A Letter to Neale

Reader Question:

I'm at a low point in my life right now. I seem to be paralyzed in my fear. Nothing I try to do is working for me. How does one have faith, when nothing seems to be working? I have read and re-read your book, Conversations with God. I love your book.

I believe everything God has said to you. I am trying to change my thoughts to positive thoughts, but my fears and doubts get in the way. I tried to write to God on paper, but He seems silent to me. Yet I know He is talking to me by the sunsets in the sky, and the music on the radio.

I choose to turn my life around like you did, but it's so hard to really have faith.

Kathy

Neale Responds

My dear Kathy...I am glad you wrote to me. You're talking to a guy who found himself living on the street without a penny to his name. And not just for a week or two, or a month or so, but for a whole year. Imagine that, Kathy: a year living in the weather, with only a tent for shelter, and only the handouts that people give you to eat on.

I'm not trying to get your sympathy, Kathy. I just want you to know that I understand what it is to lose faith -- or to find it hard to hang onto in the face of outward circumstances that just won't let up or won't resolve themselves. So I know exactly where you are "coming from."

Having said that, I promise you that there is a way out here. I promise you. And it is on the way right now. Do you know how I know that? Because you have written to me! And that alone is a sign that your inner thinking has still found room for hope. You may think that you just wrote to me for "answers," but the inner truth, Kathy, is that you wrote to me from a place of hope. If you had absolutely no hope, you would not have written to me at all. Believe me. I know how the mind works.

So I'm soooo glad that you wrote to me, because I like that sure sign of hope! My book, Home with God, talks about "hope" in some very inspiring ways. Let me share some of that material with you here, Kathy. Home with God says:

Hope plays a wonderful role...in life...Never give up hope. Never. Hope is a statement of your highest desire. It is the announcement of your grandest dream. Hope is thought, made Divine.

Hope is the doorway to belief, belief is the doorway to knowing, knowing is the doorway to creation, and creation is the doorway to experience.

Experience is the doorway to expression, expression is the doorway to becoming, becoming is the activity of all Life and the only function of God.

What you hope, you will eventually believe, what you believe, you will eventually know, what you know, you will eventually create, what you create, you will eventually experience, what you experience, you will eventually express, what you express, you will eventually become. This is the formula for all of life.

It is as simple as that.

Now Kathy, the trick here is to hang onto hope, and to enlarge it! This is easy, but you cannot start from a place of sadness or depression or hopelessness. What you are, you enlarge. Even so-called "positive thoughts" won't work when, as you say, "fears and doubts get in the way." You are right! They DO get in the way! But the good news is, there is a way to get fears and doubts out of your mind forever!

First, stop thinking about your situation, Kathy, and start thinking about the situation you would like to be in. Picture it, visualize it, write about it in your journal -- write a complete description of it. When your mind wanders to your worries and fears and doubts, don't give them a second thought. Just change your visual picture immediately to thoughts of how you want your life to be, rather than how it is. Keep THAT picture in your head at all times! Remember that your thoughts are a magnet, Kathy. What you give your thoughts to you give energy to, and what you give energy to you create.

THEN, Kathy, pray. That's right, pray. Share a few words with God. But do not pray to God for a solution to your problems or a change in your condition. Say a prayer of gratitude. Thank God for the wonderful and happy outcome that is just around the corner. Here is my favorite prayer, Kathy. I have used it for years, and it is remarkable what power it has:

Thank you, God, for helping me to understand

that this problem has already been solved for me.

Know that the solution to everything is coming, Kathy. Just KNOW it. Because it IS. There is no question about it. There is no doubt. If doubt creeps in, just say "No. Go away! I'll have nothing to do with you." And MEAN IT. Have NOTHING TO DO WITH IT. Think of something else immediately. Think of bowling. Or Christmas. Or chocolate cake and vanilla ice cream. Or whatever you can think of that makes you happy! Go right there! Go right there in your mind, and say Thank you, God, for all the good stuff in this life! And thank you for bringing me more and more of it.

Then, promise to share everything that you receive. Make a solemn pledge within yourself that you are never going to pass a person again who has a hand out and not give them something. Agree with yourself that you are going to give a little something to every good cause and every good project that you feel deserves your help. In fact, start that right now. If you only have pennies to give, give them now. Giving away a portion of what you have, however "little" that is, is an act of unshakeable FAITH that there is MORE WHERE THAT CAME FROM.

Always remember, as you act with Life, so will Life act with you. Life is nothing more than a big Xerox machine. Somewhere, you got yourself into a spiral of negative, fearful, doubtful thinking. It is understandable. It is also avoidable. And escapable. You don't have to stay there. Get out of there.

"Act as if" things are just the way you want them to be. In fact, go one step further. See the perfection in things being just as they are right now. This is the secret of all happiness. Happiness is accepting "what is" right here, right now, without qualification or reservation. Happiness is not needing anything to be different from the way it is in this moment. The irony of this is, the moment you move into that kind of peaceful non-resistance and calm happiness, the very energy of that happiness starts reproducing itself right before your eyes.

The secret of true inner peace was once shared with me through the wisdom of spiritual teacher Da Free John, in three words.

Cease all againstness.

You've asked me how to get your faith back, Kathy, and how to keep it. This is how. Now, I want you to go out right now and buy a book, even if you have to spend the last nickels, dimes, and quarters that you have in the house. I want you to get Ask and It Is Given by Esther and Jerry Hicks. Order it from Amazon.com or get it from your local bookstore. Do it, Kathy. Get it and read it.

Then I want you to take one of your last dimes if that's all you've got left and give it away. Give it to some charity, or some non-profit organization that your heart supports. Do it, Kathy. Just do it. And don't ever think that your dime or your single dollar bill means nothing to those hard-working non-profit organizations. Do you know how much it would mean right now if everyone reading this message sent a dime or a dollar to the ReCreation Foundation? That could have a huge impact on the work that we are trying to do in sharing the messages of Conversations with God with the world.

Well, there you have it, Kathy. A short course in Keeping the Faith. Oh, there's one final thing. Help someone else keep the faith. What you choose for yourself, create for another. That is a message directly out of CwG. So find someone else who is down on their luck and who may be losing faith, and give them back theirs. Then watch your own spirits lift, and your fortunes soar.

I send you Pure Love,