Q: When faced with a problem and seeking divine guidance, alternative answers—each apparently reasonable—may come. How does one know which is the real? (7-20-24)1

A:  Actually, when seeking divine guidance, only one answer comes, and that’s the spiritual one. Where there is any question of doubt, the answer has not come at all, and neither one is the right one or spiritual one.

The question that comes up in my mind is this: Were we seeking guidance in the sense of seeking God’s government and God’s grace, or were we outlining some specific earthly problem, and expecting spiritual wisdom on it? If so, therein is the mistake.

You cannot ask God whether you should turn up this street or that street; you cannot ask God whether you should go in this business or that business, or whether you should sell your home or not sell it, and you can’t even ask Him what stock is good to buy today. Seeking divine guidance in that way does not work out, but seeking divine guidance in this way does—and I am starting with Omnipresence:

“Here where I am, God is, and God is the all-knowing Mind, the all-knowing Life, the all-spiritual Being, Law, Cause and Effect. The kingdom of God, the kingdom of the Christ, the spiritual Son of God, is within me, and Its function is to govern my life—guide it, direct it, protect it, sustain it, feed it, prosper it. That was the Master’s mission on earth, and that is the function of the Christ in my experience. From the kingdom of God within me is to come all that is necessary for my understanding. Thy Grace is my sufficiency in all things

“Ah, and here comes a promise: “I will never leave thee nor forsake thee. I will be with thee unto the end of the world.” Thank you, Father, that is all the guidance I need; that is all the answer I need—the assurance that there is a Presence within me—Thy Presence within me, the very I which will never leave me nor forsake me. Because of this, eventually I will say, as Paul did, “I live, yet not I. Christ liveth my life.” I need take no thought for the problems of today. There is that within me which is the answer to every problem.”

Now I have sought divine guidance, and if I seek it in that fashion every day, without outlining or specifying, every time I come to a specific problem, there will be a specific answer. Not because I have taken my earthly problems to a spiritual God but because I have dropped my earthly problems and gone to a spiritual God for spiritual guidance. When I return to earth, the answer is made evident, and really, the answer comes in such specific ways as sometimes you can’t believe.

1This copyrighted excerpt is from Recording 406B: 1961 Oklahoma City Open Class, “Principles of Healing, continued.” It is posted with kind permission from the Estate of Joel Goldsmith, which holds the copy protection on the recorded classes and the copyright on the transcripts. The full transcript of this recording is available from The Infinite Way website or by calling 1-800-922-3195.

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