Chapter - 2

Overcoming Fears Concerning Money, Security And Prosperity

Fear can keep you broke, in debt and desperate . . . money grows on trees . . . abundance is the law of nature . . . faith makes dollars and sense . . . plant seeds of faith to grow a crop of prosperity.

Story From Life:

The Man Who Thought He Was a Grasshopper

"Prove me now herewith, if I will not open you the windows of heaven, and pour you out a blessing, that there shall not be room enough to receive it."-Malachi 3:10

The word "security" and the ideas behind it have been hammered into the consciousness of moderns from many angles. Insecurity has become synonymous with fear and dread of the future. Psychologically, a belief in a God of love and fear of the future are incompatible ideas. But many who think of themselves as good Christians unconsciously follow the Communist line when it comes to fear of their future. For example, let me tell  you about the young man who thought he was a grasshopper.

We can call him Jim Barrow and his wife Jane.

"We love each other," said Jane in telling me their story. "But we quarrel more and more about money. Jim says I'm money mad because I want a larger home with separate rooms for our two children and another car for my use. He is so filled with fear that he wants us to pinch every penny twice before we spend it even for grim necessities. He wants to save for a rainy day. But I want to live in the sunny days of right now!"

All fear springs from a false belief about life or the nature of things.

So when we got into the matter of their religious beliefs the root of the Barrows' disagreements was bared. Jane had been brought up in the New Thought Christian religion. Jim had been born into a family whose religious beliefs were based on a God of vengeance, fears of a personal devil and eternal punishment. Jane had joined Jim's church which they still attended but she felt she couldn't take Jim's attitude about money and his fears of the future much longer. A crisis had arisen—Jim was threatened with loss of his job.

The result of our afternoon's conference was that Jim came to see me the following night. He was a clean-cut young man, and very likable. It was obvious he loved his wife and children more than anything else in the world. "I'd sure like to give them everything," he said. "But money doesn't grow on bushes."

"No, it grows on trees," I said.

Taking advantage of Jim's puzzled silence I explained:

"The Bible tells us there were two trees in the Garden of Eden; the tree of life and the tree of death. Money grows on the tree of life. For this tree represents a belief in all good as to God and the Universe and the eventual outcome of man. Poverty, sickness, unhappiness, every unwanted condition grows on the tree of death which is a belief in good and evil. A tree represents man's heart or consciousness, what he believes about God, and so, about all life. Thus we are told to keep our heart with all diligence for out of it do come the issues of life. This is necessary because all power is law-locked. The creative power must follow the law of correspondence and so what we believe we receive, just as Jesus taught The Garden of Eden story tells us how fear began in the heart of man and the rest of the Bible is devoted to telling us how to overcome fear. And so, Jim, if you want to give your wife and children the good things of life you must eat of the tree of life. To eat means to accept and live certain ideas which the Bible clearly sets forth."

Jim listened in tense silence, his keen blue eyes asking questions of me. Then he said, "O.K. If you know something good and helpful that I don't know, I'll be eternally grateful to hear about it."

That of course was the kind of attitude that led John Wesley upward in consciousness and to founding the
 
Methodist Church. Being a life-long Methodist myself, I just had to love Jim for his willingness to learn. Also, being a Methodist, I must witness or die.

"You are a truly meek person," I told Jim. "For to be meek means to be teachable. It is my observation that when God finds a really teachable man He uses him for great purposes as a channel for good. A teachable man can overcome all his fears. How many fears do you have at the moment?"
"Just one," Jim replied. "Fear of losing my job. There is talk at the plant of closing the department where I have worked ever since we were married. If it does close, I'll be out of course."

"What will happen if you lose your job?" I asked.

"I'd lose everything else, too, if I didn't get another in a hurry. No job, no house payments, no car payments, no insurance payments, no back bill payments. We never have going money for more than thirty days ahead. That's why I insist we have to save for a rainy day."

