I>" the special person, place or thing. So then, if making something special often leads us down a road of disappointment eventually...why have we always done this?</P> <P>In our own distorted and lopsided way, we are trying to do what we believe is the best thing. We know things should be cared for and loved, but most of us can't capture enough of that energy to apply it to many things, so we select a few things and we practice being god or being treated as a god. As weird as this might sound, it's not as bad of a thing as you might suspect. It is exceedingly better for us to try to see the wonderfulness or specialness in a few things as compared to not seeing anything worth loving at all.</P> <P>Our attempts to make single things special are really just practice periods working towards accepting that <B>all things have value</B>. We often abuse or misapply our specialness on people, places and things, but God understands that this is part of the step we must take to get back to him. If we never practice loving, even in a narrow way, how can we ever hope to do it at all? God works with us and does not condemn us for our narrow and often self-centered perspectives. He uses every moment of all our lives to help us see differently and to see all things more equally....to see all things as special...valuable...wonderful...loving.</P> <P>Accepting Gods greatest gift is to accept the Son of God. The Son of God, although wonderfully personified through Jesus, is not just composed of Jesus. We are all part of the Son of God and we are all special. We are all no more or no less special than Jesus. God's love and admiration is equal. Jesus taught us this when he explained that Gods love wasn't restricted to the Jews as had been taught for centuries, but that his love is equal for all...and Jesus was not an exception of this truth, but a deliverer of this truth.</P> <P>Jesus didn't set himself above any man...we did that for him. We decided he was special and in doing so, we decided we were not as good as him...and that is not what he taught us. Jesus taught that we are all wonderful, blessed and special to God. Anything that Jesus said of himself, you too can say because you are also the Son of God. You can say "The Father and I are one", because you are a part of God and you cannot exist without him. You can say, "I am the way, the truth and the light.", because we all have this light and we all have the capacity to teach and help open the hearts and minds of the world around us.</P> <P>Accept that you are the light and you will have accepted God's greatest gift. Accept that we are all equal in God's eyes and you will have accepted God's greatest gift. Accept total forgiveness for yourself and for all those around you and you will have accepted God's greatest gift.</P> <P>God's greatest gift is that he created us as one with him. We are not separate, but all joined as one. Not one of us is special, because we are all equally special and loved and adored and blessed. We are also all equally missed by God in that we are not in full communication with him anymore, so he is looking forward to the moment when we all return again...and then we will know, without question, that we are one with him and we will remember all the love that is equally shared and we will see nothing as being lesser or greater than ourselves. The greatest gift is that we are one.</P> <P>Have a wonderful Christmas season. If you give, give from the heart. Give unconditionally. Unconditional means, "<I>Without Conditions</I>". That means it doesn't matter what somebody got you. That means it doesn't matter if the person thanks you or appreciates your gift. That means it doesn't matter what the person does with what you gave them. This is how God gives...unconditionally. If you think you have nothing to give, give the only things that really matter and the only things that God can see anyway...your love and your forgiveness. Nothing else matters. Nothing else is real. All my blessings.</P> <BR CLEAR=ALL> <HR SIZE=1 COLOR="#3E1300"> <P><I><A NAME="author"><IMG SRC="http://www.beingwilling.com/articles/graphics/david_nelmes.jpg" WIDTH=79 HEIGHT=100 alt="David Nelmes" BORDER=0 ALIGN=LEFT HSPACE=10 STYLE="border-style: inset; border-color: #DDDDDD; border-width: 2px;"></A> <B>David Nelmes</B> - David considers it a wonderful blessing that his insight and writings can provide opportunities for those around him to see things from perspectives they had not considered before. He pursues Gods truths and is open and willing to see what God would have him see. He invites you to join him.</I></P> <P><I>His influences consist of truly being open to seeing and applying the truths he has discovered through life and through both the "<a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/redirect.html?ie=UTF8&location=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.amazon.com%2Fexec%2Fobidos%2Ftg%2Fbrowse%2F-%2F10405901%2Fsr%3D53-1%2Fsr%3D53-1%2Fqid%3D1181498397&tag=beinwill-20&linkCode=ur2&camp=1789&creative=9325">Bible</a><img src="http://www.assoc-amazon.com/e/ir?t=beinwill-20&l=ur2&o=1" width="1" height="1" border="0" alt="" style="border:none !important; margin:0px !important;" />" and "<a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/redirect.html?ie=UTF8&location=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.amazon.com%2FCourse-Miracles-Foundation-Inner-Peace%2Fdp%2F0670869759%3Fie%3DUTF8%26s%3Dbooks%26qid%3D1181498802%26sr%3D1-1&tag=beinwill-20&linkCode=ur2&camp=1789&creative=9325">A Course in Miracles</a><img src="http://www.assoc-amazon.com/e/ir?t=beinwill-20&l=ur2&o=1" width="1" height="1" border="0" alt="" style="border:none !important; margin:0px !important;" />".<BR> You can visit David's website at: <A HREF="http://www.beingwilling.com" TARGET="_blank">http://www.BeingWilling.com</A></I></P> <P>This article Copyright ©2004 David Nelmes - Reproduced with Permission.</P> Highlight & Copy Html Version	ACCEPTING GOD'S GREATEST GIFT through David Nelmes (11/20/2004) Depending upon the season or special occasion, we will often buy or create gifts to give to those individuals in this world that are important to us. Depending upon who a person is and how close we are to them, our gifts will often vary from "all we have" to "a polite smile". This "forced" moment of having to give that is manifest by holidays and special occasions, is a great reminder of how we should be every moment of every day, but it often comes at the price of creating a sense of bondage, entrapment and loss since our hearts are not generally capable of giving equally and unconditionally to all...or even wanting to give or receive at all. In God's eyes, all things that he has given us are equal. There is no single special person. There is no single special place. There is no single special item. We might see things this way, but God is spirit and his thinking is not contaminated by the way our eyes see. The moment you make something special, you have put another god before God. This item, person, place or thing you consider special, puts your mind in a place where you are not thinking like God and therefore it's harder for you to hear him and be the best you can be. There is not a single one of us that doesn't have somebody or something "Special" in our lives. Actually, most of our lives are filled with special people going special places, doing special things. This was, is and continues to be how religion and society teaches us to live, and we do it very well. God, on the other hand, sees no single thing or person as special. He isn't that limited. He isn't that confined and narrow minded. To him, everyone and everything is equally special on a level so high, we can not even begin to grasp the wonderfulness of how he really sees us. There is a bright light beyond all light we can imagine, deep within the center of all of us. This light is the essence of who we really are. This light is really the only thing that God sees because it's the only thing in this world that is eternal and nothing that is not eternal really exists. When you make a single thing special, all you are really doing is opening the door for frustration, anger, jealousy, hate and murder. Our narrow perspective of specialness usually puts us in the position where we are much worse off after having "Lost" the special person, place or thing. So then, if making something special often leads us down a road of disappointment eventually...why have we always done this? In our own distorted and lopsided way, we are trying to do what we believe is the best thing. We know things should be cared for and loved, but most of us can't capture enough of that energy to apply it to many things, so we select a few things and we practice being god or being treated as a god. As weird as this might sound, it's not as bad of a thing as you might suspect. It is exceedingly better for us to try to see the wonderfulness or specialness in a few things as compared to not seeing anything worth loving at all. Our attempts to make single things special are really just practice periods working towards accepting that all things have value. We often abuse or misapply our specialness on people, places and things, but God understands that this is part of the step we must take to get back to him. If we never practice loving, even in a narrow way, how can we ever hope to do it at all? God works with us and does not condemn us for our narrow and often self-centered perspectives. He uses every moment of all our lives to help us see differently and to see all things more equally....to see all things as special...valuable...wonderful...loving. Accepting Gods greatest gift is to accept the Son of God. The Son of God, although wonderfully personified through Jesus, is not just composed of Jesus. We are all part of the Son of God and we are all special. We are all no more or no less special than Jesus. God's love and admiration is equal. Jesus taught us this when he explained that Gods love wasn't restricted to the Jews as had been taught for centuries, but that his love is equal for all...and Jesus was not an exception of this truth, but a deliverer of this truth. Jesus didn't set himself above any man...we did that for him. We decided he was special and in doing so, we decided we were not as good as him...and that is not what he taught us. Jesus taught that we are all wonderful, blessed and special to God. Anything that Jesus said of himself, you too can say because you are also the Son of God. You can say "The Father and I are one", because you are a part of God and you cannot exist without him. You can say, "I am the way, the truth and the light.", because we all have this light and we all have the capacity to teach and help open the hearts and minds of the world around us. Accept that you are the light and you will have accepted God's greatest gift. Accept that we are all equal in God's eyes and you will have accepted God's greatest gift. Accept total forgiveness for yourself and for all those around you and you will have accepted God's greatest gift. God's greatest gift is that he created us as one with him. We are not separate, but all joined as one. Not one of us is special, because we are all equally special and loved and adored and blessed. We are also all equally missed by God in that we are not in full communication with him anymore, so he is looking forward to the moment when we all return again...and then we will know, without question, that we are one with him and we will remember all the love that is equally shared and we will see nothing as being lesser or greater than ourselves. The greatest gift is that we are one. Have a wonderful Christmas season. If you give, give from the heart. Give unconditionally. Unconditional means, "Without Conditions". That means it doesn't matter what somebody got you. That means it doesn't matter if the person thanks you or appreciates your gift. That means it doesn't matter what the person does with what you gave them. This is how God gives...unconditionally. If you think you have nothing to give, give the only things that really matter and the only things that God can see anyway...your love and your forgiveness. Nothing else matters. Nothing else is real. All my blessings. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- David Nelmes - David considers it a wonderful blessing that his insight and writings can provide opportunities for those around him to see things from perspectives they had not considered before. He pursues Gods truths and is open and willing to see what God would have him see. He invites you to join him. His influences consist of truly being open to seeing and applying the truths he has discovered through life and through both "The Bible" and "A Course In Miracles". You can visit David's website at: http://www.BeingWilling.com This article Copyright ©2004 David Nelmes - Reproduced with Permission. Highlight & Copy Text Version

What Is The Point?
<STYLE TYPE="text/css"> <!-- h2.bwtitle {color: #4488FF; font-family: "times new roman", arial, verdana; font-size: 30pt; font-weight: 600; line-height: 80%;} .thinking {font-family: verdana, arial; font-style: italic; color: #532525; font-size: 11pt;} LI.bw {margin-bottom: 7px; color: #000000;} .iborder1 {border-style: inset; border-color: #E1E1E1; border-width: 3px; margin-left: 10px; margin-right: 10px; margin-top: 5px; margin-bottom: 5px;} --> </STYLE> <DIV ALIGN=CENTER> <h2 class="bwtitle">What Is The Point?</H2> through <A HREF="#author">David Nelmes</A><BR> (9/09/2004) </DIV> <P>What is the point?</P> <P>Every day has the capacity to bring on a whole new world of peace and miracles...but often never seems to. Every day has the ability to be brand-new, totally forgiven from the day before and a wonderful new choice of walking forward where you never walked before...if only it would.</P> <P>What is there to prevent you from deducing that the whole concept of spirituality is just a hoax to make you believe in false peace and false hope?</P> <P>Because all things work together for good...and not just for those who love the Lord. God does not have favorites. All things work together for good.</P> <P>God does not bring about those things we consider bad, but when we have opened ourselves for such things to occur, he is already there with a solution to heal the problem you have allowed to arise. God takes advantage of every situation we create, to provide a pathway back to healing and him.</P> <P>A favorite modern parable I like is the one where a man is stranded on an island for a very long time. After doing all he could do to attract help, nothing worked. He prayed, he cried, he begged...and nothing seemed to make any difference.</P> <P>One day while out looking for food, he saw smoke in the direction of a makeshift hut he had built. As he arrived back at his "<I>home</I>", the entire structure was ablaze, along with all the tools and devices he had made to help sustain himself. His heart just dropped. There was no crying, there was no sobbing...there was just nothing.</P> <P>As he tried to sleep that night without his shelter, he could see no future and even contemplated ending the life that has brought such misery to him. His thoughts were awash with conflict..."<I>What is the point? I tried so hard to be spiritual and peaceful...what is the point when the world just proves to you that you have been a fool and wasted your time. Not only have I wasted my time, but my belief that God would help me has allowed me ignore the world around me and now things are even worse than they would have been, had I not believed.</I>"</P> <P>The morning came with a strange and almost feverish dream of clanging and distant echoes and a whir that repeated itself in an almost tormenting fashion. Quickly, his eyes open as it dawns on him that the noises are outside his dream. His first gaze lands upon his hut, still smoldering...but then he sees the most wonderful thing ever to be in all the world...a hand. This hand reaches down to him and a voice says smoothly, but with authority, "<I>Don't be afraid...I'm here to help you. Everything is fine now. You're going home.</I>"</P> <P>As it turns out, a passing ship saw the smoke from the burning hut and came in closer to see what it's cause might be. The reality is that God does not do good or bad things for us...he helps bring about what is best for us. We can judge things to be terrible or bad, but God can and will work with it so that all things work together for good.</P> <P>A perfectly spiritual response to the burning hut would have been an awareness that this will lead somewhere...that something good can and will come from it...to actually be thankful in the knowledge that God is not unaware of your situation. It's when things appear the darkest is when it's more evident that opportunities and choices are being set at your feet by God. We bring about the circumstances that enable the dark moments, but it is within these moments that we generally truly open up to being helped and it's in these moments that we often see and accept an answer that God has provided.</P> <P>God's answers are always there and it's not necessary for him to allow things to get traumatic for us to learn and accept things, but often, trauma and conflict is the only thing that we initially accept. When the weight and misery of what we have taken on gets so unbearable, many of us finally turn to God and open up to receive from him the answer that was always available and just sitting there for us...waiting for us to be open to receive it.</P> <P>The lesson or concept to embrace is that it's not necessary for things to get to a terrible place before you accept the answers that God has already provided. You can just choose to be open and choose to see that the circumstances in your life, no matter how good or bad they might appear to you, can all lead to a greater good...somehow...someway. It doesn't matter if you can fathom it or not. Actually, you have to accept that you can't fathom it. By accepting only as far as you can fathom, you are restricting God who can fathom far beyond anything we can imagine.</P> <P>You are not alone. God is not unaware of your needs...real or just perceived. God sent the Holy Spirit to work in your life so that your life will improve and be healed. It is the purpose of the Holy Spirit to do everything and anything that will draw you towards the light, so be thankful for everything and you will then see the God in your situation and you will experience and receive the healing it provides.</P> <BR CLEAR=ALL> <HR SIZE=1 COLOR="#3E1300"> <P><I><A NAME="author"><IMG SRC="http://www.beingwilling.com/articles/graphics/david_nelmes.jpg" WIDTH=79 HEIGHT=100 alt="David Nelmes" BORDER=0 ALIGN=LEFT HSPACE=10 STYLE="border-style: inset; border-color: #DDDDDD; border-width: 2px;"></A> <B>David Nelmes</B> - David considers it a wonderful blessing that his insight and writings can provide opportunities for those around him to see things from perspectives they had not considered before. He pursues Gods truths and is open and willing to see what God would have him see. He invites you to join him.</I></P> <P><I>His influences consist of truly being open to seeing and applying the truths he has discovered through life and through both the "<a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/redirect.html?ie=UTF8&location=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.amazon.com%2Fexec%2Fobidos%2Ftg%2Fbrowse%2F-%2F10405901%2Fsr%3D53-1%2Fsr%3D53-1%2Fqid%3D1181498397&tag=beinwill-20&linkCode=ur2&camp=1789&creative=9325">Bible</a><img src="http://www.assoc-amazon.com/e/ir?t=beinwill-20&l=ur2&o=1" width="1" height="1" border="0" alt="" style="border:none !important; margin:0px !important;" />" and "<a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/redirect.html?ie=UTF8&location=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.amazon.com%2FCourse-Miracles-Foundation-Inner-Peace%2Fdp%2F0670869759%3Fie%3DUTF8%26s%3Dbooks%26qid%3D1181498802%26sr%3D1-1&tag=beinwill-20&linkCode=ur2&camp=1789&creative=9325">A Course in Miracles</a><img src="http://www.assoc-amazon.com/e/ir?t=beinwill-20&l=ur2&o=1" width="1" height="1" border="0" alt="" style="border:none !important; margin:0px !important;" />".<BR> You can visit David's website at: <A HREF="http://www.beingwilling.com" TARGET="_blank">http://www.BeingWilling.com</A></I></P> <P>This article Copyright ©2004 David Nelmes - Reproduced with Permission.