Chapter 9
Learning How to Bless Ourselves
Dean Inge, noted bishop of England, once observed: "Every man must be his own center, but he is not obliged to be his own circumference."
You are the key. You have to start with yourself, but you can't end there.
"Though the whole round earth be filled with good," observed Ralph Waldo Emerson, "no kernel of nourishing corn can come to a man except from that portion of ground which God has given him to till." There are simpler ways to say this, I am sure. I remember seeing a plaque on a kitchen wall: "Bloom where you are planted."
To suggest this idea always seems sub-Christian. Our standard instruction appears to be, get out and do something for someone and you will feel better. The idea seems to be good, but we seldom examine it. When we do, we realize that Jesus was saying almost the opposite.
"Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart and with all thy soul and with all thy mind ... and thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself," the Scripture tells us. If the mind is full of self-dislike, rejection, and failure, there is no likelihood that it will overflow with love, acceptance, and encouragement for other people.
One day a young mother burst into my office. Her tearful face told me her story even before she spoke. But her words were even more eloquent: "My husband has just told me that he does not love me. If he ever did he does not now."
"I don't blame him," I said as she shuffled across the floor to a waiting chair.
"Pardon me," she replied. "I don't think I understood you."
"I don't blame your husband for not loving you," I repeated. Then, speaking as softly and encouragingly as I could, I continued, "I know it sounded terrible for me to say that I don't blame your husband for not loving you. Maybe I should have said, `I can understand how he feels.' You see everything you have said by your actions and the tone of your voice has told me that you do not love yourself. You seem to dislike your face, your figure, your life-style, and the fact that you got married at all."
Slowly the truth of these statements filtered into her mind.
"What can I do?" she asked.
"There is only one thing you can do," I suggested. "You need to start by reminding yourself that God loves you - he really does. He created you with a purpose and a reason. You are like nobody else in all the world. In spite of your failures, your heartaches, and your rejection, God still loves you. This is where you have to start."
I continued, "God loves you just as you are, but too much to let you stay that way. You can begin by saying that since God knows you better than you know yourself, you ought to accept yourself, even love yourself. Bless yourself. You will be surprised how other people's attitudes toward you change."
Self-hatred builds a barrier that keeps out God's love, and the love of other people as well.
Somewhere I heard the statement "It is the normal characteristic of a love-starved person to reject love." The more they need love, the more they seem to turn it away.
Not only is this true, but the locked-up life has to become an open passageway for God to work. Paul affirms this:
"[God] is able to do exceeding abundantly above all that we ask or think, according to the power that worketh in us" (Eph. 3:20). This verse can be the secret of success or the analysis of the cause of failure.
It is certainly true that we are not supposed to be our own circumference, which is the limit of what is happening in our world. It is also true that whatever is going to happen happens first within us.
Not long ago a group of Christian leaders met to talk about ways to communicate their faith. The session was to be very open and non-threatening. Each person was asked to be accepting and forgiving. No one was to criticize.
Each leader was given a piece of paper and told, "In the next three minutes write down all the things you do not like about yourself." At the end of the three minutes the sheets were turned in and the results tabulated. A few of the persons were still writing frantically when the bell rang.
The results? The average number of "things I do not like about myself" was fifteen.
Then these same people were told to list fifteen good things about themselves. The same three-minute limit was used. At the end of the three minutes no one had found fifteen things for which he or she could be thankful or glad about. Some found none. The average was three.
While I was not present at this session, which was reported in Faith and Work magazine, I have used the story as an illustration in my lectures. Strangely, when I ask my audience to guess the number of positives and negatives that the experimental group discovered, the estimates are about the same. This says something about the people who made the estimates; they feel nearly the same way about themselves.
Thinking evil of yourself almost seems a requirement for helping others to think well of themselves, and to believe that God loves them. But if we are secretly convinced that God is ashamed of us, how can we convince others that God loves them, or that they can love others?