"Aren't you afraid you'd lose prestige with people you know if you lose your job, car, home? What about your wife's love and respect? What would your children, members of your church think of you? Aren't you afraid that loss of your car might mean you'd not get another job? How many fears do you really have?"

"Enough to clobber me down for good," Jim sighed.

We talked awhile about the three-phrase fear he was carrying around, his "sense of impending danger," to the life, love and liberty of his family and himself. When Jim saw his fears clearly we brought up the subject of prayer.

"I've tried to pray but I don't get any satisfaction from my prayers. My pastor prayed with me. He says perhaps it is the will of God for changes to be made and for us to have less. Pastor's wife prayed with Jane. But Jane does not agree with their views on religion. They seem to think Jane wants to live too high; have too much. Do you think it is the will of God for us to have less?" Jim asked earnestly, anxiously.

"No," I replied. "I think it is the will of God for man to have more and more and more. I think God is working out a plan here on earth with human beings. He created us and loaded us with built-in desires which we cannot get rid of and which cry out for fulfillment. Somehow, by our working with our body, mind and spirit to try to fulfill our desires to stay alive, experience love and expand our freedom, we learn, express ourselves in art, music and beauty, search for truth and worship the Creator. By this method of trying to acquire something bigger, something better, something more, we have explored the earth, our own thoughts, civilized ourselves, founded science, religion and philosophy. I think it is a combination of laziness, shifting the blame and burden on God, of ignorance and ungrounded fear to say the will of God is for us to have less. How could it be? God gave us free will. We can refuse to cooperate with His plan. But to limit ourselves is to limit God. To limit God and ourselves is also to limit our fellow men. I believe such limitation is a sin; a mistake. It is a proven fact that abundance is the law of nature. God put his created being, man, into an unfinished world. He commanded man to "be fruitful and multiply." This cannot mean simply to beget children. Without discovering more and better ways for food supplies begetting children would be sinful. I believe God intends for us to create more and more good. The raw materials already abound in nature. Ideas for growth may be obtained from God for the asking and being willing to work with them. To refuse to increase is to fail to cooperate with God's purpose.

Since Jim was not lazy, had no intention of shifting a burden or duty he saw to be his own, and was not ignorant in the accepted sense of education and training, his problem clearly was one of ungrounded fear and lack of a plan of procedure for expansion and growth. After several conferences with him going over what he really believed about God, man and their relationship, I said, "Jim, you have been breaking the first commandment all your life."

I had to prove my every point by the Bible, book, chapter and verse. But before we were through Jim saw that he had indeed, always believed that there was a power greater than God.

Jim's fear of the future was a fear of an evil able to overcome God, or good. He called that evil power "bad luck," or "company policy," or simply "circumstances beyond my control." He had quite a list of what stood in the way of his good. His fears of failure were greater than his faith in God.

What Jim had to learn:

To put any power, person or thing before God is to break the first commandment. Jim was not putting his faith in God but in a "rainy-day fund." He was not worshiping God. He was failing to believe in God as the highest power of the Universe. This fact he finally saw clearly and it proved a great shock to him. There could be no healing until there was understanding.

While Jim had come to talk about his fear of loss of his job we must notice that it was a deeper, hidden, more important fear that really worried him. He wanted to be sure about God's will for him. For fear of displeasing God is one of our deepest and most painful fears because it concerns our greatest desire: to be, to keep our individual identity forever. To displease God can become a threat to our eternal life Self. Like Jim, few of us stop to analyze our fears. But Jim finally saw that his deepest question was not, "What must I do to be sure of earning a living while on earth?" which he called his problem. His deepest question was, "What must I do to be saved after death?" which gave rise to his fears and all his life had held him back from financial success.

Jim's conflict about his desire to earn the greatest possible amount of money and his desire to be right with God (on the side of Grace, as he said) grew out of that root of all human fear which we must mention repeatedly in a variety of ways until we thoroughly understand it.