</P> Highlight & Copy Html Version	WHAT IS THE POINT? through David Nelmes (9/09/2004) What is the point? Every day has the capacity to bring on a whole new world of peace and miracles...but often never seems to. Every day has the ability to be brand-new, totally forgiven from the day before and a wonderful new choice of walking forward where you never walked before...if only it would. What is there to prevent you from deducing that the whole concept of spirituality is just a hoax to make you believe in false peace and false hope? Because all things work together for good...and not just for those who love the Lord. God does not have favorites. All things work together for good. God does not bring about those things we consider bad, but when we have opened ourselves for such things to occur, he is already there with a solution to heal the problem you have allowed to arise. God takes advantage of every situation we create, to provide a pathway back to healing and him. A favorite modern parable I like is the one where a man is stranded on an island for a very long time. After doing all he could do to attract help, nothing worked. He prayed, he cried, he begged...and nothing seemed to make any difference. One day while out looking for food, he saw smoke in the direction of a makeshift hut he had built. As he arrived back at his "home", the entire structure was ablaze, along with all the tools and devices he had made to help sustain himself. His heart just dropped. There was no crying, there was no sobbing...there was just nothing. As he tried to sleep that night without his shelter, he could see no future and even contemplated ending the life that has brought such misery to him. His thoughts were awash with conflict..."What is the point? I tried so hard to be spiritual and peaceful...what is the point when the world just proves to you that you have been a fool and wasted your time. Not only have I wasted my time, but my belief that God would help me has allowed me ignore the world around me and now things are even worse than they would have been, had I not believed." The morning came with a strange and almost feverish dream of clanging and distant echoes and a whir that repeated itself in an almost tormenting fashion. Quickly, his eyes open as it dawns on him that the noises are outside his dream. His first gaze lands upon his hut, still smoldering...but then he sees the most wonderful thing ever to be in all the world...a hand. This hand reaches down to him and a voice says smoothly, but with authority, "Don't be afraid...I'm here to help you. Everything is fine now. You're going home." As it turns out, a passing ship saw the smoke from the burning hut and came in closer to see what it's cause might be. The reality is that God does not do good or bad things for us...he helps bring about what is best for us. We can judge things to be terrible or bad, but God can and will work with it so that all things work together for good. A perfectly spiritual response to the hut burning would have been an awareness that this will lead somewhere...that something good can and will come from it...to actually be thankful in the knowledge that god is not unaware of your situation. It's when things appear the darkest is when it's more evident that opportunities and choices are being set at your feet by God. We bring about the circumstances that enable the dark moments, but it is within these moments that we generally truly open up to being helped and it's in these moments that we often see and accept an answer that God has provided. God's answers are always there and it's not necessary for him to allow things to get traumatic for us to learn and accept things, but often, trauma and conflict is the only thing that we initially accept. When the weight and misery of what we have taken on gets so unbearable, many of us finally turn to God and open up to receive from him the answer that was always available and just sitting there for us...waiting for us to be open to receive it. The lesson or concept to embrace is that it's not necessary for things to get to a terrible place before you accept the answers that God has already provided. You can just choose to be open and choose to see that the circumstances in your life, no matter how good or bad they might appear to you, can all lead to a greater good...somehow...someway. It doesn't matter if you can fathom it or not. Actually, you have to accept that you can't fathom it. By accepting only as far as you can fathom, you are restricting God who can fathom far beyond anything we can imagine. You are not alone. God is not unaware of your needs...real or just perceived. God sent the Holy Spirit to work in your life so that your life will improve and be healed. It is the purpose of the Holy Spirit to do everything and anything that will draw you towards the light, so be thankful for everything and you will then see the God in your situation and you will experience and receive the healing it provides. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- David Nelmes - David considers it a wonderful blessing that his insight and writings can provide opportunities for those around him to see things from perspectives they had not considered before. He pursues Gods truths and is open and willing to see what God would have him see. He invites you to join him. His influences consist of truly being open to seeing and applying the truths he has discovered through life and through both "The Bible" and "A Course In Miracles". You can visit David's website at: http://www.BeingWilling.com This article Copyright ©2004 David Nelmes - Reproduced with Permission. Highlight & Copy Text Version

Holding Onto Your Peace
<STYLE TYPE="text/css"> <!-- h2.bwtitle {color: #4488FF; font-family: "times new roman", arial, verdana; font-size: 30pt; font-weight: 600; line-height: 80%;} .thinking {font-family: verdana, arial; font-style: italic; color: #532525; font-size: 11pt;} LI.bw {margin-bottom: 7px; color: #000000;} .iborder1 {border-style: inset; border-color: #E1E1E1; border-width: 3px; margin-left: 10px; margin-right: 10px; margin-top: 5px; margin-bottom: 5px;} --> </STYLE> <DIV ALIGN=CENTER> <h2 class="bwtitle">Holding Onto Your Peace</H2> through <A HREF="#author">David Nelmes</A><BR> (5/20/2004) </DIV> <P>Perfect love casts out all fear. Love and peace are one in the same in that one cannot exist without the other and one is always the product of the other. Peace and love abolish fear and their presence makes all things possible.</P> <P>Fear is the anti-belief that something good can arise from your situation. Fear is the stumbling block that makes you so sure your world is one of torment that you don't see the good that is there for you. If fear is in your heart, you can only communicate to others through fear and then fear is likely to be the only thing returned to you.</P> <P>The fears in our lives are often so deeply rooted that we will go to such extremes to hold onto them, even though these same things are destroying our lives. By identifying yourself as a tough person, by acknowledging and embracing that you are a sickly person, and by denying there are things in your life to improve, you are embracing fears and accepting their effects as who you are. Fear, being the result of darkness or lack of light, is terrified of the truth because it knows that truth will simply make it vanish. When the light is turned on in a darkened room, the darkness doesn't leave...it ceases to exist.</P> <P>If you identify yourself with these darker thoughts, you will find yourself not wanting to hear the truth because it tears at the core of who you think you are and creates a misperception that you will lose yourself if you open yourself to the truth. The reality is that you are not what the fear has taught you that you are and there is nothing to lose, only your freedom to gain. Fear strangles and limits. Truth caresses and grows.</P> <P><B>Anything that teaches through fear or uses fear in any way, is not from God</B>. This truth is so simple, yet it unhinges most of what we have been taught. Any religion you pursue, any teaching you listen to and any concepts or ideas you hear can be looked upon with that truth. If something does not agree with this truth, it is in error in some way. It's best for you to know that God does not teach nor command through fear, sacrifice, temptation and suffering. The concept of an actual loving and peaceful God nullifies much of what was written about the judgmental, paranoid, vengeful and ill tempered God of the Bible and many other books. Knowing the truth that God is an actual loving and peaceful being, helps you to more easily identify and focus on those few things that are truthfully written about him.</P> <P>Peace is the absence of fear. Fear cannot motivate you to find peace. When you find yourself working hard to find peace, you can get blinded to the fact that its your own busyness and efforts that ensure you won't find it. Peace is the total lack of any effort or work because it is always there and has never left. Peace is pure tranquility, stillness, gentleness and quietness and is the total absence of work, tiredness and effort. If you are working or using effort to find peace, you are ensuring you never will because peace is the total opposite of the work and effort you are using to find it. By learning to stop and by learning to set aside the man-made concepts of working to reach peace, you will learn and see that peace exists as it always has existed and it is patiently waiting for you to stop and just allow it to enter your way of life.</P> <P>Peace and love is the final result of our journey back to God. There is not one among us who will not achieve this. There is not one person you know or have heard about that will not eventually return to God after having allowed the light to enter and having dispelled all fear. Total forgiveness is the result of removing fear. Unconditional love is the result of removing all fear. Total knowledge and awareness of God is the result of removing all fear.</P> <P>Discovering your peace is a wonderful thing. It's a holy thing and a treasured thing because it is really the only state of being that God acknowledges that truly exists. Holding onto your peace is often an entirely other thing. Often we let the slightest change in our environment or the smallest of words, totally obscure peace from our lives. Many of us can testify to having had the most wonderful day, morning or moment and then see all our peace and contentment disappear the moment we allow something in the world to affect us.</P> <P>No effort is necessary in finding peace or holding onto peace, because peace is always patiently waiting there for us. On the other hand, consistent and sincere effort is necessary in handing over all the thoughts and ideas that we allow to obscure our peace. You worked hard to build these obstacles to peace and so there may be some effort in removing them. As with God and love, peace never leaves, we just put things in its way. After obscuring our peace, we say it has left us, but it hasn't...we have simply obscured it. Eliminate the unpeaceful thoughts and peace is right there where it always has been.</P> <P>Let's follow some of my thoughts and see how this works. I will walk you through a moment where I perceived a problem in my life. My thoughts are <SPAN CLASS="thinking">shown like this</SPAN>:</P> <P CLASS="thinking">I have become upset about the way somebody has treated me. In doing so, I no longer feel at peace.</P> <P>When I realize I am no longer at peace, I remind myself about many of the truths I have discovered. Some things I often remember are:</P> <UL> <li class="bw"><SPAN CLASS="thinking"> Nothing outside myself can affect me.</SPAN> <UL> <li class="bw"> If I think the problem is outside myself, I will never look within myself and it is only within myself that any problem can ever be resolved. Thinking the problem is with something else or somebody else, guarantees you will never find the answer, because it's not out there to find. </UL> <li class="bw"><SPAN CLASS="thinking"> There must be something I am fearful of if I am upset.</SPAN> <UL> <li class="bw"> Fear takes on many forms, but the easiest definition is that anything that is not based upon love, is based upon fear. Often fear is the result of the feeling that you are losing something such as control or possessions. </UL> <li class="bw"><SPAN CLASS="thinking"> I am never upset for the reason that I think.</SPAN> <UL> <li class="bw"> We often think we know why we are upset, but that is not so. Our upsetment has to do with what we believe things mean and not with what actually occurred. We can change our mind about what we believe things mean and therefore end our upsetment. </UL> <li class="bw"><SPAN CLASS="thinking"> I would rather be at peace.</SPAN> <UL> <li class="bw"> Knowing this and remembering this helps in finding and releasing anything that might stand in the way of restoring peace. </UL> </UL> <P>The first thing to do is to hand over all non-peaceful thoughts to the Holy Spirit so that he can judge them, refine them and then either dispel them because they are simply not real or return them to you as they really should be.</P> <P CLASS="thinking">This thought that I am somehow losing something, I place in your hands to correct.</P> <P CLASS="thinking">This thought that others are inconsiderate, I place in your hands to correct.</P> <P CLASS="thinking">This thought that the situation will never be resolved, I place in your hands to correct.</P> <P CLASS="thinking">This thought that the world is against me, I place in your hands to correct.</P> <P CLASS="thinking">This thought that he will never be healed, I place in your hands to correct.</P> <P>A key focus on really getting past many issues that return, time and time again is to see and understand that you are often holding on very tightly to what our society and religion has declared as <I><B>Our Rights</B></I>. Your <I>right</I> To Be Angry, will distance you from God, as will your <I>right</I> to not forgive...your <I>right</I> for vengeance, your <I>right</I> to be upset, your <I>right</I> to hold somebody else responsible, your <I>right</I> for man-made justice, your <I>right</I> to hold onto your man-made rights, etc. etc., etc.</P> <P>As long as you hold onto these dark rights, you can never truly forgive...you can never truly get past an event and you can never truly be at peace. It can appear difficult to give up your right to hate somebody that has done something to you or to a loved one, but it is one of the most important steps you will have taken to breaking the cycle of events that occur over and over again in your life. You don't have to like what a person did or is still doing, but you can learn to separate the person from the actions they are doing and know they are not one in the same.</P> <P CLASS="thinking">I give up my right to be upset at her.</P> <P CLASS="thinking">I give up my right to not forgive him.</P> <P CLASS="thinking">I give up my right to thinking they should suffer for what they have done.</P> <P>Say it...mean it and know that the Holy Spirit hears it, has been waiting for it and will heal your mind about it. The bottom line is that as long as you desire to hold onto these dark rights, you are also choosing, planning and accepting the situations that occur so that you can practice and languish in that dark right.</P> <P>There is nothing you can do to heal the way you think and feel, other than to be willing to let your mind be healed. You can't fix it by yourself. If we did know how to fix our own perceptions, we wouldn't be in the situation in the world that we are. By being willing to change, you are opening the door for the Holy Spirit to remove the blocks and obstacles you have set in place between yourself and the light. By choosing peace, you are allowing God to heal your perception of this world.</P> <P CLASS="thinking">I choose to see things clearly.</P> <P CLASS="thinking">I choose to see things differently.</P> <P CLASS="thinking">I am willing and open to hear and see the truth.</P> <P>The healing of your mind happens. The extent of your faith may limit this, but there is no way to prevent it. It is what God wants for you. For every microsecond that you are truly open to being healed, God is there, healing your mind, opening your mind and patiently waiting for the moment he is allowed in again. You might not see it or hear it as is occurs, but later that day, later that week, you will notice you are reacting differently to that situation that bothered you so much before. You will find that you see people differently than you did before. You will experience the realization that your healing occurred... not as a loud fiery boom in the sky, but as a gentle and peaceful growing within you. Peace and everything that brings about peace is everything that is not loud and distracting. Peace is gentle and calm, as is the method God uses to heal our minds.</P> <P>Another good thing to remember is that you only receive whatever it is that you truly desire to give, so whatever you want for yourself, give that thing and then you shall have it as well. Jesus said it best when he said we should love who we perceive as our enemies and pray for them. Would he have you pray for the hopeless? Would he expect you to keep seeing them as enemies? Your prayers for them do matter and they do help to open their hearts more so that God can work with them. In sharing this desire about them, you have forgiven them and have opened your own heart more and God can perform more healing in your life as well. You get what you give because in giving, you are also discovering and accepting what God has already given you.</P> <P CLASS="thinking">I extend peace and wisdom to you whom I thought was against me.</P> <P CLASS="thinking">I desire that you be happy and at peace and that you would bask in the warmth of total forgiveness and love.</P> <P CLASS="thinking">Your happiness is my happiness. I extend my love and forgiveness to you.</P> <P>God, Love and Peace have never changed, and are always exactly where they always have been...inside you all the time...a part of you that is you. Holding onto your peace is simply a series of methods you use that help you remember this. Your methods might not be the same as mine and my methods might not be the same as yours, but the overall spirit of wanting peace, love and forgiveness in our lives is the same. You can and will find ways to hold onto your peace because that is what I want for you, it is what you want for you and it is what God wants for you. It's impossible for you not to be able to hold onto your peace if that is what you truly desire because your will and Gods will are one. Both you and God want peace for you and both you and God want you to return home.</P> <P>I extend my peace, love, forgiveness, health, faith, patience and wisdom to you all.</P> <BR CLEAR=ALL> <HR SIZE=1 COLOR="#3E1300"> <P><I><A NAME="author"><IMG SRC="http://www.beingwilling.com/articles/graphics/david_nelmes.jpg" WIDTH=79 HEIGHT=100 alt="David Nelmes" BORDER=0 ALIGN=LEFT HSPACE=10 STYLE="border-style: inset; border-color: #DDDDDD; border-width: 2px;"></A> <B>David Nelmes</B> - David considers it a wonderful blessing that his insight and writings can provide opportunities for those around him to see things from perspectives they had not considered before. He pursues Gods truths and is open and willing to see what God would have him see. He invites you to join him.</I></P> <P><I>His influences consist of truly being open to seeing and applying the truths he has discovered through life and through both the "<a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/redirect.html?ie=UTF8&location=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.amazon.com%2Fexec%2Fobidos%2Ftg%2Fbrowse%2F-%2F10405901%2Fsr%3D53-1%2Fsr%3D53-1%2Fqid%3D1181498397&tag=beinwill-20&linkCode=ur2&camp=1789&creative=9325">Bible</a><img src="http://www.assoc-amazon.com/e/ir?t=beinwill-20&l=ur2&o=1" width="1" height="1" border="0" alt="" style="border:none !important; margin:0px !important;" />" and "<a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/redirect.html?ie=UTF8&location=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.amazon.com%2FCourse-Miracles-Foundation-Inner-Peace%2Fdp%2F0670869759%3Fie%3DUTF8%26s%3Dbooks%26qid%3D1181498802%26sr%3D1-1&tag=beinwill-20&linkCode=ur2&camp=1789&creative=9325">A Course in Miracles</a><img src="http://www.assoc-amazon.com/e/ir?t=beinwill-20&l=ur2&o=1" width="1" height="1" border="0" alt="" style="border:none !important; margin:0px !important;" />".<BR> You can visit David's website at: <A HREF="http://www.beingwilling.com" TARGET="_blank">http://www.BeingWilling.com</A></I></P> <P>This article Copyright ©2004 David Nelmes - Reproduced with Permission.</P> Highlight & Copy Html Version	HOLDING ONTO YOUR PEACE through David Nelmes (5/20/2004) Perfect love casts out all fear. Love and peace are one in the same in that one cannot exist without the other and one is always the product of the other. Peace and love abolish fear and their presence makes all things possible. Fear is the anti-belief that something good can arise from your situation. Fear is the stumbling block that makes you so sure your world is one of torment that you don't see the good that is there for you. If fear is in your heart, you can only communicate to others through fear and then fear is likely to be the only thing returned to you. The fears in our lives are often so deeply rooted that we will go to such extremes to hold onto them, even though these same things are destroying our lives. By identifying yourself as a tough person, by acknowledging and embracing that you are a sickly person, and by denying there are things in your life to improve, you are embracing fears and accepting their effects as who you are. Fear, being the result of darkness or lack of light, is terrified of the truth because it knows that truth will simply make it vanish. When the light is turned on in a darkened room, the darkness doesn't leave...it ceases to exist. If you identify yourself with these darker thoughts, you will find yourself not wanting to hear the truth because it tears at the core of who you think you are and creates a misperception that you will lose yourself if you open yourself to the truth. The reality is that you are not what the fear has taught you that you are and there is nothing to lose, only your freedom to gain. Fear strangles and limits. Truth caresses and grows. Anything that teaches through fear or uses fear in any way, is not from God. This truth is so simple, yet it unhinges most of what we have been taught. Any religion you pursue, any teaching you listen to and any concepts or ideas you hear can be looked upon with that truth. If something does not agree with this truth, it is in error in some way. It's best for you to know that God does not teach nor command through fear, sacrifice, temptation and suffering. The concept of an actual loving and peaceful God nullifies much of what was written about the judgmental, paranoid, vengeful and ill tempered God of the Bible and many other books. Knowing the truth that God is an actual loving and peaceful being, helps you to more easily identify and focus on those few things that are truthfully written about him. Peace is the absence of fear. Fear cannot motivate you to find peace. When you find yourself working hard to find peace, you can get blinded to the fact that its your own busyness and efforts that ensure you won't find it. Peace is the total lack of any effort or work because it is always there and has never left. Peace is pure tranquility, stillness, gentleness and quietness and is the total absence of work, tiredness and effort. If you are working or using effort to find peace, you are ensuring you never will because peace is the total opposite of the work and effort you are using to find it. By learning to stop and by learning to set aside the man-made concepts of working to reach peace, you will learn and see that peace exists as it always has existed and it is patiently waiting for you to stop and just allow it to enter your way of life. Peace and love is the final result of our journey back to God. There is not one among us who will not achieve this. There is not one person you know or have heard about that will not eventually return to God after having allowed the light to enter and having dispelled all fear. Total forgiveness is the result of removing fear. Unconditional love is the result of removing all fear. Total knowledge and awareness of God is the result of removing all fear. Discovering your peace is a wonderful thing. It's a holy thing and a treasured thing because it is really the only state of being that God acknowledges that truly exists. Holding onto your peace is