By Mark Andrew Beach
I was totally engaged in my work the other day when I got a phone call from my wife. When I answered my cell phone, she was shouting in my ear.
“Are you sitting down?” She began somewhat calmly. Then she began to cry and shout at the same time, “We won! We won!”
“What did we win?” I asked, even though I had a really good idea what she was calling about already.
“We won the thousand dollar sweepstakes at Horseshoe Mountain Hardware!” She exclaimed.
“Honey, that’s fantastic!” I responded enthusiastically. I was excited to have won the grand prize sweepstakes at our small town local ‘DoIt Best’ brand hardware store, but I was more excited to have received yet another confirmation that the laws of success really work. Here’s how it happened.
Last summer, my wife and I began a home improvement project that like a good macaroni salad keeps growing in the refrigerator as time goes by. So one day in July I am at the local hardware store buying some items for this expanding project, when I noticed the rather oversized box at the end of the counter with all sorts of colored papers and pens lying around it. The box looked like a poorly wrapped present with a hand written invitation to fill out a “form” and enter the contest.
I filled out what would be the first of several forms over the next few weeks and months, and as I did, I formed the clear and distinct image in my mind that not only did I want us to win, the $1000.00 prize, but I got the distinct image in my mind that we would actually win the prize. In that moment I could clearly feel what it would be like to win the prize and felt the gratitude that comes with winning. This kicks off the laws of perpetual transmutation and attraction. Our prize began moving into physical form for us right then.
Little did I know that my wife was having a similar experience when she went into the store over the ensuing weeks and months as well. What’s ironic is that in the previous years there had been other sweepstakes at this hardware store, but I never noticed them and consequently did not enter them. Notwithstanding my wife noticed them and entered them all. In fact, she later admitted to me that she would take stacks of forms, bring them home to fill them out and return to the store in an effort to “stuff the box” in her favor. She never won.
As we discussed our “success” for this contest, I was fascinated to learn what we had done differently. One of the first differences was that my wife had NOT stuffed the box like in years past. Like me, she had just filled out one form each time she had been in the store and nothing more. So we were able to rule out box stuffing.
Even though I did see us clearly winning and felt intense gratitude, as did my wife, neither of us kept it up as a specific goal or envisioned it except those few occasions that we filled out a form when we were in the store. Admittedly, whenever we drove by the store and saw the banner hung up on the outside of the building advertising the sweepstakes, our minds would return to the vision of winning and the feelings of winning and gratitude for each of us would return briefly as well. However, we were not driving by more than a couple of times a week, certainly not daily as most success gurus would tell us we should be doing if we really wanted to get what we were “hoping” for.
It was not until the next day I realized how we were using the other laws of success to attract the prize. First, even though we were not focused on winning the sweepstakes, we were really focused on the successful completion of our home improvement project and that we have been visualizing each and every day. Therefore, winning the sweepstakes was a part of how we are attracting the completed home improvement project into our lives.
Second, we have taken action on our home improvement project in some form or another nearly every day since we began it. Besides hiring the contractor and paying him outright, my wife, the perennial “penny pincher” (and I call her that with all the admiration I have for that quality in her) has been looking for ways to save money, shopping for lower cost materials, offering to do-it-ourselves, and more throughout the whole process. This action is in keeping with the law of cause and effect (another name for the law of the harvest); that we will get out of the project what we put into it in terms of money, time, effort and that God will make up the difference when needed.
Third, I cannot emphasize enough the feelings of gratitude that have had that accompanied both our completing the project, as well as winning the sweepstakes. Furthermore, winning this prize has freed up some money that we can use to help someone less fortunate with their home improvement project(s). Helping others is how we really put our gratitude where our mouth is. This is in keeping with the law of relativity, not to mention bible money and finance principles.
Fourth, we both let the process take its own course and timing in keeping with the law of gestation. As we filled out the forms and put them in the box, we both let go and trusted the process to God. We did all the above, but we surrendered our will to His and waited upon Him to grant our desire. By so doing, we allowed everything to unfold in its natural timing. Sure, we would occasionally comment as we drove by the hardware store, “I wonder when they are going to have that drawing?”, but we would leave it at that and just do our part by imagining our success in our minds, continuing with all the action steps we could control and leave the rest up to God.
Obedience to all these laws in their proper structure and framework are what brought the winning prize into our physical possession, and boy, are we thankful.
For more on this topic, click here to read Hidden Treasures: Heaven’s Astonishing Help with Your Money Matters FREE.
To learn more about Mentor Training and our Facilitator Track for leaders, click here.
- I Got Confused - January 11, 2012
- Get a Creed - January 11, 2012
- Get to Work! - January 2, 2012