The root fear is a belief that evil can overcome good. Anything which threatens the fulfillment of our desires for life, love and liberty is to us, evil. Always we must remember, if we had no desires we would have no fears.

In Jim's case the evil rested in his unconscious belief in two sides to God's nature—love and punishment. Also, an unconscious belief that there actually was a power of evil, a devil, separate from God. But most of all, Jim knew nothing of the power of his own word, of the power of prayer as it is used in the Christian New Thought movement in which Jane had been reared. Jane knew very well. This difference was the basis of their personal problems. Jane's knowledge led her to expect more of Jim and of life than they were receiving.

Jim maintained that he no longer believed in eternal hell fire and punishment, but the ideas were deep in his unconscious mind from earliest childhood. His need was to learn new truth that would set him free. This Jim did. He began to fill his mind with truth by learning what he really thought about himself. He got it said as follows:

"I look around at the guys with big Cadillacs, swimming pools, and big salaries to support them and I think of the Bible story which describes me to a T. The one where Moses sent his men out to spy for a future home. They came back and said there were giants in that land and that they were in their own sight as grasshoppers. Well, that's me—a grasshopper," he declared and folded his arms across his chest in an attitude of saying, "That's all I am and there's nothing you or anyone else can do about it."

I told him it was up to him whether he was a grasshopper or a giant, and that it was pretty plain to me that Jane was tired of the grasshopper role because she was so certain in her own mind that he actually was a giant acting like a grasshopper. "Overcome your fears and you will find you are a giant," I said.

It is my belief that to get rid of fear on earth is to be rid of it throughout eternity. I believe earth is a school where we learn how to use our God-given powers to fulfill our God-given desires. The reward of learning how to live without fear, how to fulfill our desires, is to find that life really is a heaven on earth. This is the reentering of paradise or the state of perfection, harmonious living in body, mind and spirit which man always dreams about and which is predicted in the Bible as man's eventual accomplishment.

In looking at today's worldwide problems and fears it will help us with our individual fears to remember that this desire for and promise of ultimate perfection, written in man's heart, is what is back of even his wildest Utopian dreams and plans for a better world. But never can it be accomplished by edict of laws of the land, arms, and firepower, by threat and force. It can be done only by the individual working with his own Soul. Soul growth is and ever must be a do-it-yourself job. That is what Jane and Jim set out to do.

I believe in the written program as an aid to changing one's life. The Barrows wrote down a list of things as they were in their lives, including thoughts and fear patterns, which they did not want. Another list was made of things as they desired them to be.

Jim was then earning three hundred dollars a month. I suggested he demand of himself the ability to earn twice that amount, or six hundred dollars a month. (A dollar bought more then than it does today.) A growing family needs an expanding income. They were to remember that God knows what we need before we ask, but we still must ask. The growing consciousness of man needs to expand for more and more freedom. To achieve these two desires would enable them to express more love to each other, their fellow men and to God.

Jane was encouraged to desire, plan and ask for good household equipment. "Every labor-saving appliance is a step toward greater freedom," I told her. "And it will give you more time with the children, for study, for practicing creative prayer and Soul growth."

(Here I sadly admit that for many the time saved with modern conveniences often is merely spent and not invested in Soul growth as it should be. This leads to boredom, frustration and delinquency on every hand. Hence the Soul defeats its own purpose for man was made to grow, forever.)

The Barrows made a "big bold list" of what they desired. They added to it as their courage increased. Soon they agreed on a larger home with a swimming pool. Jim made astonishing progress from the first for now he had his heart right with God. He saw clearly that it was his duty to earn as much as he could and to give as much as he could. They used the following daily affirmation:

The all-providing Mind of God is our real resource and our prosperity and success are assured.