often an entirely other thing. Often we let the slightest change in our environment or the smallest of words, totally obscure peace from our lives. Many of us can testify to having had the most wonderful day, morning or moment and then see all our peace and contentment disappear the moment we allow something in the world to affect us. No effort is necessary in finding peace or holding onto peace, because peace is always patiently waiting there for us. On the other hand, consistent and sincere effort is necessary in handing over all the thoughts and ideas that we allow to obscure our peace. You worked hard to build these obstacles to peace and so there may be some effort in removing them. As with God and love, peace never leaves, we just put things in its way. After obscuring our peace, we say it has left us, but it hasn't...we have simply obscured it. Eliminate the unpeaceful thoughts and peace is right there where it always has been. Let's follow some of my thoughts and see how this works. I will walk you through a moment where I perceived a problem in my life. My thoughts are shown after the " - " - I have become upset about the way somebody has treated me. In doing so, I no longer feel at peace. When I realize I am no longer at peace, I remind myself about many of the truths I have discovered. Some things I often remember are: - Nothing outside myself can affect me. * If I think the problem is outside myself, I will never look within myself and it is only within myself that any problem can ever be resolved. Thinking the problem is with something else or somebody else, guarantees you will never find the answer, because it's not out there to find. - There must be something I am fearful of if I am upset. * Fear takes on many forms, but the easiest definition is that anything that is not based upon love, is based upon fear. Often fear is the result of the feeling that you are losing something such as control or possessions. - I am never upset for the reason that I think. * We often think we know why we are upset, but that is not so. Our upsetment has to do with what we believe things mean and not with what actually occurred. We can change our mind about what we believe things mean and therefore end our upsetment. - I would rather be at peace. * Knowing this and remembering this helps in finding and releasing anything that might stand in the way of restoring peace. The first thing to do is to hand over all non-peaceful thoughts to the Holy Spirit so that he can judge them, refine them and then either dispel them because they are simply not real or return them to you as they really should be. - This thought that I am somehow losing something, I place in your hands to correct. - This thought that others are inconsiderate, I place in your hands to correct. - This thought that the situation will never be resolved, I place in your hands to correct. - This thought that the world is against me, I place in your hands to correct. - This thought that he will never be healed, I place in your hands to correct. A key focus on really getting past many issues that return, time and time again is to see and understand that you are often holding on very tightly to what our society and religion has declared as Our Rights. Your right To Be Angry, will distance you from God, as will your right to not forgive...your right for vengeance, your right to be upset, your right to hold somebody else responsible, your right for man-made justice, your right to hold onto your man-made rights, etc. etc., etc. As long as you hold onto these dark rights, you can never truly forgive...you can never truly get past an event and you can never truly be at peace. It can appear difficult to give up your right to hate somebody that has done something to you or to a loved one, but it is one of the most important steps you will have taken to breaking the cycle of events that occur over and over again in your life. You don't have to like what a person did or is still doing, but you can learn to separate the person from the actions they are doing and know they are not one in the same. - I give up my right to be upset at her. - I give up my right to not forgive him. - I give up my right to thinking they should suffer for what they have done. Say it...mean it and know that the Holy Spirit hears it, has been waiting for it and will heal your mind about it. The bottom line is that as long as you desire to hold onto these dark rights, you are also choosing, planning and accepting the situations that occur so that you can practice and languish in that dark right. There is nothing you can do to heal the way you think and feel, other than to be willing to let your mind be healed. You can't fix it by yourself. If we did know how to fix our own perceptions, we wouldn't be in the situation in the world that we are. By being willing to change, you are opening the door for the Holy Spirit to remove the blocks and obstacles you have set in place between yourself and the light. By choosing peace, you are allowing God to heal your perception of this world. - I choose to see things clearly. - I choose to see things differently. - I am willing and open to hear and see the truth. The healing of your mind happens. The extent of your faith may limit this, but there is no way to prevent it. It is what God wants for you. For every microsecond that you are truly open to being healed, God is there, healing your mind, opening your mind and patiently waiting for the moment he is allowed in again. You might not see it or hear it as is occurs, but later that day, later that week, you will notice you are reacting differently to that situation that bothered you so much before. You will find that you see people differently than you did before. You will experience the realization that your healing occurred... not as a loud fiery boom in the sky, but as a gentle and peaceful growing within you. Peace and everything that brings about peace is everything that is not loud and distracting. Peace is gentle and calm, as is the method God uses to heal our minds. Another good thing to remember is that you only receive whatever it is that you truly desire to give, so whatever you want for yourself, give that thing and then you shall have it as well. Jesus said it best when he said we should love who we perceive as our enemies and pray for them. Would he have you pray for the hopeless? Would he expect you to keep seeing them as enemies? Your prayers for them do matter and they do help to open their hearts more so that God can work with them. In sharing this desire about them, you have forgiven them and have opened your own heart more and God can perform more healing in your life as well. You get what you give because in giving, you are also discovering and accepting what God has already given you. - I extend peace and wisdom to you whom I thought was against me. - I desire that you be happy and at peace and that you would bask in the warmth of total forgiveness and love. - Your happiness is my happiness. I extend my love and forgiveness to you. God, Love and Peace have never changed, and are always exactly where they always have been...inside you all the time...a part of you that is you. Holding onto your peace is simply a series of methods you use that help you remember this. Your methods might not be the same as mine and my methods might not be the same as yours, but the overall spirit of wanting peace, love and forgiveness in our lives is the same. You can and will find ways to hold onto your peace because that is what I want for you, it is what you want for you and it is what God wants for you. It's impossible for you not to be able to hold onto your peace if that is what you truly desire because your will and Gods will are one. Both you and God want peace for you and both you and God want you to return home. I extend my peace, love, forgiveness, health, faith, patience and wisdom to you all. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- David Nelmes - David considers it a wonderful blessing that his insight and writings can provide opportunities for those around him to see things from perspectives they had not considered before. He pursues Gods truths and is open and willing to see what God would have him see. He invites you to join him. His influences consist of truly being open to seeing and applying the truths he has discovered through life and through both "The Bible" and "A Course In Miracles". You can visit David's website at: http://www.BeingWilling.com This article Copyright ©2004 David Nelmes - Reproduced with Permission. Highlight & Copy Text Version

Sharing is Healing
<STYLE TYPE="text/css"> <!-- h2.bwtitle {color: #4488FF; font-family: "times new roman", arial, verdana; font-size: 30pt; font-weight: 600; line-height: 80%;} .iborder1 {border-style: inset; border-color: #E1E1E1; border-width: 3px; margin-left: 10px; margin-right: 10px; margin-top: 5px; margin-bottom: 5px;} --> </STYLE> <DIV ALIGN=CENTER> <h2 class="bwtitle">Sharing is Healing</H2> through <A HREF="#author">David Nelmes</A><BR> (3/10/2004) </DIV> <P>Whatever it is that you desire for yourself, share that thing with your fellow man and then you shall have it in greater measure as well. God creates by sharing because this is the only way that true change can occur. God created us by sharing himself. It's impossible to create something from nothing, so God shared a part of himself and created us. Just like an idea can be shared and grows larger as it spreads across the world, so does God extend himself by sharing. Learning to share is the one way in which we can have true blessings in our lives.</P> <P>Sharing and giving are not the same thing. With sharing, you have not lost anything because whatever you share is still a part of you, as we are still a part of God. Sharing occurs strictly on a spiritual level and does not revolve around physical things, but physical effects may be apparent from the sharing. When you give something, there is a sense that you have lost something and somebody else has gained something. This is not a spiritual action and therefore will not bring the same blessings as sharing.</P> <P>For example, when Jesus fed the thousands, on several occasions, he could have <I>given</I> the crowd the fishes and bread, but then they would have only what was given them, and all there was to give is whatever is already physically here. The crowd would have received just a few fishes and a few loaves. Instead, Jesus saw past the physical and <I>Shared</I> his desire that the crowd be fed, and the fish and loaves were multiplied as a result of his desire to share. When all was done, everyone had eaten and there was more left over than they had started with.</P> <P>Since most of us consider money and possessions to be at the heart of most needs, let's follow through by taking a look at the difference between giving something or sharing something...</P> <P STYLE="margin-left: 2em;">When you give a donation, you might be aware that you have less than before. You might be aware of tax benefits. You might believe that God requires something of you...that somehow God is lacking in ability to take care of something himself. You might be aware of a sense of sacrifice. You might be aware that your donation is required...or else.</P> <P STYLE="margin-left: 2em;">When you share a donation, you are aware that everything you have is from God and is therefore everyone's to begin with, so it never leaves you because you never considered it just yours to begin with. You are aware that the donation will help somebody with a perceived lack, to maintain themselves a bit longer, while always knowing you were not required in any way to provide help since God is not without the means to provide in any way he desires. You are not aware of any loss or sense of sacrifice. What was never only yours will not be missed nor required back. You are aware that what you share will come back to you in some way, because that is how sharing works, but sharing cannot occur if the motivation is just to get back.</P> <P>The physical world is just an effect of the actions that occur in the spiritual world. There is no lack in Gods Kingdom, but there is lack perceived here. Learning to be open to and share the spiritual in this world, opens the doors for this world to change and be blessed. God is not waiting for us to deserve blessing or be worthy of healing. He has already given all of that to us. He is just waiting for us to accept what is already there. We have only to allow these blessings to occur and they will.</P> <P>Have I implied that we are purposely not allowing ourselves to be blessed? Yes I have and it's true. God is not holding anything back and so if there is a need you have in your life, no matter how large or how small, it's because you have not allowed God to take control of some part of your life. God's not waiting for you to deserve the blessing, nor is there a devil who has the power to hold back what God would give to you. These concepts only keep you from uncovering the truth that you are the only source of all the problems in your life. Nobody else and nothing else is the problem, and as long as you look anywhere but inside for the answer, you will not find the answer, because it is simply not there.</P> <P>God does not have favorites, nor is he impressed with deeds. He can't be bargained with or be part of a compromise for things to come. God is not like us and does not think on the very low and self-centered levels man does. Since he has already given us everything, everyone is the favorite, everything is special, and there is nothing to ask for, nothing to bargain about and nothing to earn. The whole concept that we have to earn something from God, so that we might deserve the blessing, is what is keeping the blessing away. This concept implies we are not worthy and as long as we believe it, we hold back the blessings God has given us. Jesus said that if we seek God first in all things spiritual, all things physical will be attended to. This is not an act of pleasing God, it is an act of being open to what God so very much desires to share with you. All that he has is yours. All peace...all love...all perfection...all that which was created perfect and whole and without need...all these things are what are already there for us. We just have to accept that we are worthy of them or we will not see them or accept them.</P> <P>Jesus would look at a person who was physically ill, deformed, or even dead, and the reason the condition didn't appear beyond repair to him was because he knew that what he was seeing was only physical. He knew that he and all others were spiritual beings in temporary physical form. He knew that the spirit was not an effect of the physical, but that the physical was an effect of spirit. In an instant he would see this person for who they truly were...the perfect spirit being that God created. Jesus shared that thought with them, healing their perception of themselves instantly by sharing his vision of how perfect, lovely, peaceful and worthy they are. With this immense healing of the minds perception, the body changes instantly to agree. The mind, not the body, is real.</P> <P>Jesus' message wasn't one of sacrifice and sorrow, but one of sharing and joy. His life and his resurrection are the key factors in what we can become. His trials and crucifixion were only meant to be an extreme example of showing that no matter what man may do, he can't affect the spirit, which means man really can't do anything.</P> <P>There is not a moment and not a person on earth that God is not working with at all times. Every event or situation has a better and healing choice that can be applied. By just going along and accepting things as they are, we are purposely looking past the choices that God would prefer we make. By choosing to see more clearly and by choosing to set aside our right to be angry, our right to not forgive, our right for vengeance, our right for greed, our right to mistrust....by setting aside these ego induced rights, we will see the other choices that are there and always have been.</P> <P>Every step you take closer to God is performed by a part of your mind being healed. All healing is of the mind, which is the essence of the spirit that is you. Healing occurs by and through sharing and learning to share. As you begin to see the people around you as equals and brothers in Christ, you will learn to share your peace with them. You will learn to share your love with them. You will learn to share your health with them. You will learn to see and share the true image of themselves with them. All these things bring about healing to both minds, which then changes the perception of what we perceive in the physical world.</P> <P>What do you share? How do you share? For most of us who often feel lacking in peace or love, it's a good thing to know that whatever it is that you desire, share it with somebody else and you shall have it for yourself as well. That's how sharing works. So then, how do you share something you don't have? If life is terrible and you need peace, how do you share it to have it in the first place?</P> <P STYLE="margin-left: 2em;">If you desire peace, stop for a moment, think of somebody else who needs peace and focus on them for a moment and have an unconditional desire that they be peaceful. Allow yourself a quiet moment and embrace the tiny bit of peace you do find within yourself and share it unconditionally and whole heartedly. Really mean it. Really desire peace and happiness for the other. Drop all boundaries and all past issues and be as sincere and as forgiving as possible. Quietly to yourself, just say, "Peace" to them and treat it as an action term. You can think of it as a living and moving light that flows from you and surrounds them. Let your desire for them to be without boundaries and as fully loving as possible. In doing so, you too will have found more peace than what you started with. Since you can't give what you don't believe you have, the act of sharing has helped you open yourself to more of what you do have. In your desire to share your peace with somebody else, you are also finding it for yourself. God has given us everything already. We just need to be open to see it, through sharing.</P> <P>Whoever you share with is totally affected by your sharing and has been healed in some way. It's impossible for them not to be. You may or may not see immediate effects, but that has nothing to do with the truth in that the healing has occurred. Remember, healing is of the mind and the body is just a projection of the mind, so your focus is for the mind or spirit behind the body to be healed. In doing so, the body may be healed as well, but that's for the Holy Spirit to work with. Your job is to share what you have and then let go and let God do the healing. You don't have to understand...you don't have to have evidence...you only have to know that God will do and bring about whatever is the best thing for that person.</P> <P>As an afterthought, can you also see that the act of not sharing in this world is the seed for almost every problem that exists. We all have the power of God within us to change this... and it will change. There is no telling how long we will continue to keep trying to do things on our own, but every day, every hour, every minute, every second... we are all being healed and we are all one step closer to being back with God. So, you can put off your healing by continuing to embrace the ways of the world, but you can't prevent it because God's love for us is drawing us all ever so closer to him and it's inevitable that the day will come when we will all be reunited with him and with each other.</P> <P>I look forward to seeing you there.</P> <BR CLEAR=ALL> <HR SIZE=1 COLOR="#3E1300"> <P><I><A NAME="author"><IMG SRC="http://www.beingwilling.com/articles/graphics/david_nelmes.jpg" WIDTH=79 HEIGHT=100 alt="David Nelmes" BORDER=0 ALIGN=LEFT HSPACE=10 STYLE="border-style: inset; border-color: #DDDDDD; border-width: 2px;"></A> <B>David Nelmes</B> - David considers it a wonderful blessing that his insight and writings can provide opportunities for those around him to see things from perspectives they had not considered before. He pursues Gods truths and is open and willing to see what God would have him see. He invites you to join him.</I></P> <P><I>His influences consist of truly being open to seeing and applying the truths he has discovered through life and through both the "<a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/redirect.html?ie=UTF8&location=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.amazon.com%2Fexec%2Fobidos%2Ftg%2Fbrowse%2F-%2F10405901%2Fsr%3D53-1%2Fsr%3D53-1%2Fqid%3D1181498397&tag=beinwill-20&linkCode=ur2&camp=1789&creative=9325">Bible</a><img src="http://www.assoc-amazon.com/e/ir?t=beinwill-20&l=ur2&o=1" width="1" height="1" border="0" alt="" style="border:none !important; margin:0px !important;" />" and "<a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/redirect.html?ie=UTF8&location=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.amazon.com%2FCourse-Miracles-Foundation-Inner-Peace%2Fdp%2F0670869759%3Fie%3DUTF8%26s%3Dbooks%26qid%3D1181498802%26sr%3D1-1&tag=beinwill-20&linkCode=ur2&camp=1789&creative=9325">A Course in Miracles</a><img src="http://www.assoc-amazon.com/e/ir?t=beinwill-20&l=ur2&o=1" width="1" height="1" border="0" alt="" style="border:none !important; margin:0px !important;" />".<BR> You can visit David's website at: <A HREF="http://www.beingwilling.com" TARGET="_blank">http://www.BeingWilling.com</A></I></P> <P>This article Copyright ©2004 David Nelmes - Reproduced with Permission.