Today I saw a sign cleverly painted on a rough wooden plaque: "Bless this lousy apartment." I smiled a painful smile. It is impossible to be positive and negative at the same time. "Out of the same mouth proceedeth blessing and cursing. My brethren, these things ought not so to be" (James 3:10).
You can smile at this sign. You can laugh at yourself for all the negative feelings you have about yourself. Even if they are disguised as humility, they are pretty ridiculous.
At the center of our new blessing life is the fact that since God is blessing us, we should not contradict him. We should not question his judgment. Awkward as it may be, you are going to have to learn to bless yourself. At least you are going to have to quit cursing yourself and saying mean things about the person whom God loves.
Steering Clear of Negative Thoughts
It seems ages ago that I first saw the book PsychoCybernetics. It was lying on the table in a dentist's home in Portland, Oregon. When he saw me looking at the book, he asked, "Have you read this book?"
"I can't even pronounce the title," I replied.
So he explained how to pronounce the title. Then he explained how the book came to be written.
Dr. Maxwell Malz, a plastic surgeon, was busy trying to restore the faces and feelings of young men who had been injured in World War I. It was easy to see why these men were self-conscious and why they retreated from life. Their scarred faces made them ashamed. They hid. They refused to go out where the world of people could see them.
Patiently Doctor Malz and other surgeons tried to reconstruct their disfigured faces. Even when they were supremely successful, the problem didn't go away. The newly presentable faces didn't solve the problem. The men still hid and were ashamed. Doctor Malz was puzzled.
An insight came when he went to Germany to study with some of the world's greatest plastic surgeons at the University of Heidelberg. There on the university campus Doctor Malz observed other young men with scars on their faces. They wore them proudly, almost as though they were ornaments.
These scarred German young men were leaders on the campus. They were elected to places of leadership; they were admired by the prettiest girls. They certainly did not regard their faces as hideous.
It became obvious to Doctor Malz and his fellow doctors that the real scars are on the inside of the mind. It doesn't really matter what kind of things are happening on the outside as long as we are directed by what is on the inside.
The idea intrigued Doctor Malz, leading him to make a study of motivation. Out of this study came the term cybernetics. The first part of the bigger term that he used, psycho, had to do with the mind. Cybernetics comes from a Greek word that means "the helmsman or steersman of a ship."
There is a goal-seeking mechanism within us, discovered Doctor Malz. This goal-seeking device brings people to a predetermined goal, a goal they themselves may have put there but never recognized. No matter what the external pressures are, this helmsman steers them straight toward the goal. Doctor Malz's book Psycho-Cybernetics is an analysis of how this works.
As I read the book I kept asking a question: Surely the mind is a powerful part of our life. Scientists outdo themselves making estimates of the ultimate capacity of the mind, but how do you give instructions to the helmsman? How do you give him a chart and compass?
It seemed for a while that all I was doing was accumulating facts about how powerful this helmsman is; there seems to be very little help in getting him headed in the right direction.
While I was studying these concepts, I heard a doctor-friend of mine say, "Compared to the most sophisticated computer that we have in the world, the mind is superior ten to the fifty-ninth power. If it were only ten times as effective as the computer, that might be understandable; ten followed by fifty-nine zeroes is hard to imagine."
Recently I read in an educational journal that the internal connections of the brain are conservatively estimated to ten followed by 5.6 million miles of zeros.
Who knows? All we really know is that there is tremendous power that can work for us when we let our minds get turned in the right direction. And there is tremendous destructive power when we let our minds get turned in the wrong direction.
Who turns the mind on? Who is the true helmsman? If I want creative thoughts, I have, discovered, 1 need to turn to the Creator. The Scriptures are full of insights. James, the brother of Jesus, wrote a small volume that bears his name. It, I knew, was filled with practical suggestions for positive living.
I asked myself the question, Who really controls us? James comes up with an amazing answer: Words control the world.
Even more amazing, the spoken word has unbelievable power. Not only does it have power to change the people who hear the words; it has even more power to change the people who speak them. Listen to this:
If any man offend not in word,
The same is a perfect man,
And able also to bridle the whole body.