Jim stopped thinking of himself as a grasshopper. He began to see that God has given every man the power to become a giant of accomplishment. He soon bought the second used car for Jane. This gave her new freedom and lifted her spirits. It also took a load off Jim's time. He didn't have to take the children to school, or go for the groceries. Freedom can become capital. Jim was led to go to night school; to take public speaking. He accepted lecture dates. I advised him to have aptitude tests made, to learn whether he was in the right job. He changed jobs after learning his highest natural abilities and got an increase in salary. Jim and Jane worked as a unit and so the power was multiplied through them, under the law of "two agreed."

They left Jim's church and joined a New Thought church where, they reported to me, they "met people of very high faith and consciousness; nobody talks about sickness or bad luck." They made new friends. Their quarrels about money ceased from the start of their project. There was now no fear between them and so no need for anger as a defense against fear. They were happier than they ever had been. "It is an intelligent, understood happiness," Jim enthused. Whenever a desire or problem arose they talked to each other asking, "Is is good? Will it help all concerned? Is this an impulse of fear or of faith?" Together they learned.

When a problem arose that frightened them they said, "This is not bigger than God. There is nothing bigger than God!" The old and often mentioned slogan, "God is my partner," was very real to them. Day by day their faith grew and their fears diminished. Since the law of correspondence never sleeps, the more they desired and pictured themselves as receiving the more they did receive. A circle of success was thus set up, for the more they received the more their faith increased.

Then one day Jane came saying they had an opportunity to buy a fine big home. "Almost half an acre of land," Jane said, her eyes bright with the wonder of it. One of the executives at the plant where Jim then worked was being transferred out of the state. "If they could sell everything at once, without advertising, getting an agent, wasting time, they'd give us a real deal," said Jane. "We are praying for their good just as much as for our own. It's our dream home—rambling ranch style, complete with swimming pool, first and second trust deeds, five bedrooms and three baths! They even want to sell the furniture, wall-to-wall carpets, electrical appliances, everything!"

"Sounds like an answer to your prayer," I agreed.

Jim came that night. We three realized that they already had received the home long before in idea form. (For complete understanding of this principle the reader will be helped by my book, How to Use the Power of Your Word.) We did not pray with the thought that God was a Super Man somewhere up in the skies who might withhold this good or might decide to bestow it. We prayed, giving thanks for the power God has given man to work with the Creative power that God used to create planets and man. We had an absolute faith that everything necessary to be done would be done in order for them to acquire that home.

And they did acquire it.

They have continued in their program of more and more of livingness, of love and ever-expanding liberty. They know beyond doubt that this is a way of worshiping God. The windows of heaven have been opened for them. They have learned this great truth about life: the more you give the more you will receive. Success is a circle. They give time, attention, energy, prayer, thought, love and money. As more money comes to them they give more and more to help others to express more of life, love and liberty. We cannot remember it too often: Good travels in a circle. For the Barrows and all others who know how to use their power it is an ever-expanding circle.

If your fears have to do with money, security and prosperity I respectfully suggest that you wait until you have finished the entire book before you set up a program such as the Barrows used. The following will help you now and you can come back to these points later when you are ready for your own prosperity project.

1. Fear is a habit, a way of looking at life.

Psychology teaches us we cannot break a habit by working at the habit. That digs it in deeper. We break an old, unwanted habit by replacing it with a new one. We need to create new patterns of thinking. These will create new habits of acting.

2. Overcome evil with good.

The Bible tells us we have the power within ourselves to do this. Evil means: "Anything impairing happiness or welfare; affliction; misfortune; opposed to good," says Webster. By thinking of and expecting our desired good we set in motion the power which brings it to us.

3. Make new demands upon yourself.

It is not necessary to deny others, to steal or rob or cheat or lie in order to become wealthy. Wealth comes from new ideas that create new goods and services, that give pleasure and comfort and profit to others. Ideas are from God. We get them by making new demands upon ourselves as channels and producers. Psychologists tell us we use only about 10 per cent of our abilities and powers. The law is, a big demand (upon ourselves) brings a big supply from God.