</P> Highlight & Copy Html Version	SHARING IS HEALING through David Nelmes (3/10/2004) Whatever it is that you desire for yourself, share that thing with your fellow man and then you shall have it in greater measure as well. God creates by sharing because this is the only way that true change can occur. God created us by sharing himself. It's impossible to create something from nothing, so God shared a part of himself and created us. Just like an idea can be shared and grows larger as it spreads across the world, so does God extend himself by sharing. Learning to share is the one way in which we can have true blessings in our lives. Sharing and giving are not the same thing. With sharing, you have not lost anything because whatever you share is still a part of you, as we are still a part of God. Sharing occurs strictly on a spiritual level and does not revolve around physical things, but physical effects may be apparent from the sharing. When you give something, there is a sense that you have lost something and somebody else has gained something. This is not a spiritual action and therefore will not bring the same blessings as sharing. For example, when Jesus fed the thousands, on several occasions, he could have given the crowd the fishes and bread, but then they would have only what was given them, and all there was to give is whatever is already physically here. The crowd would have received just a few fishes and a few loaves. Instead, Jesus saw past the physical and Shared his desire that the crowd be fed, and the fish and loaves were multiplied as a result of his desire to share. When all was done, everyone had eaten and there was more left over than they had started with. Since most of us consider money and possessions to be at the heart of most needs, let's follow through by taking a look at the difference between giving something or sharing something... When you give a donation, you might be aware that you have less than before. You might be aware of tax benefits. You might believe that God requires something of you...that somehow God is lacking in ability to take care of something himself. You might be aware of a sense of sacrifice. You might be aware that your donation is required...or else. When you share a donation, you are aware that everything you have is from God and is therefore everyone's to begin with, so it never leaves you because you never considered it just yours to begin with. You are aware that the donation will help somebody with a perceived lack, to maintain themselves a bit longer, while always knowing you were not required in any way to provide help since God is not without the means to provide in any way he desires. You are not aware of any loss or sense of sacrifice. What was never only yours will not be missed nor required back. You are aware that what you share will come back to you in some way, because that is how sharing works, but sharing cannot occur if the motivation is just to get back. The physical world is just an effect of the actions that occur in the spiritual world. There is no lack in Gods Kingdom, but there is lack perceived here. Learning to be open to and share the spiritual in this world, opens the doors for this world to change and be blessed. God is not waiting for us to deserve blessing or be worthy of healing. He has already given all of that to us. He is just waiting for us to accept what is already there. We have only to allow these blessings to occur and they will. Have I implied that we are purposely not allowing ourselves to be blessed? Yes I have and it's true. God is not holding anything back and so if there is a need you have in your life, no matter how large or how small, it's because you have not allowed God to take control of some part of your life. God's not waiting for you to deserve the blessing, nor is there a devil who has the power to hold back what God would give to you. These concepts only keep you from uncovering the truth that you are the only source of all the problems in your life. Nobody else and nothing else is the problem, and as long as you look anywhere but inside for the answer, you will not find the answer, because it is simply not there. God does not have favorites, nor is he impressed with deeds. He can't be bargained with or be part of a compromise for things to come. God is not like us and does not think on the very low and self-centered levels man does. Since he has already given us everything, everyone is the favorite, everything is special, and there is nothing to ask for, nothing to bargain about and nothing to earn. The whole concept that we have to earn something from God, so that we might deserve the blessing, is what is keeping the blessing away. This concept implies we are not worthy and as long as we believe it, we hold back the blessings God has given us. Jesus said that if we seek God first in all things spiritual, all things physical will be attended to. This is not an act of pleasing God, it is an act of being open to what God so very much desires to share with you. All that he has is yours. All peace...all love...all perfection...all that which was created perfect and whole and without need...all these things are what are already there for us. We just have to accept that we are worthy of them or we will not see them or accept them. Jesus would look at a person who was physically ill, deformed, or even dead, and the reason the condition didn't appear beyond repair to him was because he knew that what he was seeing was only physical. He knew that he and all others were spiritual beings in temporary physical form. He knew that the spirit was not an effect of the physical, but that the physical was an effect of spirit. In an instant he would see this person for who they truly were...the perfect spirit being that God created. Jesus shared that thought with them, healing their perception of themselves instantly by sharing his vision of how perfect, lovely, peaceful and worthy they are. With this immense healing of the minds perception, the body changes instantly to agree. The mind, not the body, is real. Jesus' message wasn't one of sacrifice and sorrow, but one of sharing and joy. His life and his resurrection are the key factors in what we can become. His trials and crucifixion were only meant to be an extreme example of showing that no matter what man may do, he can't affect the spirit, which means man really can't do anything. There is not a moment and not a person on earth that God is not working with at all times. Every event or situation has a better and healing choice that can be applied. By just going along and accepting things as they are, we are purposely looking past the choices that God would prefer we make. By choosing to see more clearly and by choosing to set aside our right to be angry, our right to not forgive, our right for vengeance, our right for greed, our right to mistrust....by setting aside these ego induced rights, we will see the other choices that are there and always have been. Every step you take closer to God is performed by a part of your mind being healed. All healing is of the mind, which is the essence of the spirit that is you. Healing occurs by and through sharing and learning to share. As you begin to see the people around you as equals and brothers in Christ, you will learn to share your peace with them. You will learn to share your love with them. You will learn to share your health with them. You will learn to see and share the true image of themselves with them. All these things bring about healing to both minds, which then changes the perception of what we perceive in the physical world. What do you share? How do you share? For most of us who often feel lacking in peace or love, it's a good thing to know that whatever it is that you desire, share it with somebody else and you shall have it for yourself as well. That's how sharing works. So then, how do you share something you don't have? If life is terrible and you need peace, how do you share it to have it in the first place? If you desire peace, stop for a moment, think of somebody else who needs peace and focus on them for a moment and have an unconditional desire that they be peaceful. Allow yourself a quiet moment and embrace the tiny bit of peace you do find within yourself and share it unconditionally and whole heartedly. Really mean it. Really desire peace and happiness for the other. Drop all boundaries and all past issues and be as sincere and as forgiving as possible. Quietly to yourself, just say, "Peace" to them and treat it as an action term. You can think of it as a living and moving light that flows from you and surrounds them. Let your desire for them to be without boundaries and as fully loving as possible. In doing so, you too will have found more peace than what you started with. Since you can't give what you don't believe you have, the act of sharing has helped you open yourself to more of what you do have. In your desire to share your peace with somebody else, you are also finding it for yourself. God has given us everything already. We just need to be open to see it, through sharing. Whoever you share with is totally affected by your sharing and has been healed in some way. It's impossible for them not to be. You may or may not see immediate effects, but that has nothing to do with the truth in that the healing has occurred. Remember, healing is of the mind and the body is just a projection of the mind, so your focus is for the mind or spirit behind the body to be healed. In doing so, the body may be healed as well, but that's for the Holy Spirit to work with. Your job is to share what you have and then let go and let God do the healing. You don't have to understand...you don't have to have evidence...you only have to know that God will do and bring about whatever is the best thing for that person. As an afterthought, can you also see that the act of not sharing in this world is the seed for almost every problem that exists. We all have the power of God within us to change this... and it will change. There is no telling how long we will continue to keep trying to do things on our own, but every day, every hour, every minute, every second... we are all being healed and we are all one step closer to being back with God. So, you can put off your healing by continuing to embrace the ways of the world, but you can't prevent it because God's love for us is drawing us all ever so closer to him and it's inevitable that the day will come when we will all be reunited with him and with each other. I look forward to seeing you there. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- David Nelmes - David considers it a wonderful blessing that his insight and writings can provide opportunities for those around him to see things from perspectives they had not considered before. He pursues Gods truths and is open and willing to see what God would have him see. He invites you to join him. His influences consist of truly being open to seeing and applying the truths he has discovered through life and through both "The Bible" and "A Course In Miracles". You can visit David's website at: http://www.BeingWilling.com This article Copyright ©2004 David Nelmes - Reproduced with Permission. Highlight & Copy Text Version

The Skeletons in our Closet
<STYLE TYPE="text/css"> <!-- h2.bwtitle {color: #4488FF; font-family: "times new roman", arial, verdana; font-size: 30pt; font-weight: 600; line-height: 80%;} .iborder1 {border-style: inset; border-color: width: 350px; #E1E1E1; border-width: 3px; margin-left: 10px; margin-right: 10px; margin-top: 5px; margin-bottom: 5px;} --> </STYLE> <DIV ALIGN=CENTER> <h2 class="bwtitle">The Skeletons in our Closet</H2> through <A HREF="#author">David Nelmes</A><BR> (1/25/2004) </DIV> <P>You get what you ask for. You really do get what you asked for...problem is, we often have no idea what it is that we were really asking for and so when we get it, we are often confused, upset and quite miserable.</P> <P>I remember specific moments long ago when I would draw close to God and within a short period of time, everything seemed to be against me. More problems appeared to arise than to go away. More arguments occurred and I could only imagine, at that time, that it was the devil trying to put a wedge between myself and God. I would fight to some degree, but sooner or later, I would fail and feel condemned and guilty and I would eventually distance myself from God. Having done that...things often improved...to some degree at least.</P> <P>The thing that always upset me was how God could let such bad things occur when I was trying so hard to improve my life. I could only imagine a Zeus-like God, enjoying himself as I battled with the impossible wagers he and satan had made with my life. I could only imagine that the Old Testament version of an angry, jealous, bitter and vengeful God was true. Where was Jesus anyway? I kind of thought his purpose was to put God in a half-nelson for a few thousand years so that God would stop being so cruel to the people on earth.</P> <P>Have you been in that place where you feel hopeless after having cried out? Have you quit trying some time afterwards because things appeared too difficult to pursue? Are you tired of not getting past your problems? Would you like to actually succeed at improving your life?</P> <P>When you ask God to intervene in your life, consider first the truth in that you really don't have to ask. He already wants so much to be invited into your life and he's not waiting to be asked...he's waiting to be allowed. Your free will brings him in or moves him out. By asking, you are really just opening yourself and inviting him in. The act of asking is really more an action of you dropping the barriers that are keeping him out.</P> <P>No matter what you ask God for, help with finances, help with relationships, help with an illness...no matter what...the answer is always the same...."<I>That is not your real problem. While you remain open to me and willing to change, I will help you with your real problem and then all these other problems will go away."</I></P> <P>The problem with our requests is that we are not seeing things clearly enough in this world to know what the best things to ask for are. It's like we are driving down a wintery highway at night, window all covered with ice, and the snow is falling fast and furious. The fear of this experience can grip our hearts and make the trip a terrible one. This is how our lives really are. We are totally blinded about what is really around us and we are only seeing a few inches ahead at any time, and even then, it's foggy, stormy and very fearful.</P> <P>On the other hand, God is above the storm and the Holy Spirit sees things exactly as they are and he knows exactly what thing is best to occur to get you through the storm. His role is to do everything and anything that will draw you towards the light. He knows your heart, he knows what you are capable of and he knows exactly how to help you.</P> <P>The first step to receiving real help is in surrendering the concept that you can somehow do this on your own, or that there is something you must do to fix it. The greatest of all things is to just be willing to change. Be willing to let God heal your mind so that you will see and experience things differently than you had before.</P> <P>Having opened your heart to God and having asked for his help, the first thing he must do...before anything else can occur...is to pull out all the skeletons from your closet. In other words, he can't help you with finances if there is greed in your life...he can't help your body to be healed while you have hate or unforgiveness in your heart...he can't help you find the perfect campanion in life while you are not honest with yourself. All these things, and thousands more, are blocking what you really need from God, so before he can answer the request you have made, he will bring circumstances into your life where the ugliest parts of you are exposed and/or brought into your awareness.</P> <P>You may feel as though everything is going wrong...as though all is against you and that God has somehow become upset with you, but none of this is true to even the smallest degree. These circumstances are opportunities for change. There are cycles in our lives where we make the same mistakes over and over again. The sole purpose of these cycles is so we can eventually choose to react differently and make a better choice. These cycles are blessings of opportunity and when you choose differently...when you say "no" to something you've said yes to for years...when you choose not to shout back at somebody...when you see your fellow man as equals...when you share kindness and love where you shared anger before...when these things occur...you can be sure that you are on the road to real healing.</P> <P>Whenever you break a cycle, a part of your mind is healed. The mind, or essence of your spirit, is the real you, not the body. The body, being just a projection of the mind, will change as the mind is healed. As with the crucifixion of Christ, he showed that the body can be destroyed, but not the spirit...and he showed that the spirit can even heal and bring back the body. With every healing, you become more loving, more peaceful, more patient, more wise and more joyful than you were before. With each cycle you break, your awareness of the world around you becomes clearer and you are less likely to start new cycles that are not good for you. Eventually, without angels descending...without thunder and without burning bushes, you will realize that your original request didn't matter at all because it wasn't the problem. The only problem was the distance that had grown between yourself and God.</P> <P>You really never have to ask. Seek God first in all things spiritual and all the physical things of this world will work out perfectly for you. When you stop trying to do things to make change, you'll learn that all change comes from being. The things you do will change as you be more loving and as you be more patient...so focus on what God would have you be and then do whatever feels best.</P> <P>Still feel like asking God for help? He's not looking to trip you. He's not seeking to hurt you. He's looking to provide you with the exact situations and circumstances necessary to draw you closer to him and improve every area of your life. The more open you become to him, the less likely it is that your life situations will have to be as dramatic to get your attention. So it's in everyones best interests to be as open as possible at all times, because life just becomes much more pleasant and happy.</P> <P>All things work together for good, because we all love the Lord...and even if you don't know it of yourself, he does.</P> <BR CLEAR=ALL> <HR SIZE=1 COLOR="#3E1300"> <P><I><A NAME="author"><IMG SRC="http://www.beingwilling.com/articles/graphics/david_nelmes.jpg" WIDTH=79 HEIGHT=100 alt="David Nelmes" BORDER=0 ALIGN=LEFT HSPACE=10 STYLE="border-style: inset; border-color: #DDDDDD; border-width: 2px;"></A> <B>David Nelmes</B> - David considers it a wonderful blessing that his insight and writings can provide opportunities for those around him to see things from perspectives they had not considered before. He pursues Gods truths and is open and willing to see what God would have him see. He invites you to join him.</I></P> <P><I>His influences consist of truly being open to seeing and applying the truths he has discovered through life and through both the "<a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/redirect.html?ie=UTF8&location=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.amazon.com%2Fexec%2Fobidos%2Ftg%2Fbrowse%2F-%2F10405901%2Fsr%3D53-1%2Fsr%3D53-1%2Fqid%3D1181498397&tag=beinwill-20&linkCode=ur2&camp=1789&creative=9325">Bible</a><img src="http://www.assoc-amazon.com/e/ir?t=beinwill-20&l=ur2&o=1" width="1" height="1" border="0" alt="" style="border:none !important; margin:0px !important;" />" and "<a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/redirect.html?ie=UTF8&location=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.amazon.com%2FCourse-Miracles-Foundation-Inner-Peace%2Fdp%2F0670869759%3Fie%3DUTF8%26s%3Dbooks%26qid%3D1181498802%26sr%3D1-1&tag=beinwill-20&linkCode=ur2&camp=1789&creative=9325">A Course in Miracles</a><img src="http://www.assoc-amazon.com/e/ir?t=beinwill-20&l=ur2&o=1" width="1" height="1" border="0" alt="" style="border:none !important; margin:0px !important;" />".<BR> You can visit David's website at: <A HREF="http://www.beingwilling.com" TARGET="_blank">http://www.BeingWilling.com</A></I></P> <P>This article Copyright ©2004 David Nelmes - Reproduced with Permission.