Charles Fillmore, co-founder of Unity, wrote "God's greatest gift to man is the power of thought, through which he can incorporate into his conscious mind, the mind of God." God's greatest gift to us is the power of thought.
We are co-creators with God, constantly creating our reality through the thoughts we hold in mind. We think, and our thoughts become our experience. We literally create a pattern for our life by the way in which we allow ourselves to think day in and day out. Our inner world of thought is translated into our outer world. When we change our thoughts, we change our lives.
In other words, we create our own heaven or hell; it is our choice.
There is an old Cherokee tale about a grandfather telling his young grandson about a fight that was going on inside him. He said it was between two wolves.
One is evil: Anger, envy, sorrow, regret, greed, arrogance, self-pity, guilt, resentment, inferiority, lies, false pride, superiority and ego.The other is good: love, peace, hope, serenity, humility, kindness, benevolence, empathy, generosity, truth, compassion, and faith.
The grandson thought about it for a minute and then asked his grandfather, "Which wolf wins?"
After a long pause, the old Cherokee simply replied, "The one I choose to feed."
Myrtle Fillmore, co-founder of Unity, felt that we must train our minds to be ever aware of the thoughts we concentrate on. Which thoughts do we choose to feed or concentrate on, and which thoughts do we choose to starve? What we focus on grows and expands. Do we choose to focus on thoughts and ideas that enhance our lives, or do we choose to focus on those thoughts and ideas that create confusion, unhappiness and despair? The choice is ours; we create our world by what we hold consistently in mind. "Thoughts held in mind produce after their kind." It is said that form follows thought, first in mind and then in manifestation. All action is the result of thought. When we think, we actually cause things to happen. We put an idea out into the universe, and people, places and things begin to show up in our lives to fulfill that idea.
Emmet Fox has said, "You think, and your thoughts materialize as experience; and thus it is, all unknown to yourself as a rule, that you are actually weaving your destiny, here and now, by the way in which you allow yourself to think, day by day long. It is altogether in your own hands. Nobody but yourself can keep you down. Nobody else can involve you in difficulty or limitation. Neither parents, nor wives, nor husbands, nor employers, nor neighbors, nor poverty, nor ignorance, nor any power whatever can keep you out of your own when you have once learned how to think."
It is estimated that we have 60,000 thoughts a day, or 50 thoughts a minute; we have a tremendous ability to process ideas. Yet, unbelievably, 99% of today's thoughts are the same as yesterday's! Since we are constantly creating our reality by the thoughts we hold in mind, it would serve us well to train our minds to focus on happiness, health, prosperity, love–that which we want to experience–rather than terrorize ourselves with negative, self-defeating ideas. No thought has a right to occupy our minds without our consent.
We have the power to choose our thoughts. Every day we can choose to be happy, healthy, prosperous, and experience a sense of well-being. Or, we can focus on how sad, depressed, unhappy and fearful we are. The choice is ours. What the mind repeats, it retains. Practice makes permanent.
Ralph Waldo Emerson once observed, “As a man thinketh, so he is, and as a man chooses, so is he…” God's greatest gift to us is the power of thought!
We are constantly creating our realities. When we change our thoughts, we change our lives.