4. Bless what you have.

Praise and thanksgiving have power to increase. Use that power.

5. Love the good of life.

Some people pretend to despise money and the better things of life. This is denying the goodness of God. To love God is to love good and to love good is to attract it to us through the law of cause and effect, and the law of correspondence. Knowing this, we need never fear for the morrow.

6. Feel worthy of prosperity and plenty.

God makes His rain to fall on rich and poor, good and evil alike. God withholds good from no man. Man must develop to the point of his individual awareness of his powers and the laws under which these powers work. God sets no limit to what a man may acquire.

7. Be a profitable servant.

In the parable of the talents, Jesus tell us clearly that those who multiplied their talents (which was a measure of money) were given greater good and authority. But the man who was afraid and buried his talent and did not multiply it by putting it to work, was rebuked and that which he had was taken from him and given to the man who now had ten talents as a result of his work.

8. Do not fear great wealth.

There is no harm in accumulating great wealth, nor in using great wealth. Just be sure not to let it use you. Some of the greatest blessings that have come to man have come through accumulated wealth, from foundations, research organizations, schools, hospitals, and so forth, which were set up for the giving of more life, love and liberty to the individual and so, the world.

9. See for yourself the good you desire.
See yourself possessing any desired thing, or condition. And enjoying it. If it is a new hi-fi set, hear it as well as see it. If it is a new home, see yourself in it, walking through the rooms. See the colors, fabrics, furniture you want. This practice will help you tremendously to get rid of fear. The battle ever is to think of what you do desire and never to let anything enter your mind that you do not want in your body, mind and affairs. Edison said he owed his success in inventing to the fact that he thought in pictures and not in words. Steinmetz said the same thing.

10. Tithing is a law of expanding prosperity.

If you tithe in fear it will not bring back prosperity. You can go broke tithing in fear. The law of cause and effect will create wealth or poverty for you in accordance with your own belief, your feelings, your fears or your faith. It is therefore necessary to be happy, fearless, sure of the future, giving gladly if tithing is to increase your good until there is not room enough to hold it.

11. Ask for more.

Go to sleep every night saying, "I am working for God and God is working for me." If God were not working for you, you wouldn't have life or beingness. Ask for more and more and more. Not just of money or wealth. But of wisdom, love, all good.

12. Keep your mind on God.

There is not enough money in all the world to make you feel secure. Nothing less than a faith in God, as all love, all wisdom and all power plus your own ability to work directly with Him and for people can give you a sense of security. All things may be wiped out including our planet earth, but our Soul and God stand, forever.

13. Good desires are from God.

Nothing can keep your good from you but yourself. You need nothing more than your powers of desire, decision, asking, prayer, love, faith and work to create wealth. As long as there are hungry children in the world poverty is an evil. Don't fear poverty. Overcome it.

14. Keep in touch with the expansion ideas of the best minds of our time.

This keeps you tuned in with the truth that abundance is the law of nature. For example:
General David Sarnoff, chairman of the Radio Corporation of America, recently said of tomorrow's wealth "I think ... we will find more wealth in space than we have found beneath the surface of the ground."

Fresh water is a form of wealth. In dry California we are ever aware of that fact. It now seems possible to turn ocean water into fresh water at a cost of about twenty cents per thousand gallons. An old, old dream of man to make the desert blossom as the rose, will yet come true.

For the first time in history there is hope of food, clothing, shelter, health and education for all. It will not come overnight. There is much growing to be done on the part of those destined to receive. But man is now working out of the poverty, out of the fear consciousness which have hovered over the world since civilization began.

A few days ago Allyn B. Hazard told the Aeronautics Seminar held at Caltech, in Pasadena, that close to one hundred persons will take a moon trip by 1970. This staff specialist for the Space-General Corporation also said that 100,000 people will journey to the moon by the year 2000. Progress in space travel is so rapid that Hazard and others are constantly revising their figures of how far, how soon. The movement is always toward less time and greater space.

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