Changing thought changes our experience

This post became an article entitled "A 'change of base' in thinking," published in the February 1, 2016 issue of the Christian Science Sentinel. 

 

You can read or listen to it by following the link above.

Q: How have you prayed, or are you currently praying, about next steps after graduation?

This is the current "Question of the Week" on JSH-Online, and what I posted in response.

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A: When my graduation was still a year away, I was grateful for some guidance from my CSO advisor to another CSO member. He recommended focusing on qualities.

Instead of scrambling to figure out what you’d like to do, or setting yourself on a narrow path toward a single option for your future, it is more important to focus on the Godlike qualities you want to express as you move forward. These are the qualities that express God’s very nature, and which we are able to express because He made us in His image and likeness. (See Genesis 1:26.) Some examples might be creativity, intelligence, perspicacity, humor, patience. Once you have your list, start expressing them now. You don’t even have to wait for a job offer! :)

Focusing on expressing God’s qualities can also save you from some pitfalls that tend to come with outlining a specific path for yourself, namely, a false sense of personal responsibility for your success—which might show up as an attempt to predict all the details of how things will (or need to) unfold, and a subsequent attempt to control all those details. But the truth is, we each express God in a unique and necessary way. We are created to succeed and glorify His name—express His nature so clearly that others recognize our nature as His. This is what God wants, and “He is in one mind, and who can turn Him? and what His soul desireth, even that He doeth” (Job 23:13).

Here are just a few Bible passages that back that up:

For as the rain cometh down, and the snow from heaven, and returneth not thither, but watereth the earth, and maketh it bring forth and bud, that it may give seed to the sower, and bread to the eater:
So shall my word be that goeth forth out of my mouth: it shall not return unto me void, but it shall accomplish that which I please, and it shall prosper in the thing whereto I sent it. (Isaiah 55:10-11)

Ye are the light of the world. A city that is set on an hill cannot be hid.
Neither do men light a candle, and put it under a bushel, but on a candlestick; and it giveth light unto all that are in the house.
Let your light so shine before men, that they may see your good works, and glorify your Father which is in heaven. (Matthew 5:14-16)

Therefore take no thought, saying, What shall we eat? or, What shall we drink? or, Wherewithal shall we be clothed?
(For after all these things do the Gentiles seek:) for your heavenly Father knoweth that ye have need of all these things.
But seek ye first the kingdom of God, and his righteousness; and all these things shall be added unto you. (Matthew 6:31-33)

Any "next steps" tend to unfold naturally and "be added unto" us when our focus is on our expression of God's qualities.