Behold, we put bits in the horses' mouths
That they may obey us;
And we turn about their whole body.
Behold also the ships,
Which though they be go great,
And are driven of fierce winds,
Yet they are turned about with a very small helm,
Whithersoever the governor listeth.
Even so the tongue is a little member,
And boasteth great things.
Behold, how great a matter a little fire kindleth.
And the tongue is a fire, a world of iniquity:
So is the tongue among our members,
That it defileth the whole body,
And setteth on fire the course of nature;
And it is set on fire of hell.
For every kind of beast, and of birds, and of serpents,
And the things in the sea,
Is tamed, and hath been tamed of mankind:
But the tongue can no man tame;
It is an unruly evil, full of deadly poison.
Therewith bless we God, even the Father,
And therewith curse we men,
Which are made in the similitude of God.
Out of the same mouth proceedeth blessing and cursing.
My brethren, these things ought not so to be.
Doth a fountain send forth at the same place
Sweet water and bitter?
-James 3:2-17
What a powerful thing the mind is. Every atom of our body responds to what our mind thinks. When the mind thinks happy thoughts, a smile emerges. When the mind is filled with worry, anxiety, or bitterness, the digestive juices slow down. Pain and sickness may come.
These are simple illustrations. There are doctors who feel that even cancer may have its roots in the stressful state of mind.
The Greeks had two words, psyche (mind) and soma (body), that they felt were closely related. This is not a new idea. Doctor Maxwell Malz's book Psycho-Cybernetics develops this concept in detail.
The big question still must be answered. What triggers the activity of the mind? How do you control it? James, the brother of Jesus, gives the answer.
There really is a governor or helmsman of the mind. He is essentially the one who guides us to our destiny. Who is he? The tongue.
What we speak is what we are. What we speak we will become. Though I have read these words of James many times, they still frighten me with their statement: "[The tongue] defileth the whole body, and setteth on fire the course of nature."
Not only are the things within us affected by what we speak, but unbelievable as it sounds, the things around us are affected by what we speak. James's words hint at ideas that are so far reaching that we cannot overestimate their power.
Do you have a friend who was told as a child, "Your nose is too big" or "You are such a clumsy child"? Have you observed that a few words often spoken in wrath or frustration can change the destiny of a child? A child can with words like these be locked in a prison of self-rejection. Words that vibrate in the air for a few seconds can reverberate in a life as long as it lasts.
Have you noticed how often your own life is controlled by the words of another? A compliment may nourish your spirit for days--maybe a lifetime.
Words spoken to us change us. But what about words spoken by us? They have even more power. They become the helmsmen of our life. What we talk about we become.
Jesus himself talked about this: "Every idle word they shall speak, they shall give account thereof.... For by thy words thou shalt be justified, and by thy words thou shalt be condemned" (Matt. 12:36-37).
Words are important for two reasons. First, words betray what we are. The Scripture says, "Out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaketh." Then words determine what we will become. Words spoken casually, whether they are positive or negative, blessing words or cursing words, become self-fulfilling prophecy.
The more we talk about our troubles, the more troubles we will have to talk about. To talk about our troubles is like fertilizing weeds.
The more we speak of blessing, the more we seek to bless, and the more blessings we have. We may even shower blessings on people. Those who deserve blessings the least need them the most.
Jesus said, "Bless them that curse you, do good to them that hate you, and pray for them which despitefully use you, and persecute you; that ye may be children of your Father which is in heaven" (Matt. 5:44-45).
Does this begin to sound like the Parallel Principle? When you act like God acts, you become godly, literally children of God. You inherit the celestial genes. God is a blesser. Those who share his nature also bless.
Chapter 10
A Few Thoughts About Winking in the Dark
Do you really have to say these things out loud? Isn't there just as much power in positive thinking? Who would deny the power of a positive attitude? Dr. Norman Vincent Peale's immensely popular book, The Power of Positive Thinking continues to remind people of the tremendous power of positive thought.
