The Practical Purpose of Praise and Worship and Positive Thinking

I’m a practical, bottom-line person. I’m always looking for the ROI (Return On Investment), the business case, etc. In other words, I wanna know why I’m doing something; what it’s worth to me and those people and things I care about and am invested in. I wanna know the WIIFM’s – the What In It For Me things. I mean, really. If I’m gonna have to work hard to change things that are working or that AREN’T working, I wanna know why.

I grew up Southern Baptist – with lots of rights and wrongs, do’s and don’ts. As a child, I was one of the ones asking, “Why?” I was told “God needs our praise and worship.” I was like, “Now what kind of sense does that make? I mean if God is God, then He doesn’t “need” anything. (There was no “she” reference to God back in the day.) Otherwise, He’s not almighty and is just as needy and maybe a candidate for therapy and appropriate medicines as the rest of us.” So, I asked, “Why? Why would a Being who’s omni-everything ‘need’ anything from me?” Here’s what I came up with. God doesn’t “need” our praise and worship from a place of co-dependence. Rather, it’s God’s desire for us to give praise and worship because of what we get in return. When we get into the zone of thanksgiving, appreciation, bounty, happiness, joy, unending possibility, etc., that’s what we begin to create and attract: thanksgiving, appreciation, bounty, happiness, joy, unending possibility, etc.

That’s pretty cool, right. So, why (there’s that question again) is it that even when we think and think and think about things, nothing changes? Ready? It’s ‘cause thinking alone just makes more thinking. How ‘bout that?! If we think long enough without taking aligned action, we’ll earn the right to be sick and tired of being sick and tired. That’s all. And that kind of thinking can fester, putrefy and become “Stinkin’ Thinkin’.”

So, what aligns our reality and experience with our thinking? What do we need to do? That. That’s what we’ve got to do – DO something. We’ve got to take action. Ta daaaaaah! And when those actions are aligned with the outcome we say we want, then and only then do we begin to create the outcome we want vs. creating more thinking only.

Folks, with all the praise and worship we’re doing and with more and more churches, houses of faith, television ministries, prayer lines, meditation circles, therapy sessions, self-help circles and on and on and on popping up every day, if thinking about it would deliver the goods, we’d already have them. And if talking about what we’re thinking about would get it, we’d all be rich, beautiful, slim, young, have the romantic relationship we desire, live where we want, drive the fleet of vehicles we want, and have the job or – dare I say it – the career we want, go on the vacations we want, be pampered as we want, blah, blah, blah. Let’s be clear. I believe ALL these things are helpful, valuable and precious. It’s just that their empowering companion is action.

OK. By the time I was in college, I started reading self-help books about Positive Thinking. Same message, same outcome, same process – thinking activates the possibility of outcome. What was missing many times is the truth that doing delivers outcome.

A few years ago The Secret came out. I own the book and the DVD. It was the rave. What people had problems with was it was all about the Law of Attraction, positive thinking, etc., but not stressing the Law of the Harvest – what you sow is what you reap. Doing yields the harvest.

Whether you approach this from a religious, spiritual, psychological, metaphysical, ROI, WIIFM, pragmatic or good ole common sense perspective, know this: On this third-dimensional planet, thinking alone does not make it so. You gotta do. And realize that not acting and not doing is really acting and doing. Think about that for a second.

LIFEWORK:

1. Think about things that are in your highest good and the highest good of all.
2. See the vision. Make the plan.
3. Do. And make sure the doing is aligned with the vision and the plan and the thinking about what’s the highest good.

PS: Have you noticed there are fewer Lifework steps and they’re getting shorter? What do you think that’s about? I love it.

I love you.