</P> Highlight & Copy Html Version	THE SKELETONS IN OUR CLOSET through David Nelmes (1/25/2004) You get what you ask for. You really do get what you asked for...problem is, we often have no idea what it is that we were really asking for and so when we get it, we are often confused, upset and quite miserable. I remember specific moments long ago when I would draw close to God and within a short period of time, everything seemed to be against me. More problems appeared to arise than to go away. More arguments occurred and I could only imagine, at that time, that it was the devil trying to put a wedge between myself and God. I would fight to some degree, but sooner or later, I would fail and feel condemned and guilty and I would eventually distance myself from God. Having done that...things often improved...to some degree at least. The thing that always upset me was how God could let such bad things occur when I was trying so hard to improve my life. I could only imagine a Zeus-like God, enjoying himself as I battled with the impossible wagers he and satan had made with my life. I could only imagine that the Old Testament version of an angry, jealous, bitter and vengeful God was true. Where was Jesus anyway? I kind of thought his purpose was to put God in a half-nelson for a few thousand years so that God would stop being so cruel to the people on earth. Have you been in that place where you feel hopeless after having cried out? Have you quit trying some time afterwards because things appeared too difficult to pursue? Are you tired of not getting past your problems? Would you like to actually succeed at improving your life? When you ask God to intervene in your life, consider first the truth in that you really don't have to ask. He already wants so much to be invited into your life and he's not waiting to be asked...he's waiting to be allowed. Your free will brings him in or moves him out. By asking, you are really just opening yourself and inviting him in. The act of asking is really more an action of you dropping the barriers that are keeping him out. No matter what you ask God for, help with finances, help with relationships, help with an illness...no matter what...the answer is always the same...."That is not your real problem. While you remain open to me and willing to change, I will help you with your real problem and then all these other problems will go away." The problem with our requests is that we are not seeing things clearly enough in this world to know what the best things to ask for are. It's like we are driving down a wintery highway at night, window all covered with ice, and the snow is falling fast and furious. The fear of this experience can grip our hearts and make the trip a terrible one. This is how our lives really are. We are totally blinded about what is really around us and we are only seeing a few inches ahead at any time, and even then, it's foggy, stormy and very fearful. On the other hand, God is above the storm and the Holy Spirit sees things exactly as they are and he knows exactly what thing is best to occur to get you through the storm. His role is to do everything and anything that will draw you towards the light. He knows your heart, he knows what you are capable of and he knows exactly how to help you. The first step to receiving real help is in surrendering the concept that you can somehow do this on your own, or that there is something you must do to fix it. The greatest of all things is to just be willing to change. Be willing to let God heal your mind so that you will see and experience things differently than you had before. Having opened your heart to God and having asked for his help, the first thing he must do...before anything else can occur...is to pull out all the skeletons from your closet. In other words, he can't help you with finances if there is greed in your life...he can't help your body to be healed while you have hate or unforgiveness in your heart...he can't help you find the perfect campanion in life while you are not honest with yourself. All these things, and thousands more, are blocking what you really need from God, so before he can answer the request you have made, he will bring circumstances into your life where the ugliest parts of you are exposed and/or brought into your awareness. You may feel as though everything is going wrong...as though all is against you and that God has somehow become upset with you, but none of this is true to even the smallest degree. These circumstances are opportunities for change. There are cycles in our lives where we make the same mistakes over and over again. The sole purpose of these cycles is so we can eventually choose to react differently and make a better choice. These cycles are blessings of opportunity and when you choose differently...when you say "no" to something you've said yes to for years...when you choose not to shout back at somebody...when you see your fellow man as equals...when you share kindness and love where you shared anger before...when these things occur...you can be sure that you are on the road to real healing. Whenever you break a cycle, a part of your mind is healed. The mind, or essence of your spirit, is the real you, not the body. The body, being just a projection of the mind, will change as the mind is healed. As with the crucifixion of Christ, he showed that the body can be destroyed, but not the spirit...and he showed that the spirit can even heal and bring back the body. With every healing, you become more loving, more peaceful, more patient, more wise and more joyful than you were before. With each cycle you break, your awareness of the world around you becomes clearer and you are less likely to start new cycles that are not good for you. Eventually, without angels descending...without thunder and without burning bushes, you will realize that your original request didn't matter at all because it wasn't the problem. The only problem was the distance that had grown between yourself and God. You really never have to ask. Seek God first in all things spiritual and all the physical things of this world will work out perfectly for you. When you stop trying to do things to make change, you'll learn that all change comes from being. The things you do will change as you be more loving and as you be more patient...so focus on what God would have you be and then do whatever feels best. Still feel like asking God for help? He's not looking to trip you. He's not seeking to hurt you. He's looking to provide you with the exact situations and circumstances necessary to draw you closer to him and improve every area of your life. The more open you become to him, the less likely it is that your life situations will have to be as dramatic to get your attention. So it's in everyones best interests to be as open as possible at all times, because life just becomes much more pleasant and happy. All things work together for good, because we all love the Lord...and even if you don't know it of yourself, he does. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- David Nelmes - David considers it a wonderful blessing that his insight and writings can provide opportunities for those around him to see things from perspectives they had not considered before. He pursues Gods truths and is open and willing to see what God would have him see. He invites you to join him. His influences consist of truly being open to seeing and applying the truths he has discovered through life and through both "The Bible" and "A Course In Miracles". You can visit David's website at: http://www.BeingWilling.com This article Copyright ©2004 David Nelmes - Reproduced with Permission. Highlight & Copy Text Version

It's All About Choice
<STYLE TYPE="text/css"> <!-- .iborder1 {border-style: inset; border-color: #E1E1E1; border-width: 3px; margin-left: 10px; margin-right: 10px; margin-top: 5px; margin-bottom: 5px;} H2.bwtitle {font-family: papyrus, "times new roman", verdana, arial; color: #1F2E27; font-size: 30pt; font-weight: 600; text-align: center;} --> </STYLE> <DIV ALIGN=CENTER> <h2 class="bwtitle">It's All About Choice</H2> through <A HREF="#author">David Nelmes</A><BR> (11/12/2003) </DIV> <P>With Christmas coming soon, many around the world will begin the celebration of the birth of Christ, the one who brought the message of peace to the earth. The one who showed himself to be like us, yet who showed us we can be like the Father as well.</P> <P>There are many questions and assumptions about his life and what he did and what it all meant. Because man has the acquired talent to embellish any story given him, it's difficult to say that any particular story is totally correct to the degree in which it is written.</P> <P>With this in mind, then we can instead, look at the spirit of the message and not just the message itself, but to see the spirit of the message and to deduce those stories that don't fit well, we need to create a base upon which to believe.</P> <P>I have chosen the base upon which God the Father is all loving, all peaceful and all creating. Any other version or description of God that I come across is simply viewed as an error in perception. Any view that does not share these truths about God can only be an error of man. There is no other alternative.</P> <P>With God being viewed as perfect love and perfect peace, many of the manmade versions of him simply have to go. The concepts that God can be angry, jealous, fearful, paranoid, unsure, debatable or dissatisfied, are all versions of God that man created, because a God who is perfect love and perfect peace, can't have those other traits. It's not possible.</P> <P>In one respect, you have to consider that much of what you have been taught about God, is in error to some degree. If you believe there is any reason at all to fear God or if you view him as a being that is looking for opportunities to test you and wager your actions with the devil, you really need to take a closer look at what having a God of love really means. The God man envisions, is not a God of love, but a God of punishment and oppression. It's mans own reflection...not Gods face.</P> <P>A God of love can only look at you with an amazing light and warmth that can never be subdued. He can only ever want to help you and aid you. He can only ever want to keep you close and spend eternity with you...so what went wrong? Why do these things not occur? Why doesn't he step down from heaven and help us if we're not supposed to be fearful? If he is so loving, why are all things as they are?</P> <P>There was an eternity where we knew we were with the Father and then we made another choice. We made an error and chose to try to do something apart from him. Since it is not possible to do anything apart from the Father, this totally confused and upside down version of a reality came into being. This universe, this physical thing we call "real" is really just a lonely shadow of what our true spirts are. Because we think we are physical and because we think God is angry at us for trying to create apart from him, we have evaded him for millennia on end, but he has never lost site of us.</P> <P>God wants us all back, but we were created with free will and it is this free will that God will not circumvent, so it's not that he has chosen to stay away, but he is respecting our desire to want to be in this reality. It's all about choice. You can choose to accept this world as man has made it, or you can do as Jesus did and choose to see things differently. Having chosen to see things differently, God was able to help Jesus grow spiritually to a level never seen before, and not seen again...but in time, we will see this again in all of us. None of us are excluded from some day remembering our true selves and returning to the Father.</P> <P>When man writes down the events of history, he can only write things in the best way in which he understands it. That is why the Bible shows a consistent angry God that requires sacrifice. It was the only way that God could be imagined to be, and so no matter what occurred, they wrote him in to fit the outcome. If they were having problems, then God is punishing them. If they were having good times, then God must be rewarding them. If something was totally not understood, they made God the architect of some event to explain it away. The bottom line is that whenever you do better things, better things then happen. When you do poor things, poor things happen. It's a consistent cycle of cause and effect. Punch him and get punched back. Love him and get love back. It's always a choice. It's never God punishing us.</P> <P>I remember a moment where a comedian made a joke about the Passover with respect to how the Jewish people celebrate the day that their God didn't kill them. It sounded so strange to hear it that way, but how else would you say it? When you come right down to it, why would you even want to be with a God who would just as soon kill you if you look the wrong way? Why would a God that created all that exists, use such odd and strange methods to kill and destroy? Why do we not continue to see these things in the post Old Testament world? Has the unchangeable God changed? Has God gotten over his anger? Has God undergone rehabilitation? No, God hasn't changed...we just stopped writing these kinds of stories about him.</P> <P>Jesus's purpose on earth was to show that you we can live differently. His love for all men is what enabled him to heal and feed the thousands. His total love of all of us was a testimony of how to live. His trial and crucifixion was a message to us that no matter what any man does to you, your true you, the spirit that is you, cannot be touched. He proved this as he rose again.</P> <P>Jesus's death wasn't a sacrifice. The only way it could have been a sacrifice would be if it was something he and God was not willing to do. It's possible that Jesus did not like what was going to happen to him, but he chose to accept his path and accepted his role. How then can you say that he sacrificed? He chose to show you that no matter what man can do, it doesn't matter. Man was the one who described the whole scenario as sacrifice, because they could only see the scenario as an extension of the Old Testament angry God, but it wasn't a sacrifice, it was an act of unconditional love.</P> <P>Perhaps you say then that God was the one who made the sacrifice by allowing his son to be beaten and die...but God is a spirit, as was Jesus and as are we all. Jesus's spirit was never in danger, and that was the whole point...to prove that the real you can't be hurt. How then could God have sacrificed his son when there was no way for Jesus's spirit to die or be injured? The ancient writers of the Bible constantly confused this physical reality with Gods spiritual reality and treat them as the same, but they are not. God is spirit as are we. There is no physical thing that is required or can be done that can ever, ever, ever, ever have a spiritual effect...but spiritual things always make physical effects.</P> <P>Besides, why would a loving God require blood sacrifices. These are physical things, and again, God is not physical. These concepts came from ancient and barbaric customs, practiced all over the world by all different cultures. God is spiritual and requires no physical sacrifice. The only thing you can do for God is to be open and be willing to let the Holy Spirit and Jesus work with you to open your eyes to the truth. God is love. God is the total absence of fear. God is peace. God is the total absence of anger. God is forever giving and sharing. God is the total absence of sacrifice.</P> <P>Be open to hear him. Be willing to hear him. Choose to see differently...and you will. It's all about choice. Choose to see. Choose to forgive. Choose to be peaceful. Choose to see your brothers in love. Choose to share the truth. Choose to be free from mans interpretations of God.</P> <P>I choose to extend my love, peace, patience, wisdom and faith to all of you. Have a Joyous Christmas!</P> <BR CLEAR=ALL> <HR SIZE=1 COLOR="#3E1300"> <P><I><A NAME="author"><IMG SRC="http://www.beingwilling.com/articles/graphics/david_nelmes.jpg" WIDTH=79 HEIGHT=100 alt="David Nelmes" BORDER=0 ALIGN=LEFT HSPACE=10 STYLE="border-style: inset; border-color: #DDDDDD; border-width: 2px;"></A> <B>David Nelmes</B> - David considers it a wonderful blessing that his insight and writings can provide opportunities for those around him to see things from perspectives they had not considered before. He pursues Gods truths and is open and willing to see what God would have him see. He invites you to join him.</I></P> <P><I>His influences consist of truly being open to seeing and applying the truths he has discovered through life and through both the "<a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/redirect.html?ie=UTF8&location=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.amazon.com%2Fexec%2Fobidos%2Ftg%2Fbrowse%2F-%2F10405901%2Fsr%3D53-1%2Fsr%3D53-1%2Fqid%3D1181498397&tag=beinwill-20&linkCode=ur2&camp=1789&creative=9325">Bible</a><img src="http://www.assoc-amazon.com/e/ir?t=beinwill-20&l=ur2&o=1" width="1" height="1" border="0" alt="" style="border:none !important; margin:0px !important;" />" and "<a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/redirect.html?ie=UTF8&location=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.amazon.com%2FCourse-Miracles-Foundation-Inner-Peace%2Fdp%2F0670869759%3Fie%3DUTF8%26s%3Dbooks%26qid%3D1181498802%26sr%3D1-1&tag=beinwill-20&linkCode=ur2&camp=1789&creative=9325">A Course in Miracles</a><img src="http://www.assoc-amazon.com/e/ir?t=beinwill-20&l=ur2&o=1" width="1" height="1" border="0" alt="" style="border:none !important; margin:0px !important;" />".<BR> You can visit David's website at: <A HREF="http://www.beingwilling.com" TARGET="_blank">http://www.BeingWilling.com</A></I></P> <P>This article Copyright ©2004 David Nelmes - Reproduced with Permission.</P> Highlight & Copy Html Version	IT'S ALL ABOUT CHOICE through David Nelmes (11/12/2003) With Christmas coming soon, many around the world will begin the celebration of the birth of Christ, the one who brought the message of peace to the earth. The one who showed himself to be like us, yet who showed us we can be like the Father as well. There are many questions and assumptions about his life and what he did and what it all meant. Because man has the acquired talent to embellish any story given him, it's difficult to say that any particular story is totally correct to the degree in which it is written. With this in mind, then we can instead, look at the spirit of the message and not just the message itself, but to see the spirit of the message and to deduce those stories that don't fit well, we need to create a base upon which to believe. I have chosen the base upon which God the Father is all loving, all peaceful and all creating. Any other version or description of God that I come across is simply viewed as an error in perception. Any view that does not share these truths about God can only be an error of man. There is no other alternative. With God being viewed as perfect love and perfect peace, many of the manmade versions of him simply have to go. The concepts that God can be angry, jealous, fearful, paranoid, unsure, debatable or dissatisfied, are all versions of God that man created, because a God who is perfect love and perfect peace, can't have those other traits. It's not possible. In one respect, you have to consider that much of what you have been taught about God, is in error to some degree. If you believe there is any reason at all to fear God or if you view him as a being that is looking for opportunities to test you and wager your actions with the devil, you really need to take a closer look at what having a God of love really means. The God man envisions, is not a God of love, but a God of punishment and oppression. It's mans own reflection...not Gods face. A God of love can only look at you with an amazing light and warmth that can never be subdued. He can only ever want to help you and aid you. He can only ever want to keep you close and spend eternity with you...so what went wrong? Why do these things not occur? Why doesn't he step down from heaven and help us if we're not supposed to be fearful? If he is so loving, why are all things as they are? There was an eternity where we knew we were with the Father and then we made another choice. We made an error and chose to try to do something apart from him. Since it is not possible to do anything apart from the Father, this totally confused and upside down version of a reality came into being. This universe, this physical thing we call "real" is really just a lonely shadow of what our true spirts are. Because we think we are physical and because we think God is angry at us for trying to create apart from him, we have evaded him for millennia on end, but he has never lost site of us. God wants us all back, but we were created with free will and it is this free will that God will not circumvent, so it's not that he has chosen to stay away, but he is respecting our desire to want to be in this reality. It's all about choice. You can choose to accept this world as man has made it, or you can do as Jesus did and choose to see things differently. Having chosen to see things differently, God was able to help Jesus grow spiritually to a level never seen before, and not seen again...but in time, we will see this again in all of us. None of us are excluded from some day remembering our true selves and returning to the Father. When man writes down the events of history, he can only write things in the best way in which he understands it. That is why the Bible shows a consistent angry God that requires sacrifice. It was the only way that God could be imagined to be, and so no matter what occurred, they wrote him in to fit the outcome. If they were having problems, then God is punishing them. If they were having good times, then God must be rewarding them. If something was totally not understood, they made God the architect of some event to explain it away. The bottom line is that whenever you do better things, better things then happen. When you do poor things, poor things happen. It's a consistent cycle of cause and effect. Punch him and get punched back. Love him and get love back. It's always a choice. It's never God punishing us. I remember a moment where a comedian made a joke about the Passover with respect to how the Jewish people celebrate the day that their God didn't kill them. It sounded so strange to hear it that way, but how else would you say it? When you come right down to it, why would you even want to be with a God who would just as soon kill you if you look the wrong way? Why would a God that created all that exists, use such odd and strange methods to kill and destroy? Why do we not continue to see these things in the post Old Testament world? Has the unchangeable God changed? Has God gotten over his anger? Has God undergone rehabilitation? No, God hasn't changed...we just stopped writing these kinds of stories about him. Jesus's purpose on earth was to show that you we can live differently. His love for all men is what enabled him to heal and feed the thousands. His total love of all of us was a testimony of how to live. His trial and crucifixion was a message to us that no matter what any man does to you, your true you, the spirit that is you, cannot be touched. He proved this as he rose again. Jesus's death wasn't a sacrifice. The only way it could have been a sacrifice would be if it was something he and God was not willing to do. It's possible that Jesus did not like what was going to happen to him, but he chose to accept his path and accepted his role. How then can you say that he sacrificed? He chose to show you that no matter what man can do, it doesn't matter. Man was the one who described the whole scenario as sacrifice, because they could only see the scenario as an extension of the Old Testament angry God, but it wasn't a sacrifice, it was an act of unconditional love. Perhaps you say then that God was the one who made the sacrifice by allowing his son to be beaten and die...but God is a spirit, as was Jesus and as are we all. Jesus's spirit was never in danger, and that was the whole point...to prove that the real you can't be hurt. How then could God have sacrificed his son when there was no way for Jesus's spirit to die or be injured? The ancient writers of the Bible constantly confused this physical reality with Gods spiritual reality and treat them as the same, but they are not. God is spirit as are we. There is no physical thing that is required or can be done that can ever, ever, ever, ever have a spiritual effect...but spiritual things always make physical effects. Besides, why would a loving God require blood sacrifices. These are physical things, and again, God is not physical. These concepts came from ancient and barbaric customs, practiced all over the world by all different cultures. God is spiritual and requires no physical sacrifice. The only thing you can do for God is to be open and be willing to let the Holy Spirit and Jesus work with you to open your eyes to the truth. God is love. God is the total absence of fear. God is peace. God is the total absence of anger. God is forever giving and sharing. God is the total absence of sacrifice. Be open to hear him. Be willing to hear him. Choose to see differently...and you will. It's all about choice. Choose to see. Choose to forgive. Choose to be peaceful. Choose to see your brothers in love. Choose to share the truth. Choose to be free from mans interpretations of God. I choose to extend my love, peace, patience, wisdom and faith to all of you. Have a Joyous Christmas! -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- David Nelmes - David considers it a wonderful blessing that his insight and writings can provide opportunities for those around him to see things from perspectives they had not considered before. He pursues Gods truths and is open and willing to see what God would have him see. He invites you to join him. His influences consist of truly being open to seeing and applying the truths he has discovered through life and through both "The Bible" and "A Course In Miracles". You can visit David's website at: http://www.BeingWilling.com This article Copyright ©2004 David Nelmes - Reproduced with Permission. Highlight & Copy Text Version

