Living in Delight
Friday, November 7th, 2008WE absolutely love the TV show Extreme Makeover: Home Edition ~ because it truly reflects the human spirit, and the deep inner desire we have to reach out and help others. A hallmark emotion of this show is “Delight” ~
* the grateful delight of the family, when they view their new home;
* the obvious delight of Ty and the design team, in sharing the home;
* the heart-warming delight of the builders and volunteers, who always claim they receive so much more than they give!
Delight is an intense emotion, and it truly opens the Consciousness to allow a free-flow of abundance and prosperity to come to you, in ways you can never even imagine!
As part of our Sunday service, we share a Prosperity Blessing during our offering time, in which we say together, “Divine Love, through me, blesses and multiplies all the I have, all that I give, and all that I receive.”
This is actually a perfect outline for understanding an Extreme Level of Delight. Most people tend to think about money when they say this blessing, but let’s “amp it up” into a description of our consciousness, and see where it take us!
Delight in all you have:
Of course, this tells us to be grateful for the things we have without begrudging what others have, or always wanting more.
But let’s consider a deeper meaning: don’t we all have things we don’t particularly feel grateful for? For example, things like illness, money problems, work issues, etc.? The real secret here is to live from a state of delight, even in the midst of these kinds of issues. Regardless of what we “have,” we are grateful! Not for but from! Living from that sense of delight in knowing we are one with God and all is well, we can recognize that any experience is simply “curriculum,” from which we can learn and become stronger.
Delight in all that you give:
This section of the blessing reminds us to delight in the things we give to others, but it means more than that. Become aware of other ways you give and notice if you are giving gratefully. We give through words; expressions; help; comfort; time. For example, we recently hosted some out of state friends. Ten of us celebrated their visit for a dinner, ranging from age 17 months to 89 years old! It was an incredible evening, because everyone gave their time, with pure delight, to come together as family and friends. What a joyful celebration we all had!
Give joyfully! We write “Gladly” on all our checks (right above the words “Pay to the order of”), and it helps us capture a sense of joy as we send our money out into the world. By allowing the emotion of gratitude to flow through us, we can send that joy out to others through our words and actions. Giving with delight enriches your prosperity, and the prosperity of all those whose lives you touch!
Delight in all that you receive:
Reflect back on a gift you gave to someone recently. Recall your excitement in choosing it (or making it), and how you felt as you wrapped it up and delivered it. Now, imagine that you get no acknowledgement at all. There’s nothing worse than giving something, and not feeling a sense of appreciation on the part of the one you gave it to. It breaks the energy of the giving and receiving cycle.
Think about a compliment you received, that you denied and threw back at the giver! Think about offers for help, that you have glibly refused. When you do not receive with delight, you cut off the cycle of giving and receiving, and you damn up the prosperity flow into your life.
Experience shows that receiving with delight is the toughest challenge of all - particularly when we find ourselves in a place of need, where we have to take help from others. But if we can just remember that in receiving with delight, we are actually helping those who are giving - and we are keeping that Giving/Receiving Principle alive and active in our lives!
Charles Fillmore said, “It has been found by experience that a person increases his blessings by being grateful for what he has. Gratitude even on the mental plane is a great magnet. When gratitude is expressed from the spiritual standpoint, it is powerfully augmented.”
When we are living from a Spiritual Consciousness of Delight - delighting in all that we have, all that we give, and all that we receive - we will discover that everything we ever need flows to us as we become one with Divine Abundance.