There is even greater power in positive talking. Actually, the making of sounds creates miracles. If this is not so, why does James talk so much about the power of the tongue, as we saw in the last chapter? Why did he say the "tongue is a fire"?
Isn't it just as bad to think a thing as to say it? No. The tongue is the helmsman, the guiding force. The mind follows what the mouth speaks. It is not important whether anyone hears us or not. We hear. Our whole nature responds. The world around us (even though I cannot explain this) responds in an unbelievable way. Could we have hinted at this when we sang as children, "All nature sings and round me rings/The music of the spheres"?
To think of influencing the world of nature with words of blessing may require more faith than you have at this moment. Put the whole idea aside. You will soon have even more creative thoughts than this.
Accept the concept of blessing merely because the Bible tells us to "bless the Lord . . . all his works in all places of his dominion." Accept the words of James: the tongue sets on fire the course of nature. Accept the stories of other people who have learned the power of blessing. Begin to bless-out loud.
Dr. Roy Lockwood repeated to me a proverb taken from the world of advertising people: "A man who does not advertise is like a man who winks at his girl friend in the dark. He knows what he is doing, but nobody else does."
That is true of advertising, Doctor Lockwood, but is not true of blessing. When you speak words of blessing whether anyone else hears them or not, you are affected by them. When you actually talk blessing you are disturbing the sound waves and you are starting a miracle. It is a miracle in you. And it is a miracle around you.
One day Ernie Gross and I were taking a walk from our hotel in Jerusalem to the Damascus Gate, the entrance to the fabulous old city. Our conversation was interrupted by the loud voices of children.
"What is all that?" Ernie asked. "A school," I replied.
"The teacher must be out of the room for all the children to be talking at once," Ernie observed.
"Aha, my friend," I said, "you have the misfortune of thinking that school in this part of the world is like school in the United States. In the American school system under which you and I were trained, the role of the teacher is to talk and the role of the students is to sit still and listen.
"Ancient civilizations have learned a better way," I continued. "They encourage the students to recite out loud-to vocalize. Since kids are going to talk in class in spite of all you can do, why not encourage them to talk about the lesson."
During the next few hundred yards of walking I expounded the values of "out loud learning." First the eye has to see the words for the mind to comprehend them. That is the American way.
Here in Israel we are seeing all the other senses involved in learning. Not only must the mind receive the words, but the tongue has to speak them. Then the ear has to hear them. The tongue is a powerful educator.
Maybe Doctor Lockwood is right. To think a thing and not say it is like winking in the dark. You miss a lot.
A Word to the Timid
Do you feel funny when you talk to yourself? You shouldn't. It is one way of having an understanding audience.
Herb Thompson, who was raised in the rocky hills of eastern Kentucky, has a kind of independent thought that seems to thrive well in lonely places. He asked me, "Berk, do you ever talk to yourself?"
I admitted that I did, but that I felt a little ashamed of it.
"Don't feel bad about that," Herb said, "the Bible encourages it. David did it. And David was a man after God's own heart, a man stamped with the nature of heaven."
Herb continued, "Remember how Psalm 103 begins? It begins with David talking to his soul, as though his soul were sitting in a chair across the room from him.
" `Good morning, soul, he would say. `Today's assignment is for you to bless the Lord. And while I am talking to you, soul, I want to talk to all the rest of the class. Say these words, "All within me bless His holy name." '
" `Then I want you to remember all the benefits we talked about yesterday. I am going to suggest a few to get you started ... forgiveness and healing.' "
Herb continued talking to me. "Like any good school teacher, David finishes his assignment by summing it all up in one final word, `Bless the Lord, O my soul.' "
"If you don't tell your soul how to act," Herb went on, someone else will."
That helped me. I had always talked to myself, but I felt bad about it. In fact, I do more of it now. And I feel good .about it. I even listen more.
You need to do this. If you feel self-conscious, go out in the woods where no one but the woodpeckers will hear you. If the only forests near you are in the pages of the National Geographic magazine, learn to sing out loud while you work, In our society, singing at work is the sign of a happy mind; talking out loud is somewhat suspect.