In Everything You Do
<STYLE TYPE="text/css"> <!-- .iborder1 {border-style: inset; border-color: #E1E1E1; border-width: 3px; margin-left: 10px; margin-right: 10px; margin-top: 5px; margin-bottom: 5px;} H2.bwtitle {font-family: papyrus, "times new roman", verdana, arial; color: #1F2E27; font-size: 30pt; font-weight: 600; text-align: center;} --> </STYLE> <DIV ALIGN=CENTER> <h2 class="bwtitle">In Everything You Do</H2> through <A HREF="#author">David Nelmes</A><BR> (8/23/2003) </DIV> <P>Reaching for God. Searching for Peace. Wanting Happiness. Yearning for Love. These are all things we desire and even a hundred more things beyond that, but to seek these things is a clear indication that we feel as though we don't already have them. On one end we can acknowledge and say that God has already given us everything, but to truly believe that and apply it to all aspects of our lives, that is often a whole other story.</P> <P><A HREF="http://www.designingonline.com" TARGET="_blank">The Bible has many undeniable truths. Some items in the Bible might be argued or totally disbelieved, but that doesn't matter. The Bible and other sources of Gods words to us, were never meant to be either totally accepted or totally rejected. This method of thinking limits your ability to clearly see the truths that are there.</P> <P>To totally accept every word in the Bible as the end-all be-all, you have mixed Gods truths with the personalities, opinions and folk-lore of the writers. You will find so many contradictions that you are forever trying to explain them in some way in which they don't contradict. Real truths need no defense or explanation.</P> <P>For example, the concept that God was not able to bear the actions of people he created ( he was so upset ), that he flooded the entire earth, killing life upon life, upon lifeform...does not agree with the concept of a loving and forgiving God. We can justify it by seeing God how we see ourselves and assume it was his right to do with us as he pleases and we should just be thankful he didn't just kill us all...or we can see that the writers totally misunderstood an event that occured and treated and viewed God as all ancient tribes did and ASSUMED they were being punished and therefore wrote God in as they saw themsleves...angry, unforgiving, frightened and vengeful people.</P> <P>On the other hand, to not accept any part of the Bible at all, you have restricted yourself from being exposed to the truths that God has shared with us. Gods truths are all that matter...not when something happened or if something happened, but who we are to be...how we are to live...who God is to us...those things are important. His truths are there and in so many other places as well. They are in songs you hear and movies you see. Once you begin to open your heart to see truthfully, everything becomes so much clearer.</P> <P>A favorite verse of mine sums up just about all you need to do, be and know. You can virtually throw the whole book away, but hang onto this one truth...<BR><B STYLE="color: red;">"Trust in the Lord with all your heart and do not depend upon your own understanding. In everything you do, acknowledge Him and he will direct your path."</B></P> <P>This one phrase, one seemingly simple statement, contains everything you need to know in order to have a successful relationship with God and find your way home. All other spiritual truths in the Bible, Course in Miracles, etc, are based upon the spirit of this one phrase.</P> <P><B STYLE="color: red;">"Trust in the Lord with all your heart...."</B> It flows off our lips so quickly, yet, have we ever fully comprehended what it means or entails? To Trust God is to have full confidence in what he would decide for you. Trusting consists of removing all fear from your heart about what your past, present or future may hold. Trust includes having forgiven everyone and everything of what you believe they have done to you. Trusting means you have released all grievances with yourself, the world and God. Trusting removes all faith in what you believed you can do on your own and acknowledges that everything and anything of value can only be done through God.</P> <P>To trust God is to see yourself without the means to pay a bill, while never fearing what may come of it. Whether it is paid or not, you believe the path you are on is one that is perfect for you and you can therefore only be content with life. God knows what is necessary for you to learn and grow, so to fear what is brought before you, is not trusting him.</P> <P>God never tests you. That's an ancient concept of a Zeus-like God. When times are tough, you can know that no matter what appears to surround you, you have it within the God in you to rise over the situation. Every situation, whether good or bad, is actually an opportunity to learn and grow. These moments are mighty blessings that give you the opportunity to choose differently than you had chosen before. These moments are opportunities to stop the cycles in your life and to move past them. God uses everything at his disposal to teach you everything you need to know so that you can eventually come home to him.</P> <P><B STYLE="color: red;">"...and do not depend upon your own understanding."</B> Our pursuit to understand is the primary thing that distances us from God at times. All understanding is with God. In time, we may understand all things, but we must first release our self-made concepts of what things are and why things are and stop limiting what God can do in our lives. Just know that God knows and stop trying to understand. Just believe God will do as he says and don't try to figure it out on your own. This world does not have the answers and since we cannot understand most spiritual things, our worldly understanding and attempts to prove ourselves are often just distractions that keep us at a distance from God.</P> <P>Before you can understand anything, you must be open to see it as it truly is. Consider an attempt in trying to describe a color to somebody, without using any reference to any other color or texture. No matter how well you try, he will never truly understand what that color is... until he finally sees it. Having seen the color, he will understand how it can be used and what it matches and how it differs. Understanding comes by first seeing. Open your heart to see things as God would have you see them and understanding will follow later. First, be open and willing to see, without reservations and without conditions or exclusions of what you will let God show you. Be open. Be willing. Do not depend upon what you have already convinced yourself that you understand. Desire to see. Choose to see differently. Be willing to see things clearly.</P> <P><B STYLE="color: red;">"In everything you do, acknowledge Him..."</B> Know that God is your source. Know that his will is the only will and that your will is the same as his. Both God and you want you home. Both God and you want you to be happy, healthy and secure. Know that there is nothing you do separate from him that will ever succeed. This has nothing to do with the world where success is rated upon financial or social awards. All those things eventually fade to dust and therefore are not real. They don't matter to God. The condition of your spiritual being matters to God. Success is when you open your heart more than the day before. Success is when you are not fearful of things you feared before. Success is seeing God more clearly than before. Success is having an honest desire to pursue the truth, no matter how it might contradict what the world and religion has taught you.</P> <P><B STYLE="color: red;">"...and he will direct your path."</B> What is your path? What is it that God would have you DO? Once you fully comprehend the concept of placing your total trust in God, there is nothing you will feel you will have to do for God. Only God can do. When you think there is something you can or must do for God, you have limited God and put yourself in his seat. So what is your path if you don't do anything? Your path is not about doing...it's about being. It doesn't matter to God what you do, as long as you BE part of him while you do it. Whether you are sweeping floors, running an entire corporation or climbing a mountain, these are physical things. God is not physical, he is spiritual, as is your true self. What is important is what are you BEING while you do these things. That is what your path is, to be all that God would have you be. To be without fear...to be full of love...to be patient...to be compassionate...to be open to hear God...to be willing to grow in Him.</P> <P>There is nothing God requires that you do. There is no payment or sacrifice he requires or desires. There is no path to discover by racking your brain in trying to figure out what it is that God would have you do. There is no physical thing in the entire universe that you need to give God or those who claim they follow God. There is only one thing that God desires from you and that is for you to <B>Be Willing</B>. Be willing to see clearly... be willing to choose differently... be willing to set aside what the world has taught you... be willing to be what he would have you be. Your willingness creates an opening in your being that allows the Holy Spirit to Do things. It allows the Holy Spirit to heal you, teach you and guide you. Learn to Be and you'll truly see what God can Do.</P> <P>No matter what you do in life, God can and will use your life to bless you and all those around you, but even more-so if you are pursuing a higher place of being as well. There are times when we dream about a grand future event that God will bring us to...<I>Our Mission For God</I>...but that's just fantasy. It is a sign you are not trusting God if you are planning what you believe God thinks is best for you. God may use events and choices you make that will affect a large audience some day, but that doesn't matter. God knows exactly what you need to become more and more open to him every day. That is what is important to him. He knows what will speed this process and that is where he will guide you. So don't be so concerned about what you think God wants you to do. Instead, in whatever you do decide to do, be what God would have you be and he will direct you from there.</P> <BR CLEAR=ALL> <HR SIZE=1 COLOR="#3E1300"> <P><I><A NAME="author"><IMG SRC="http://www.beingwilling.com/articles/graphics/david_nelmes.jpg" WIDTH=79 HEIGHT=100 alt="David Nelmes" BORDER=0 ALIGN=LEFT HSPACE=10 STYLE="border-style: inset; border-color: #DDDDDD; border-width: 2px;"></A> <B>David Nelmes</B> - David considers it a wonderful blessing that his insight and writings can provide opportunities for those around him to see things from perspectives they had not considered before. He pursues Gods truths and is open and willing to see what God would have him see. He invites you to join him.</I></P> <P><I>His influences consist of truly being open to seeing and applying the truths he has discovered through life and through both the "<a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/redirect.html?ie=UTF8&location=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.amazon.com%2Fexec%2Fobidos%2Ftg%2Fbrowse%2F-%2F10405901%2Fsr%3D53-1%2Fsr%3D53-1%2Fqid%3D1181498397&tag=beinwill-20&linkCode=ur2&camp=1789&creative=9325">Bible</a><img src="http://www.assoc-amazon.com/e/ir?t=beinwill-20&l=ur2&o=1" width="1" height="1" border="0" alt="" style="border:none !important; margin:0px !important;" />" and "<a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/redirect.html?ie=UTF8&location=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.amazon.com%2FCourse-Miracles-Foundation-Inner-Peace%2Fdp%2F0670869759%3Fie%3DUTF8%26s%3Dbooks%26qid%3D1181498802%26sr%3D1-1&tag=beinwill-20&linkCode=ur2&camp=1789&creative=9325">A Course in Miracles</a><img src="http://www.assoc-amazon.com/e/ir?t=beinwill-20&l=ur2&o=1" width="1" height="1" border="0" alt="" style="border:none !important; margin:0px !important;" />".<BR> You can visit David's website at: <A HREF="http://www.beingwilling.com" TARGET="_blank">http://www.BeingWilling.com</A></I></P> <P>This article Copyright ©2004 David Nelmes - Reproduced with Permission.</P> Highlight & Copy Html Version	IN EVERYTHING YOU DO through David Nelmes (8/23/2003) Reaching for God. Searching for Peace. Wanting Happiness. Yearning for Love. These are all things we desire and even a hundred more things beyond that, but to seek these things is a clear indication that we feel as though we don't already have them. On one end we can acknowledge and say that God has already given us everything, but to truly believe that and apply it to all aspects of our lives, that is often a whole other story. The Bible has many undeniable truths. Some items in the Bible might be argued or totally disbelieved, but that doesn't matter. The Bible and other sources of Gods words to us, were never meant to be either totally accepted or totally rejected. This method of thinking limits your ability to clearly see the truths that are there. To totally accept every word in the Bible as the end-all be-all, you have mixed Gods truths with the personalities, opinions and folk-lore of the writers. You will find so many contradictions that you are forever trying to explain them in some way in which they don't contradict. Real truths need no defense or explanation. For example, the concept that God was not able to bear the actions of people he created ( he was so upset ), that he flooded the entire earth, killing life upon life, upon lifeform...does not agree with the concept of a loving and forgiving God. We can justify it by seeing God how we see ourselves and assume it was his right to do with us as he pleases and we should just be thankful he didn't just kill us all...or we can see that the writers totally misunderstood an event that occured and treated and viewed God as all ancient tribes did and ASSUMED they were being punished and therefore wrote God in as they saw themsleves...angry, unforgiving, frightened and vengeful people. On the other hand, to not accept any part of the Bible at all, you have restricted yourself from being exposed to the truths that God has shared with us. Gods truths are all that matter...not when something happened or if something happened, but who we are to be...how we are to live...who God is to us...those things are important. His truths are there and in so many other places as well. They are in songs you hear and movies you see. Once you begin to open your heart to see truthfully, everything becomes so much clearer. A favorite verse of mine sums up just about all you need to do, be and know. You can virtually throw the whole book away, but hang onto this one truth... "Trust in the Lord with all your heart and do not depend upon your own understanding. In everything you do, acknowledge Him and he will direct your path." This one phrase, one seemingly simple statement, contains everything you need to know in order to have a successful relationship with God and find your way home. All other spiritual truths in the Bible, Course in Miracles, etc, are based upon the spirit of this one phrase. "Trust in the Lord with all your heart...." It flows off our lips so quickly, yet, have we ever fully comprehended what it means or entails? To Trust God is to have full confidence in what he would decide for you. Trusting consists of removing all fear from your heart about what your past, present or future may hold. Trust includes having forgiven everyone and everything of what you believe they have done to you. Trusting means you have released all grievances with yourself, the world and God. Trusting removes all faith in what you believed you can do on your own and acknowledges that everything and anything of value can only be done through God. To trust God is to see yourself without the means to pay a bill, while never fearing what may come of it. Whether it is paid or not, you believe the path you are on is one that is perfect for you and you can therefore only be content with life. God knows what is necessary for you to learn and grow, so to fear what is brought before you, is not trusting him. God never tests you. That's an ancient concept of a Zeus-like God. When times are tough, you can know that no matter what appears to surround you, you have it within the God in you to rise over the situation. Every situation, whether good or bad, is actually an opportunity to learn and grow. These moments are mighty blessings that give you the opportunity to choose differently than you had chosen before. These moments are opportunities to stop the cycles in your life and to move past them. God uses everything at his disposal to teach you everything you need to know so that you can eventually come home to him. "...and do not depend upon your own understanding." Our pursuit to understand is the primary thing that distances us from God at times. All understanding is with God. In time, we may understand all things, but we must first release our self-made concepts of what things are and why things are and stop limiting what God can do in our lives. Just know that God knows and stop trying to understand. Just believe God will do as he says and don't try to figure it out on your own. This world does not have the answers and since we cannot understand most spiritual things, our worldly understanding and attempts to prove ourselves are often just distractions that keep us at a distance from God. Before you can understand anything, you must be open to see it as it truly is. Consider an attempt in trying to describe a color to somebody, without using any reference to any other color or texture. No matter how well you try, he will never truly understand what that color is... until he finally sees it. Having seen the color, he will understand how it can be used and what it matches and how it differs. Understanding comes by first seeing. Open your heart to see things as God would have you see them and understanding will follow later. First, be open and willing to see, without reservations and without conditions or exclusions of what you will let God show you. Be open. Be willing. Do not depend upon what you have already convinced yourself that you understand. Desire to see. Choose to see differently. Be willing to see things clearly. "In everything you do, acknowledge Him..." Know that God is your source. Know that his will is the only will and that your will is the same as his. Both God and you want you home. Both God and you want you to be happy, healthy and secure. Know that there is nothing you do separate from him that will ever succeed. This has nothing to do with the world where success is rated upon financial or social awards. All those things eventually fade to dust and therefore are not real. They don't matter to God. The condition of your spiritual being matters to God. Success is when you open your heart more than the day before. Success is when you are not fearful of things you feared before. Success is seeing God more clearly than before. Success is having an honest desire to pursue the truth, no matter how it might contradict what the world and religion has taught you. "...and he will direct your path." What is your path? What is it that God would have you DO? Once you fully comprehend the concept of placing your total trust in God, there is nothing you will feel you will have to do for God. Only God can do. When you think there is something you can or must do for God, you have limited God and put yourself in his seat. So what is your path if you don't do anything? Your path is not about doing...it's about being. It doesn't matter to God what you do, as long as you BE part of him while you do it. Whether you are sweeping floors, running an entire corporation or climbing a mountain, these are physical things. God is not physical, he is spiritual, as is your true self. What is important is what are you BEING while you do these things. That is what your path is, to be all that God would have you be. To be without fear...to be full of love...to be patient...to be compassionate...to be open to hear God...to be willing to grow in Him. There is nothing God requires that you do. There is no payment or sacrifice he requires or desires. There is no path to discover by racking your brain in trying to figure out what it is that God would have you do. There is no physical thing in the entire universe that you need to give God or those who claim they follow God. There is only one thing that God desires from you and that is for you to Be Willing. Be willing to see clearly... be willing to choose differently... be willing to set aside what the world has taught you... be willing to be what he would have you be. Your willingness creates an opening in your being that allows the Holy Spirit to Do things. It allows the Holy Spirit to heal you, teach you and guide you. Learn to Be and you'll truly see what God can Do. No matter what you do in life, God can and will use your life to bless you and all those around you, but even more-so if you are pursuing a higher place of being as well. There are times when we dream about a grand future event that God will bring us to...Our Mission For God...but that's just fantasy. It is a sign you are not trusting God if you are planning what you believe God thinks is best for you. God may use events and choices you make that will affect a large audience some day, but that doesn't matter. God knows exactly what you need to become more and more open to him every day. That is what is important to him. He knows what will speed this process and that is where he will guide you. So don't be so concerned about what you think God wants you to do. Instead, in whatever you do decide to do, be what God would have you be and he will direct you from there. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- David Nelmes - David considers it a wonderful blessing that his insight and writings can provide opportunities for those around him to see things from perspectives they had not considered before. He pursues Gods truths and is open and willing to see what God would have him see. He invites you to join him. His influences consist of truly being open to seeing and applying the truths he has discovered through life and through both "The Bible" and "A Course In Miracles". You can visit David's website at: http://www.BeingWilling.com This article Copyright ©2004 David Nelmes - Reproduced with Permission. Highlight & Copy Text Version

