Thoughts for the week:

December 26

These meditations can teach us how to relax. We can be of service to other people in a small way, at least. And we can be happy while doing it. We should not worry too much about people we cannot help. We can make it a habit to leave the outcome of things we cannot do to the Higher Power. We can go along through life doing the best we can, but without a feeling of urgency or strain. We can enjoy all the good things and the beauty of life, but at the same time depend deeply on God.

24 Hours a Day

December 27  Training Your Thoughts

Thought is the real causative force in life, and there is no other. You cannot have one kind of mind and another environment. You cannot change your environment while leaving your mind unchanged. This is the real key to life; if you change your mind your conditions must change too - your body must change; your home must change; the color-tone of your whole life must change.

This may be called the Great Cosmic Law. The practical difficulty in applying it arises from the fact that our thoughts are so close to us that is is difficult, without a little practice, to stand back and look at them objectively. Yet that is just what you must learn to do. You must train yourself to choose the subject of your thinking at any given time, and also to choose the emotional tone.

Around the Year with Emmet Fox   (Excerpt)

December 29 Dealing With The Negative

A negative thought is any thought of failure, disappointment, or trouble; any thought of criticism, or spite, or jealousy, or condemnation of others, of self-condemnation; any thought of sickness or accident; or, in short, any kind of limitation. In practice you wil never have any trouble in knowing whether a given thought is positive or negative. even if your brain tries to deceive you, your heart will whisper the truth.

Second, you must be quite clear that what this scheme calls for is that you shall not dwell upon negative things. It is not the thoughts that come to you that matter, but only such of them as you choose to entertain and dwell upon.

Around the Year with Emmet Fox   (Excerpt)

December 31

As we look back over the last year, it has been a good year to the extent that we have out good thoughts, good words, and good deeds into it. None of what we have thought, said, or done need be wasted. Both the good and the bad experiences can be profited by. In a sense, the past is not entirely gone. The result of it, for good or evil, is with us at the present moment. We can only learn by experience and none of our experience is completely wasted. We can humbly thank God for the good things of the year that has gone.

24 Hours a Day