There is no inferiority or depravity about the man that God made. The only inferiority in us is what we put into ourselves. What God made is perfect. The trouble is that most of us are but a burlesque of the man God patterned, intended. We think ourselves into smallness, into inferiority by thinking downward. We ought to think upward, if we would reach the heights where superiority dwells. One of the most unfortunate phases of ancient theology is in the idea of the debase- ment of man, that he has fallen from his grand original estate. The truth is that he has always been advancing as a race, always improving, but his progress has been greatly hampered by this belittling idea. The man God made never fell. It is only the sin-made man that has fallen. It is only his inferior way of looking at himself, his criminal self- depreciation, that has crippled and deteriorated him. The old theology taught us to belittle ourselves. There was a begging element in it. There is nothing in the Bible to indicate that man was to prostrate himself before his Maker like a sneak or a slave. There is nothing in such self-depreciation but demoralization. There is too much of the cringing, crawling spirit in our attitude; there is too much of the prostration, too much of the knee-idea, in our theology. Man was not made to bow in humiliation and shame, but to assert his divinity. He was made erect so that he could stand up and look anything and everything in the face, even his Maker, for he was made in His Image. If man is a prince, if he has royal blood in his veins, if he has inherited the divine moral attributes, he should claim his birthright boldly, manfully, with dignity and assur- ance. The trouble with us is that we do not keep our good qualities sufficiently in sight; we do not think half well enough of ourselves. If we did, we would have a much better expression, would present a divine appearance. It makes all the difference in the world to us whether we go through life as conquerors, whether we go about among men as though we believed we amounted to something, with a strong, vigorous, self-confident, victorious air, or whether we go about with an apolo- getic, self-effacing, get-out-of-other-people’s -way attitude. Is there any reason why we should go through the world whining, tagging at some- body else’s heels trailing, imitating, copying somebody else, afraid to call our souls our own? Hold up your head, and learn to think well of yourself; have a good opinion of yourself, and your ability to do what you undertake. If you do not, nobody else will. Much of the poverty and lack of social position among people of the working class in this country today are due to their own sense of inferiority. Instead of standing up in an attitude of manliness and independence they take it for granted that they are inferior. If there is anything a level-headed, spirited employer despises it is a truckling, pandering, apologizing attitude in his employees. He likes to have those about him approach him on the equality of manhood. He instinctively despises those who bow and scrape. He can never respect the leave-it-all-to-you employee. He likes the one who stands up for his rights, and who makes him feel that he is a man and expects to be treated as a man. Whether we realize it or not, we are never stronger than our faith, we never undertake anything greater than our self-confidence dictates. The habit of exercising self-faith, of feeling conscious of possessing greater ability and power than we are using, has a tremendous extending, enlarging, unfolding influence upon our mental faculties. So undeveloped are our latent sources of power that our self- faith is rarely so great as the ability back of it would warrant. As a rule a man’s greatest deficiency is that of self-faith. The majority of people are many times weaker in confidence than any other faculty. A large percentage of those who are failures could have succeeded if this one quality had been properly trained and strengthened in their youth. Take a timid, shy, sensitive, shrinking individual, and teach him to believe in himself, teach him that he has great possibilities, that he can make himself a man who will stand for something in his community. Train him in self-faith until this quality becomes strong and robust, and it will not only increase his courage, but strengthen all his other mental qualities as well. The life processes are all the time reproducing the mental picture, the opinion we have of ourselves. No man can be greater than his estimate of himself at the moment. If a genius were convinced that he were a pygmy, he would only produce the results of a pygmy until he enlarged his estimate of himself. It does not matter how great or grand one’s general ability may be, his self-estimate will determine the results of his efforts. A one-talent man with an overmastering self-faith often accomplishes infinitely more than a ten-talent man who does not believe in himself. I know of no greater self-protection from all that is low, ordinary, and inferior than the cultivation of a lofty, grand estimate of oneself and one’s possibilities. All the forces within you will then work together to help you realize your ideals, for the life always follows the aim; we always take the direction of the life purpose. Hold up-building, ennobling, sublime pictures of yourself and your divine possibili- ties. If you persist in this constant struggle to measure up to higher and higher ideals, loftier and loftier standards, the life processes within you will help you to realize them. It does not matter how strong most of our mental faculties are, if they are not led by a vigorous faith. Faith puts all the other faculties to work. Its influence upon the mental faculties is very bracing, while that of doubt and fear is demoralizing, deteriorating. There is nothing that will so brace a man up, will so buttress and reinforce his weaker faculties, as a robust self-faith, faith in himself, faith in everybody and in everything, faith that there is a great, magnificent force in civilization, in the affairs of man, a current which runs Godward; that there is a divinely beneficent purpose running through the universe. Faith powerfully encourages all the other faculties, and courage is a tremendous force in one’s life. The greater our faith, the closer, the nearer, becomes our oneness with the universal life, universal power. Doubt is a great paralyzer of efficiency. A man must believe that he can do a thing before he can do it. He can do little while he doubts. A man whose purpose is backed up by a superb faith and a lofty ambition, so that he finds neither comfort, rest, nor satisfaction until he is successful, will perform miracles, no matter what circumstances may conspire to hinder him. The very intensity of your longing to do a certain thing is an additional proof that you have the ability to do it, and the constant affirmation that you can and will do it makes the achievement all the more certain. What you dream you can do, think you can do or believe you can do, you will do. - The Miracle of Right Thought
Posted on: Fri, 05 Jul 2013 22:38:11 +0000
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