There's Power in Disbelieving
<STYLE TYPE="text/css"> <!-- .iborder1 {border-style: inset; border-color: #E1E1E1; border-width: 3px; margin-left: 10px; margin-right: 10px; margin-top: 5px; margin-bottom: 5px;} H2.bwtitle {font-family: "times new roman", verdana, arial; color: #DC143C; font-size: 30pt; font-weight: 700; text-align: center;} --> </STYLE> <DIV ALIGN=CENTER> <h2 class="bwtitle">There's Power in Disbelieving</H2> through <A HREF="#author">David Nelmes</A><BR> (6/5/2003) </DIV> <P>You create the world you live in by making conscience and unconscious decisions that ensure your life consists of the things your mind envisioned. Whether you see good or bad in your life, you are the only one who has enabled that aspect of your life to exist and you have the capacity to change it...at any time.</P> <P>Do you have disease? You've enabled it. Are you poor? You've enabled it. Are you sad, lonely, depressed...you've enabled it. God does not punish us by making our lives hard, we make our lives hard by not totally trusting God. You create what you consider to be the bad things in your life. It might sound cold or callous to say somebody brought such a condition upon themselves, but God didn't do it and that just leaves us.</P> <P>Since we tend to not like taking responsibility for yourselves, we created a devil to blame things on. However, just like in politics, simply blaming everyone else as to why a condition exists, doesn't fix the condition. You can spend your whole life blaming others and pointing to others, but wouldn't you rather fix the problem? To dig further, if you did want to fix the problem, you wouldn't be preoccupied with blaming others and trying to explain it away. This can only conclude that you don't want to fix the problem and that you actually enjoy the purpose the problem creates in your life.</P> <P>How or why would you or anybody want bad things to occur in their life? Because you actually do want them and because you don't believe they don't have to be. You have accepted their existence on some level and therefore they exist in your life. Jesus healed because he did not desire sickness and he did not accept that sickness was inevitable. He knew it was a choice. As people gave him opportunity, he joined with them and chose <B>NOT</B> to believe in the sickness or illness. He didn't have to believe in the health of the person because he already knew that perfect physical and mental health is the natural state that God wants for all of us while we are here.</P> <P>The sickness, the disease, the circumstance...they are just effects of what you have accepted as inevitable or even have desired...and since we are all one spirit, if you believe it could happen to somebody else, you are believing it could happen to you. If you step over the crippled man, you have accepted him as crippled and therefore accepted that people can be crippled...that you can be crippled. If you like telling people how sick you are or how bad your life is, then you are actually getting pleasure from these bad events and you will experience the effects of your sickness and bad life until you decide you don't want to get pleasure from them anymore. If you've bragged about anything bad in your life, then you've given the problem purpose and it will stay with you for as long as you find purpose in it. To end the cycle, God gives you the choice to have a different purpose.</P> <P>The focus for trusting God is to stop believing what this world is teaching you and start believing what God is teaching you. God doesn't teach pain, suffering, sickness, disease, sorrow and despair...the world does. God teaches the total absence of all those things. God teaches Peace, Harmony, Love and Goodness. God teaches Happiness and Health. <B>To believe God is to disbelieve the world</B>. Your purpose then changes from one who sees the bad in all things, past, present and future, to one who see the possibility of goodness in all things now and all things to come. The past is gone and has no meaning since it is just a reflection of what you don't want. Let it go.</P> <P>In one respect, God doesn't need you to believe in him in order for him to work with you, because he knows we are limited in what we can even fathom as being possible, however, he will not thwart our own wills. Our freedom of choice...our free will is a precious gift to us...and God will not stop the things of the world from affecting your life as long as you continue to believe and trust in them instead.</P> <P>The statement "<I>to have no other gods before me</I>" isn't a threat. It isn't a cry of an entity who is jealous. It isn't a demand that requires compliance out of fear. It is none of those things. That statement is a message of divine and wonderful direction. It's a message to not place things between yourself and God. God is here to help us, not manipulate and confuse us. The beliefs of the world are another god. Remove the beliefs of the world from between you and God. Have no other gods and you will have opened your heart to hear God more clearly and to see his direction in all that you do.</P> <P>Each of us that joins with God, and therefore with everyone, has the capacity to bring healing to our minds and therefore to our bodies as well. With God we won't just fix the effects of the problem, we'll heal the source of the problem. Fear is at the heart of all things not from God. Fear creates and enables disease, sickness, sorrow, famine, war, hatred and jealousy. Heal fear and what is left....just Love and Peace.</P> <P>Believe there is room for fear in the world and there will be room for fear in the world. You don't have to believe in love, because God is love and it exists whether you believe in it or not. Fear, on the other hand is created only by us, so stop believing fear has to exist and it will diminish in the world. The end result is that you're left with Love and Peace, which is the natural state of all being. You don't have to create it, you just need to stop placing things in its way.</P> <BR CLEAR=ALL> <HR SIZE=1 COLOR="#3E1300"> <P><I><A NAME="author"><IMG SRC="http://www.beingwilling.com/articles/graphics/david_nelmes.jpg" WIDTH=79 HEIGHT=100 alt="David Nelmes" BORDER=0 ALIGN=LEFT HSPACE=10 STYLE="border-style: inset; border-color: #DDDDDD; border-width: 2px;"></A> <B>David Nelmes</B> - David considers it a wonderful blessing that his insight and writings can provide opportunities for those around him to see things from perspectives they had not considered before. He pursues Gods truths and is open and willing to see what God would have him see. He invites you to join him.</I></P> <P><I>His influences consist of truly being open to seeing and applying the truths he has discovered through life and through both the "<a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/redirect.html?ie=UTF8&location=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.amazon.com%2Fexec%2Fobidos%2Ftg%2Fbrowse%2F-%2F10405901%2Fsr%3D53-1%2Fsr%3D53-1%2Fqid%3D1181498397&tag=beinwill-20&linkCode=ur2&camp=1789&creative=9325">Bible</a><img src="http://www.assoc-amazon.com/e/ir?t=beinwill-20&l=ur2&o=1" width="1" height="1" border="0" alt="" style="border:none !important; margin:0px !important;" />" and "<a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/redirect.html?ie=UTF8&location=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.amazon.com%2FCourse-Miracles-Foundation-Inner-Peace%2Fdp%2F0670869759%3Fie%3DUTF8%26s%3Dbooks%26qid%3D1181498802%26sr%3D1-1&tag=beinwill-20&linkCode=ur2&camp=1789&creative=9325">A Course in Miracles</a><img src="http://www.assoc-amazon.com/e/ir?t=beinwill-20&l=ur2&o=1" width="1" height="1" border="0" alt="" style="border:none !important; margin:0px !important;" />".<BR> You can visit David's website at: <A HREF="http://www.beingwilling.com" TARGET="_blank">http://www.BeingWilling.com</A></I></P> <P>This article Copyright ©2003 David Nelmes - Reproduced with Permission.</P> Highlight & Copy Html Version	THERE'S POWER IN DISBELIEVING through David Nelmes (6/5/2003) You create the world you live in by making conscience and unconscious decisions that ensure your life consists of the things your mind envisioned. Whether you see good or bad in your life, you are the only one who has enabled that aspect of your life to exist and you have the capacity to change it...at any time. Do you have disease? You've enabled it. Are you poor? You've enabled it. Are you sad, lonely, depressed...you've enabled it. God does not punish us by making our lives hard, we make our lives hard by not totally trusting God. You create what you consider to be the bad things in your life. It might sound cold or callous to say somebody brought such a condition upon themselves, but God didn't do it and that just leaves us. Since we tend to not like taking responsibility for yourselves, we created a devil to blame things on. However, just like in politics, simply blaming everyone else as to why a condition exists, doesn't fix the condition. You can spend your whole life blaming others and pointing to others, but wouldn't you rather fix the problem? To dig further, if you did want to fix the problem, you wouldn't be preoccupied with blaming others and trying to explain it away. This can only conclude that you don't want to fix the problem and that you actually enjoy the purpose the problem creates in your life. How or why would you or anybody want bad things to occur in their life? Because you actually do want them and because you don't believe they don't have to be. You have accepted their existence on some level and therefore they exist in your life. Jesus healed because he did not desire sickness and he did not accept that sickness was inevitable. He knew it was a choice. As people gave him opportunity, he joined with them and chose NOT to believe in the sickness or illness. He didn't have to believe in the health of the person because he already knew that perfect physical and mental health is the natural state that God wants for all of us while we are here. The sickness, the disease, the circumstance...they are just effects of what you have accepted as inevitable or even have desired...and since we are all one spirit, if you believe it could happen to somebody else, you are believing it could happen to you. If you step over the crippled man, you have accepted him as crippled and therefore accepted that people can be crippled...that you can be crippled. If you like telling people how sick you are or how bad your life is, then you are actually getting pleasure from these bad events and you will experience the effects of your sickness and bad life until you decide you don't want to get pleasure from them anymore. If you've bragged about anything bad in your life, then you've given the problem purpose and it will stay with you for as long as you find purpose in it. To end the cycle, God gives you the choice to have a different purpose. The focus for trusting God is to stop believing what this world is teaching you and start believing what God is teaching you. God doesn't teach pain, suffering, sickness, disease, sorrow and despair...the world does. God teaches the total absence of all those things. God teaches Peace, Harmony, Love and Goodness. God teaches Happiness and Health. To believe God is to disbelieve the world. Your purpose then changes from one who sees the bad in all things, past, present and future, to one who see the possibility of goodness in all things now and all things to come. The past is gone and has no meaning since it is just a reflection of what you don't want. Let it go. In one respect, God doesn't need you to believe in him in order for him to work with you, because he knows we are limited in what we can even fathom as being possible, however, he will not thwart our own wills. Our freedom of choice...our free will is a precious gift to us...and God will not stop the things of the world from affecting your life as long as you continue to believe and trust in them instead. The statement "to have no other gods before me" isn't a threat. It isn't a cry of an entity who is jealous. It isn't a demand that requires compliance out of fear. It is none of those things. That statement is a message of divine and wonderful direction. It's a message to not place things between yourself and God. God is here to help us, not manipulate and confuse us. The beliefs of the world are another god. Remove the beliefs of the world from between you and God. Have no other gods and you will have opened your heart to hear God more clearly and to see his direction in all that you do. Each of us that joins with God, and therefore with everyone, has the capacity to bring healing to our minds and therefore to our bodies as well. With God we won't just fix the effects of the problem, we'll heal the source of the problem. Fear is at the heart of all things not from God. Fear creates and enables disease, sickness, sorrow, famine, war, hatred and jealousy. Heal fear and what is left....just Love and Peace. Believe there is room for fear in the world and there will be room for fear in the world. You don't have to believe in love, because God is love and it exists whether you believe in it or not. Fear, on the other hand is created only by us, so stop believing fear has to exist and it will diminish in the world. The end result is that you're left with Love and Peace, which is the natural state of all being. You don't have to create it, you just need to stop placing things in its way. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- David Nelmes - David considers it a wonderful blessing that his insight and writings can provide opportunities for those around him to see things from perspectives they had not considered before. He pursues Gods truths and is open and willing to see what God would have him see. He invites you to join him. His influences consist of truly being open to seeing and applying the truths he has discovered through life and through both "The Bible" and "A Course In Miracles". You can visit David's website at: http://www.BeingWilling.com This article Copyright ©2003 David Nelmes - Reproduced with Permission. Highlight & Copy Text Version

Why Isn't God Helping You?
<STYLE TYPE="text/css"> <!-- .iborder1 {border-style: inset; border-color: #E1E1E1; border-width: 3px; margin-left: 10px; margin-right: 10px; margin-top: 5px; margin-bottom: 5px;} H2.bwtitle {font-family: "times new roman", verdana, arial; color: #DC143C; font-size: 30pt; font-weight: 700; text-align: center;} --> </STYLE> <DIV ALIGN=CENTER> <h2 class="bwtitle">Why Isn't God Helping You?</H2> through <A HREF="#author">David Nelmes</A><BR> (3/17/2003) </DIV> <P>What's holding you back? What is it that seems to have come between yourself and your dreams of better relationships, better finances, better jobs, better health, etc., etc.?</P> <P>Why isn't God helping you? You cry out every night...<I><B>God! I can't take it anymore. This job is driving me nuts!... My back is killing me!... How do I pay these bills!... What do I do?!</B></I> What are the <B STYLE="color: red;">Magic Words</B> that you have to say in order to get Gods attention? What is it that you can do to prove your worth to God so that he will help you?</P> <P>There are no Magic Words. There is <B>nothing <U>you</U> can do</B> to stand worthy before God. God already sees you as totally worthy of everything he has. Everything he has is already yours. You just have to accept what he has already given you, and even though you think all your begging and crying has proven you want what he has for you, the fact that you don't have it is proof that there is still something in the way.</P> <P>I have come to a realization about how we are purposely turning away from all the things that God is giving us. At any moment you can choose to see where this is true for yourself as well. Let me share how I was able to see this more clearly.</P> <P STYLE="margin-left: 2em; font-family: arial; color: #000040">Just a short time ago, I felt there was never enough time. I worked endlessly at building a business and it seemed that no matter how hard I tried, I could never get things done. There was always something else to do and the profits were never there to make up for all the efforts I had put into the business. I was seeking God's path most of the time and just did not understand why this was happening to me. How is it that people who don't even pursue God, have success when I'm trying so hard and getting nowhere?</P> <P STYLE="margin-left: 2em; font-family: arial; color: #000040">One day, after having started off with study and prayer, I felt sure I would do so well. I placed God in the seat with me and said "Let's get to work". The day was miserable. Everything went wrong and I spent an entire day trying to fix a problem that just would not go away. I was really angry at God and had to question whether I was just talking to myself or if this eternal God really existed.</P> <P STYLE="margin-left: 2em; font-family: arial; color: #000040">That night, while talking about my day, I felt myself nearing depression. I was just tired of trying and getting nowhere. I thought to myself, "<I><B>This day was a total waste and I'll be up all night because I won't be able to relax.</B></I>"</P> <P STYLE="margin-left: 2em; font-family: arial; color: #000040"><B STYLE="color: red; font-size: 14pt;">Kaboom!</B> A clear awareness came into my mind when I finally heard myself think those words. I've been awake late at night for years, tormented with not having accomplished anything that day...tormented that what I did was not enough...and there you have it...that was it... <B>In one quick thought, I undid anything of value I may have accomplished that day, ensuring I would never be satisfied with what I had done, guaranteeing it would not be profitable and proving to myself that I just did not have enough.</B> It's a circle that self-perpetuates and guarantees it's own existence.</P> <P STYLE="margin-left: 2em; font-family: arial; color: #000040">Having spent my day creating and building my business, I was undoing all my hard work by simply not being satisfied with what God has given me...by believing He did not help me enough or give me enough. I was ensuring I would never have enough time by being so sure that I didn't have enough time. I was ensuring that the business would not succeed by assuring myself that what I was doing was not good enough. I was doing this to myself the whole time. How or why would God bless something I felt was unworthy? God does not go against our will. That is our greatest gift, yet we do things with our will that we don't understand and then we blame God for the outcome. The answer is in understanding that it is us and not God as the source of the problem.</P> <P>How did I fix this? I stopped creating new problems and started being sincerely thankful for what I have accomplished instead of being unhappy about what I have not accomplished. I chose to be thankful. I chose to give thanks. I decided to give God a chance to do something in my life by being thankful and open to where he would take me. I realized that He can't take me anywhere when I am unthankful, because then I will neither hear him nor see his guidance.</P> <P>So, how else do you apply this? Let's say you are stuck in a job you can't stand. Do you complain all the time about how terrible it is, yet stay there out of fear of leaving? How can you be thankful for something so miserable in your life? You just need to look at it differently. Be honest with God and tell him you are not happy in your current situation and that you are open and willing to listen to what and where he would have you go, then, while doing that miserable job, be thankful for where it's taking you. Be thankful for the fact that God is leading you out of there.</P> <P>God doesn't require your thankfulness, but he is unable to work within your life effectively when you thwart his efforts by being unthankful. He can't bless something you dislike. At the same time, don't try to fool God. If you are not feeling thankful, be honest and tell him you are not feeling thankful and you would like help in seeing your situation in another way.</P> <P>Life can be like making a trip down the highway. You're a passenger going from A to B. God is driving, so you are not really sure where or what B is. You can choose to let the blur of trees and signs distract you and make you fearful and resentful of the journey...eventually stopping the trip on your own and getting out in a place you really shouldn't be. Or you can choose to accept and trust that God knows what and where B is and be thankful and attentive during the trip. God is taking everyone, somewhere better, so don't be fearful or thankless during the trip, because the trip teaches you what you need to know so that you are prepared to arrive at B in the first place.</P> <P>In a word...<B STYLE="color: red; font-size: 14pt;">TRUST</B>. To trust God is to let him drive.</P> <BR CLEAR=ALL> <HR SIZE=1 COLOR="#3E1300"> <P><I><A NAME="author"><IMG SRC="http://www.beingwilling.com/articles/graphics/david_nelmes.jpg" WIDTH=79 HEIGHT=100 alt="David Nelmes" BORDER=0 ALIGN=LEFT HSPACE=10 STYLE="border-style: inset; border-color: #DDDDDD; border-width: 2px;"></A> <B>David Nelmes</B> - David considers it a wonderful blessing that his insight and writings can provide opportunities for those around him to see things from perspectives they had not considered before. He pursues Gods truths and is open and willing to see what God would have him see. He invites you to join him.