A word of caution. Don't worry if your singing voice sounds, as Everett Minkler used to say, "like a ukulele in a cement mixer." Sing anyway. As I recall, the Bible encourages us to make a joyful noise and to sing to ourselves, making melody in our hearts. There doesn't seem to be much emphasis on our making a career out of it.
For most of us this is a good thing. Singing gives us a chance to ventilate our feelings, to say out loud the things that are in our heart.
Do it. Drive along the road and repeat the words of this magic psalm, "Bless the Lord, 0 my soul."
The first thing in the morning when you face the mirror that reflects the sleepy-eyed presence of a would-be blesser, smile and say, "Bless the Lord, 0 my soul. All that is within me, bless his holy name."
When these words have become a part of your normal way of talking, you will then learn how to bless others.
Try to imagine your life as a ship, maybe even a yacht. You are the owner. Your tongue, your power of speech, is the helmsman. Today you will put your will to work. You will instruct your life. Give the orders aloud and clear: "Today, helmsman, you will bless the Lord. And today you will bless yourself. And today you will bless others."
Your Words can take your ship of life to happy, sunlit harbors or head it into violent storms and treacherous rocks. You decide.
Blessing Your Enemies
There is no doubt about it. Jesus said to "bless your enemies." This is about as plain as words can make it. "Do not curse them; bless them."
As I write these words I am being "blessed" by a delightful young couple in North Carolina. Don and Maxine McCall heard my lectures several years ago, began to listen to the
recordings of them, and then searched to find exciting ways of proving the Parallel Principle. Since they know that I am finally putting these ideas on paper and am going to give them a wider audience, they have assured me that each day they bless me and my typewriter.
A year or so after they had heard these lectures, they spent an hour recounting the ways they had tested the concepts. Maxine is in the world of education and Don in the world of marketing. Both face pressures of all kinds. Then, together, they accept challenges of people who need redeeming but who seem to be outside the whole world of conventional religious helps.
Blessing works. It worked on an irascible teacher to whom they couldn't even talk. It worked on a young lady who was so captured by drug addiction that any attempt to help was met with vehement rejection.
It worked in business deals. There are times I think they ought to be writing this book instead of me. What is even . better than all the answers that they have brought to others, is the fact that they have been blessed in scores of ways.
Blessing friends and enemies is a rewarding life-style. Do you have any enemies? Could you be one?
A particular comic strip has an interesting insight into a biblical truth. Says Pogo, "We has met the enemy and the enemy is us." Put in a little more acceptable grammatical form, St. Paul says, "[God] is able to do exceeding abundantly above all that we ask or think, according to the power that worketh in us" (Eph. 3:20).
Kelly Mitchell was as bright a child as we had in our school. But her mother tells of her early childhood when she still had a few things to learn.
Grandpa Sebastian came down from Ohio to see the family and while three-year-old Kelly sat on his lap he said, "'Kelly, bring me your piggy bank."
When Kelly returned with her bank, he gave her a fifty cent piece. "Put this in your bank," grandpa said.
"A dime is not as much as fifty cents," replied her grandfather.
Reasoning would not work. Finally, in order to make his grandchild happy-and what grandparent does not make that a priority-Grandpa Sebasian gave Kelly a dime, which she happily deposited in her bank.
I smile at this. I smile, that is, until I realize that God's ability to give us unlimited blessings is limited by our ability to open up. Our slot is too small. If I cannot bless myself, I reject (certainly without wanting to or even knowing it) all the good things God is trying to offer.
How can we be our own worst enemy? Here is a dangerous intersection. Don't crash. When you discover that you have been by your negative attitude rejecting blessings, don't start saying mean things about yourself. That just complicates things. Don't be down on yourself because you have been down on yourself. After all, the future is ahead. You are a part of all the good things that happen. Bless God and bless yourself for the mistakes you have made. If you hadn't made them, you might never have looked for the road of blessing.
