Unity of Lehigh Valley - Sunday Message February 1, 2015 IS GOD REALLY IN EVERYTHING? First let me begin by telling you that for the convenience of sharing this message, I will be using the words God and He as a sort of shorthand for All That Is, the Divine Sweet Spirit, our One Source, One Power. This in no way reflects that I believe that God is male or that the word God is the correct or only word to use when describing our One Source. It s just the most convenient term for me to use while talking with you this morning. Second this talk is really going to be about the Good the Bad and the Ugly or maybe even better yet the Good, the ordinary or mundane and the negative or ugly including people, things, and events as we experience them in our physical reality. Several weeks after deciding on the title and content for this message, (and I have to admit that I am a little slow sometimes on the uptick ), it dawned on me that what I m really going to focus on is the First Principle in what is known as Unity s 5 Basic Principles that being: God is all good and active in everything, everywhere. For anyone who isn t familiar with Unity teachings, Unity does not ascribe to any specific doctrines or dogmas. In 1990, our founders the Fillmore s greatgranddaughter, Connie Fillmore Bazzy, was asked to summarize Unity s teachings in an article for the Daily Word magazine. At that time, she condensed the teachings into five essential points which caught on and are now used in most Unity churches. So just in case you haven t heard these before or if you have difficulty remembering Unity s Five Basic Principles let s quickly review them now and I m using the ones found in Ellen Debenport s book The Five Principles : Principle 1. God is all good and active in everything, everywhere. (This is the one we are focusing on this morning.) Principle 2. I am naturally good because God s Divinity is in me and in everyone. Principle 3. I create my experiences by what I choose to think and what I feel and believe. 1
Principle 4. Through affirmative prayer and meditation, I connect with God and bring out the good in my life. Principle 5. I do and give my best by living the Truth I know. I make a difference. Here s my shortened and easy to remember version of these 5 basic principles: God is Good I am Good Positive thoughts are Good Prayer is Good and Practice is Good! GOT THAT God is Good I Am Good Positive thoughts are Good Prayer is Good and Practice is Good!; Now let s get back to our topic Here s what the Bible has to say about God being in Everything Ephesians 4:6 One God and Father of all, who is over all and through all and in all. Jeremiah 23:23-25 Am I only a God nearby, declares the Lord, and not a God far away? Can anyone hide in secret places so that I cannot see him? Do I not fill heaven and earth? Revelations 1:8 I Am the Alpha and the Omega, says the Lord God, who is and who was and is to come, the Almighty. And again in Rev 13 I am the Alpha and the Omega, the first and the last, the beginning and the end. And in Jesus Words from the Book of John: The Father and I are one. Even though you do not believe me, believe the works, that you may know and understand that the Father is in me, and I in the Father. 2
If you know me, you will know my Father also. From now on, you do know him and have seen him. When we talk about God the Good I believe we can easily see God in what we proclaim as Good: a newborn baby, a cute little puppy, a loved one s smile, a beautiful sunrise or sunset, people who are upbeat and positive, a rewarding day at work, a delicious meal, a great book or movie. We may even be able to stretch our thought process on most days to see God in the ordinary or mundane while doing the dishes or laundry, driving to work, watching TV, taking a nap, reading our e-mails. Here s an example of seeing the Good in our everyday, mundane tasks as explained by Unity s co-founder Myrtle Fillmore in the book How to Let God Help You. She calls this seeing the good in everyday chores as spiritual housekeeping. And I am going to paraphrase her words here so they are easier to understand. Myrtle writes that in the preparation of food, one is given the blessed opportunity of creating the very bread of heaven through one s loving thoughts and willing service. She claims that you can actually glorify laundry day and washing dishes by putting into it the idea of purification so that not only will your laundry and dishes come out clean and spotless but your affairs can also be made to share in this washing. You can allow your cleansing thoughts to join with your busy hands. And when Ironing your clothes, you can be smoothing your mental worries and uncreasing your cares. That s what I so love about Myrtle Fillmore. She has a wonderful way of recognizing and seeing Spirit in things that many of us take for granted or might not think of as spiritual activities. But Can we see God In the Ugly?? A cold, rainy or snowy day with icy roads, an auto accident where people are injured, the newborn baby who is ill or severely disabled, the animals who are abused, the shooting of a young man by a police officer, the rioting in the streets, the killing of innocent people by murderers and terrorists. How can we claim that God is Good and in Everything in the face of pain and suffering? Well, unfortunately, the plane of the Divine where everything exists as a perfect idea is not where we live as human beings. For example, we are the physical 3
expression of the perfect idea of male and female yet we know that our bodies and our behaviors are not always perfect in this physical realm. Here are some things to take into consideration when trying to make sense out of what I m calling the Ugly. Since we were created with free will, we make mistakes. The word sin actually means missing the mark and sometimes we miss it by miles! Good and evil are labels that we give events based on our opinions at the time. What initially appears to be ugly may turn out to be a blessing. The Aramaic word for evil is bisha which means immature or unripe. We as human beings are still an immature or unripe species we are not yet living from divine consciousness. We can t always see the big picture. Events have meaning that we don t understand although sometimes they make more sense later. We create our world through consciousness which is our third principle. Most people don t even realize this and even if they do they don t know how to handle it. Everything we think, do and say sets up a response from the universe but how many of us have any idea how to create our experiences deliberately? We all contribute to something known as mass consciousness through our negative, angry and violent thoughts and actions. This negative energy needs to eventually express itself somewhere. Have you ever wondered why we always ask ourselves why is there evil and suffering in the world? Couldn t we just as easily ask Why is there so much good? Why do so many things turn out so well? Why do clouds have silver linings and why do blessings come in disguise? And how do we define good anyway Do we label something as good only when everything goes our way? I firmly believe that Good eventually wins out. Just during my lifetime, I have witnessed the fall of the Berlin Wall, the end of oppressive leaderships in Eastern Europe and apartheid in South Africa, and progress in civil rights for minorities and in the LGBT movement. 4
So after saying all of this, I am going to tell you that I don t believe at all that God is in Everything. Because what I actually do believe is that God is not IN anything because GOD actually IS EVERYTHING! God is the newborn baby whether that baby is what we might label as perfect or if the baby is ill or deformed. God is both the cute little puppy and the not so cute, nasty dog that has been abused. God is not only the beautiful sunrise and sunset but also the cold icy rain that causes people to be injured in an auto accident. God is both the policeman doing the shooting and the young man dying in the street. And now to wrap this up, I d like to answer the age-old question of why? Why, if we believe that God is good and we believe that God is everywhere and God is everything why do all these bad things happen? People sometimes ask me when they request prayer why aren t things improving when I pray about them all the time. I ve been praying for years for my son to stop drinking, for my finances or my health to improve. Why aren t my prayers being answered? Guess what I have the answer and the answer is I DON T KNOW! I just don t know and I just don t understand. And sometimes we may just have to accept that we don t have all the answers and we just don t know. I do have to admit that many of these questions remain a mystery to me. However, - can you just take a minute and imagine with me what thing might be like if we were living from our Oneness with God. Life might still have its human difficulties, but our view of them would be changed. We would all take charge of our lives from within. We would no longer label what is good or bad but would live in the flow of the universe. Nothing might change in our day to day lives, but our understanding of circumstances would take on new meaning. If the majority of us can wake up and be in a place where we can really believe that God is everything and therefore everyone and everything and every event is God the Good, maybe just maybe the ugly will begin to come to an end and there will be a new beginning of peace on earth! 5