</I></P> <P><I>His influences consist of truly being open to seeing and applying the truths he has discovered through life and through both the "<a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/redirect.html?ie=UTF8&location=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.amazon.com%2Fexec%2Fobidos%2Ftg%2Fbrowse%2F-%2F10405901%2Fsr%3D53-1%2Fsr%3D53-1%2Fqid%3D1181498397&tag=beinwill-20&linkCode=ur2&camp=1789&creative=9325">Bible</a><img src="http://www.assoc-amazon.com/e/ir?t=beinwill-20&l=ur2&o=1" width="1" height="1" border="0" alt="" style="border:none !important; margin:0px !important;" />" and "<a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/redirect.html?ie=UTF8&location=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.amazon.com%2FCourse-Miracles-Foundation-Inner-Peace%2Fdp%2F0670869759%3Fie%3DUTF8%26s%3Dbooks%26qid%3D1181498802%26sr%3D1-1&tag=beinwill-20&linkCode=ur2&camp=1789&creative=9325">A Course in Miracles</a><img src="http://www.assoc-amazon.com/e/ir?t=beinwill-20&l=ur2&o=1" width="1" height="1" border="0" alt="" style="border:none !important; margin:0px !important;" />".<BR> You can visit David's website at: <A HREF="http://www.beingwilling.com" TARGET="_blank">http://www.BeingWilling.com</A></I></P> <P>This article Copyright ©2003 David Nelmes - Reproduced with Permission.</P> Highlight & Copy Html Version	WHY ISN'T GOD HELPING YOU? through David Nelmes (3/17/2003) What's holding you back? What is it that seems to have come between yourself and your dreams of better relationships, better finances, better jobs, better health, etc., etc.? Why isn't God helping you? You cry out every night...God! I can't take it anymore. This job is driving me nuts!... My back is killing me!... How do I pay these bills!... What do I do?! What are the Magic Words that you have to say in order to get Gods attention? What is it that you can do to prove your worth to God so that he will help you? There are no Magic Words. There is nothing you can do to stand worthy before God. God already sees you as totally worthy of everything he has. Everything he has is already yours. You just have to accept what he has already given you, and even though you think all your begging and crying has proven you want what he has for you, the fact that you don't have it is proof that there is still something in the way. I have come to a realization about how we are purposely turning away from all the things that God is giving us. At any moment you can choose to see where this is true for yourself as well. Let me share how I was able to see this more clearly. Just a short time ago, I felt there was never enough time. I worked endlessly at building a business and it seemed that no matter how hard I tried, I could never get things done. There was always something else to do and the profits were never there to make up for all the efforts I had put into the business. I was seeking God's path most of the time and just did not understand why this was happening to me. How is it that people who don't even pursue God, have success when I'm trying so hard and getting nowhere? One day, after having started off with study and prayer, I felt sure I would do so well. I placed God in the seat with me and said "Let's get to work". The day was miserable. Everything went wrong and I spent an entire day trying to fix a problem that just would not go away. I was really angry at God and had to question whether I was just talking to myself or if this eternal God really existed. That night, while talking about my day, I felt myself nearing depression. I was just tired of trying and getting nowhere. I thought to myself, "This day was a total waste and I'll be up all night because I won't be able to relax." Kaboom! A clear awareness came into my mind when I finally heard myself think those words. I've been awake late at night for years, tormented with not having accomplished anything that day...tormented that what I did was not enough...and there you have it...that was it... In one quick thought, I undid anything of value I may have accomplished that day, ensuring I would never be satisfied with what I had done, guaranteeing it would not be profitable and proving to myself that I just did not have enough. It's a circle that self-perpetuates and guarantees it's own existence. Having spent my day creating and building my business, I was undoing all my hard work by simply not being satisfied with what God has given me...by believing He did not help me enough or give me enough. I was ensuring I would never have enough time by being so sure that I didn't have enough time. I was ensuring that the business would not succeed by assuring myself that what I was doing was not good enough. I was doing this to myself the whole time. How or why would God bless something I felt was unworthy? God does not go against our will. That is our greatest gift, yet we do things with our will that we don't understand and then we blame God for the outcome. The answer is in understanding that it is us and not God as the source of the problem. How did I fix this? I stopped creating new problems and started being sincerely thankful for what I have accomplished instead of being unhappy about what I have not accomplished. I chose to be thankful. I chose to give thanks. I decided to give God a chance to do something in my life by being thankful and open to where he would take me. I realized that He can't take me anywhere when I am unthankful, because then I will neither hear him nor see his guidance. So, how else do you apply this? Let's say you are stuck in a job you can't stand. Do you complain all the time about how terrible it is, yet stay there out of fear of leaving? How can you be thankful for something so miserable in your life? You just need to look at it differently. Be honest with God and tell him you are not happy in your current situation and that you are open and willing to listen to what and where he would have you go, then, while doing that miserable job, be thankful for where it's taking you. Be thankful for the fact that God is leading you out of there. God doesn't require your thankfulness, but he is unable to work within your life effectively when you thwart his efforts by being unthankful. He can't bless something you dislike. At the same time, don't try to fool God. If you are not feeling thankful, be honest and tell him you are not feeling thankful and you would like help in seeing your situation in another way. Life can be like making a trip down the highway. You're a passenger going from A to B. God is driving, so you are not really sure where or what B is. You can choose to let the blur of trees and signs distract you and make you fearful and resentful of the journey...eventually stopping the trip on your own and getting out in a place you really shouldn't be. Or you can choose to accept and trust that God knows what and where B is and be thankful and attentive during the trip. God is taking everyone, somewhere better, so don't be fearful or thankless during the trip, because the trip teaches you what you need to know so that you are prepared to arrive at B in the first place. In a word...TRUST. To trust God is to let him drive. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- David Nelmes - David considers it a wonderful blessing that his insight and writings can provide opportunities for those around him to see things from perspectives they had not considered before. He pursues Gods truths and is open and willing to see what God would have him see. He invites you to join him. His influences consist of truly being open to seeing and applying the truths he has discovered through life and through both "The Bible" and "A Course In Miracles". You can visit David's website at: http://www.BeingWilling.com This article Copyright ©2003 David Nelmes - Reproduced with Permission. Highlight & Copy Text Version

God Is...
<STYLE TYPE="text/css"> <!-- .iborder1 {border-style: inset; border-color: #E1E1E1; border-width: 3px; margin-left: 10px; margin-right: 10px; margin-top: 5px; margin-bottom: 5px;} H2.bwtitle {font-family: "times new roman", verdana, arial; color: #DC143C; font-size: 30pt; font-weight: 700; text-align: center;} --> </STYLE> <DIV ALIGN=CENTER> <h2 class="bwtitle">God is...</H2> through <A HREF="#author">David Nelmes</A><BR> (1/11/2003) </DIV> <P>God is a God of love. God is a God of peace. God is a God of harmony. God is a God of everlasting joy.</P> <P>There is nothing anyone can say or express that would ever even begin to come close to expressing the love that God has for us. Yet, as we look around the world, we can find it hard to believe that God could love us as he does and still let the world be as it is. How could God be so Loving and Powerful and still let this world be as it is?</P> <P>There is only one real answer to that question and <B>the answer is not</B> that God wishes us to be punished or to have lives of desperation, sacrifice and fear. <B>The answer is</B> that God is not the God of this world....we are. God is the God of the spiritual world, of which we are all spiritual beings as well. Our bodies and this physical world are just projections of what we believe we are...of what we believe this world to be. What you see in any person or anything is just a shell of what really lies underneath...of what its true spiritual nature is.</P> <P>God has never left us. God has never abandoned us. Our spiritual awareness of him is in error and we don't sense him or see him as we should, but we are still so much a part of him, no matter how much we may think we are separate. Our physical bodies and physical world are as distant from what God is as you can get. There is nothing in this world that represents a thought of God. Nothing in this world is pure enough to have been created by God. This world is what we made, not what God created.</P> <P>We made all that you see. We made aging, decay, death, disease, bondage, the need for money, poverty, races, social levels, and all the things that make up this world. God doesn't interfere with this world because he did not create it. We made this world and it's just a self-induced nightmare from which God would have us awaken.</P> <P>When terrible things occur in this world, we blame God or get upset with God, but God doesn't see what we see. He doesn't see you as being in harm of any kind. He doesn't see you in danger. He doesn't see you as aged, dieing or murdered. He only see you as he first created you and as you actually still are...his beautiful spiritual creation that cannot be harmed or injured in any way. Nothing that happens in this physical world can touch your spirit and that was what Jesus proved as he rose again. The body is not who we are, it's just a vessel to be tossed aside when its use is done....but the spirit is eternal, everlasting and never ending. Your spirit...the real you, cannot be harmed and God knows this, because we are with him.</P> <P>This world is just a stage that we created in an effort to punish ourselves and distance ourselves from God for something we believed we did wrong to God. All through our existence we have blamed God for the terrible things in our life when it was really ourselves who were bringing these things about all the time. God is love, not fear. God is peace, not war. God only creates and extends himself. We are the ones who are corrupt and destroy.</P> <P>Anything that is not based upon love, is not a step towards God and is therefore not from God. Anything that is based upon fear is a step away from God and is therefore projected by us, not God. If anyone preaches fear, they are not preaching about God. God is love. If anyone preaches love, they are preaching about God. <B STYLE="color: red;"></B><I CLASS="bold">Perfect love casts out all fear</I>, simply states that fear and love don't and can't exist at the same time. The concept or idea to fear God is mans idea, not God's.</P> <P>Some of God's truths made it through in the Bible, but many of the thoughts provided were from men who perceived God as fearful and vengeful and their writings are direct evidence of that method of thinking. There is truth in the Bible, as there is truth in any method God uses to reach you, however, <B>ANYTHING</B> written or spoken by men is just a perception of what was believed to be true at the time and that does not neccessarily make it true. This includes what I am writing at this time. Gradually we have collected pieces of the truth, but we have yet to see the whole truth. If we did, we would see ourselves and all our brothers sinless as they truly are and we would be reunited with them all and with our Father.</P> <P>Our world is what we make it. Collectively, all our minds are connected and this world is what we have come up with. This madness that we call a world is what we have made in error....and God is gently waking us from this nightmare by opening our minds and hearts to see and hear his truths. His Holy Spirit speaks for him, guiding and comforting us along the way as he helps us see this world for what it truly is and to see God for who she truly is.</P> <P>When you open your heart to God's truths, all things the world has created are of no use to us. All religions that the world has created are just stepping stones towards a truth, but none of them truths in themselves since they are divided against one another and therefore divided against all the brothers of the world. Anything that is not united with all men is not from God. Anything that does not declare unconditional forgiveness for all men is not from God.</P> <P>Opening you heart and mind to God allows you to change the world you see around you...it allows you to change the collective idea of how things should be. Each one of us that connects with God is helping to pave the way for another to connect to God. When we all finally connect with God again...this world will no longer have a purpose and will simply cease to exist. What we currently percieve as <B STYLE="color: red;"></B><I CLASS="bold">the heavens and earth, will pass away and all things will be made new</I>. This change will not be a <I>physical new</I> as our ancestors perceived, but a spiritual new. We are spiritual beings and a spiritual world is the kind of world in which we truly belong. We will return to knowing we are spiritual beings and will live in total harmony with God as we had done for an eternity before and will do for an eternity ever after.</P> <BR> <P STYLE="font-size: 8pt;"> 1 John 4:18<BR> ** Revelation 21:1-5 </P> <BR CLEAR=ALL> <HR SIZE=1 COLOR="#3E1300"> <P><I><A NAME="author"><IMG SRC="http://www.beingwilling.com/articles/graphics/david_nelmes.jpg" WIDTH=79 HEIGHT=100 alt="David Nelmes" BORDER=0 ALIGN=LEFT HSPACE=10 STYLE="border-style: inset; border-color: #DDDDDD; border-width: 2px;"></A> <B>David Nelmes</B> - David considers it a wonderful blessing that his insight and writings can provide opportunities for those around him to see things from perspectives they had not considered before. He pursues Gods truths and is open and willing to see what God would have him see. He invites you to join him.</I></P> <P><I>His influences consist of truly being open to seeing and applying the truths he has discovered through life and through both the "<a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/redirect.html?ie=UTF8&location=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.amazon.com%2Fexec%2Fobidos%2Ftg%2Fbrowse%2F-%2F10405901%2Fsr%3D53-1%2Fsr%3D53-1%2Fqid%3D1181498397&tag=beinwill-20&linkCode=ur2&camp=1789&creative=9325">Bible</a><img src="http://www.assoc-amazon.com/e/ir?t=beinwill-20&l=ur2&o=1" width="1" height="1" border="0" alt="" style="border:none !important; margin:0px !important;" />" and "<a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/redirect.html?ie=UTF8&location=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.amazon.com%2FCourse-Miracles-Foundation-Inner-Peace%2Fdp%2F0670869759%3Fie%3DUTF8%26s%3Dbooks%26qid%3D1181498802%26sr%3D1-1&tag=beinwill-20&linkCode=ur2&camp=1789&creative=9325">A Course in Miracles</a><img src="http://www.assoc-amazon.com/e/ir?t=beinwill-20&l=ur2&o=1" width="1" height="1" border="0" alt="" style="border:none !important; margin:0px !important;" />".<BR> You can visit David's website at: <A HREF="http://www.beingwilling.com" TARGET="_blank">http://www.BeingWilling.com</A></I></P> <P>This article Copyright ©2003 David Nelmes - Reproduced with Permission.</P> Highlight & Copy Html Version	GOD IS... through David Nelmes (1/11/2003) God is a God of love. God is a God of peace. God is a God of harmony. God is a God of everlasting joy. There is nothing anyone can say or express that would ever even begin to come close to expressing the love that God has for us. Yet, as we look around the world, we can find it hard to believe that God could love us as he does and still let the world be as it is. How could God be so Loving and Powerful and still let this world be as it is? There is only one real answer to that question and the answer is not that God wishes us to be punished or to have lives of desperation, sacrifice and fear. The answer is that God is not the God of this world....we are. God is the God of the spiritual world, of which we are all spiritual beings as well. Our bodies and this physical world are just projections of what we believe we are...of what we believe this world to be. What you see in any person or anything is just a shell of what really lies underneath...of what its true spiritual nature is. God has never left us. God has never abandoned us. Our spiritual awareness of him is in error and we don't sense him or see him as we should, but we are still so much a part of him, no matter how much we may think we are separate. Our physical bodies and physical world are as distant from what God is as you can get. There is nothing in this world that represents a thought of God. Nothing in this world is pure enough to have been created by God. This world is what we made, not what God created. We made all that you see. We made aging, decay, death, disease, bondage, the need for money, poverty, races, social levels, and all the things that make up this world. God doesn't interfere with this world because he did not create it. We made this world and it's just a self-induced nightmare from which God would have us awaken. When terrible things occur in this world, we blame God or get upset with God, but God doesn't see what we see. He doesn't see you as being in harm of any kind. He doesn't see you in danger. He doesn't see you as aged, dieing or murdered. He only see you as he first created you and as you actually still are...his beautiful spiritual creation that cannot be harmed or injured in any way. Nothing that happens in this physical world can touch your spirit and that was what Jesus proved as he rose again. The body is not who we are, it's just a vessel to be tossed aside when its use is done....but the spirit is eternal, everlasting and never ending. Your spirit...the real you, cannot be harmed and God knows this, because we are with him. This world is just a stage that we created in an effort to punish ourselves and distance ourselves from God for something we believed we did wrong to God. All through our existence we have blamed God for the terrible things in our life when it was really ourselves who were bringing these things about all the time. God is love, not fear. God is peace, not war. God only creates and extends himself. We are the ones who are corrupt and destroy. Anything that is not based upon love, is not a step towards God and is therefore not from God. Anything that is based upon fear is a step away from God and is therefore projected by us, not God. If anyone preaches fear, they are not preaching about God. God is love. If anyone preaches love, they are preaching about God. Perfect love casts out all fear, simply states that fear and love don't and can't exist at the same time. The concept or idea to fear God is mans idea, not God's. Some of God's truths made it through in the Bible, but many of the thoughts provided were from men who perceived God as fearful and vengeful and their writings are direct evidence of that method of thinking. There is truth in the Bible, as there is truth in any method God uses to reach you, however, ANYTHING written or spoken by men is just a perception of what was believed to be true at the time and that does not neccessarily make it true. This includes what I am writing at this time. Gradually we have collected pieces of the truth, but we have yet to see the whole truth. If we did, we would see ourselves and all our brothers sinless as they truly are and we would be reunited with them all and with our Father. Our world is what we make it. Collectively, all our minds are connected and this world is what we have come up with. This madness that we call a world is what we have made in error....and God is gently waking us from this nightmare by opening our minds and hearts to see and hear his truths. His Holy Spirit speaks for him, guiding and comforting us along the way as he helps us see this world for what it truly is and to see God for who she truly is. When you open your heart to God's truths, all things the world has created are of no use to us. All religions that the world has created are just stepping stones towards a truth, but none of them truths in themselves since they are divided against one another and therefore divided against all the brothers of the world. Anything that is not united with all men is not from God. Anything that does not declare unconditional forgiveness for all men is not from God. Opening you heart and mind to God allows you to change the world you see around you...it allows you to change the collective idea of how things should be. Each one of us that connects with God is helping to pave the way for another to connect to God. When we all finally connect with God again...this world will no longer have a purpose and will simply cease to exist. What we currently percieve as the heavens and earth, will pass away and all things will be made new. This change will not be a physical new as our ancestors perceived, but a spiritual new. We are spiritual beings and a spiritual world is the kind of world in which we truly belong. We will return to knowing we are spiritual beings and will live in total harmony with God as we had done for an eternity before and will do for an eternity ever after. 1 John 4:18 ** Revelation 21:1-5 -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- David Nelmes - David considers it a wonderful blessing that his insight and writings can provide opportunities for those around him to see things from perspectives they had not considered before. He pursues Gods truths and is open and willing to see what God would have him see. He invites you to join him. His influences consist of truly being open to seeing and applying the truths he has discovered through life and through both "The Bible" and "A Course In Miracles". You can visit David's website at: http://www.BeingWilling.com This article Copyright ©2003 David Nelmes - Reproduced with Permission. 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