LBW 09: It’s a Language Thing

Learning to apply success principles is like learning a whole new language. At first, everyone makes mistakes. You “ask” for one thing, but what you get is often something you never intended at all. Learn to become fluent in God’s language of faith.

Background music Long Stroll by Kevin MacLeod is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution license (creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/)
Source: incompetech.com/music/royalty-fre…isrc=USUAN1100174
Artist: incompetech.com/

The audio above was derived from the following article:

The Language of Faith

TRANSCRIPT:

Not only is goal setting is like dialing a phone number, but it is also like a whole new language. At first, you’re bound to make some mistakes using any language. That’s normal. In terms of setting goals, It’s happened to me, too. Sometimes when I thought that I was communicating my desires and a goal statement very clearly, they turned into circumstances that I never intended at all. Now this gets a little ridiculous.

You know what? That’s okay! It’s all part of the learning process. Let me help you put it all into perspective: Imagine going to a Spanish speaking country with nothing more than a basic understanding of the Spanish language and an English/Spanish translation handbook. (By “basic” I mean how much I know: words like “burrito,” “enchilada,” “hola,” “uno, dos, tres…” “Taco Bell,” …You get the idea.)

So you arrive in the foreign country and climb into a taxicab. You open your book and intend to tell the driver, “I want to go someplace quiet and beautiful where I can feel the Spirit of God.” So word by word, you search your translation book and say, “Deseo ir en alguna parte tranquilidad y hermoso donde puedo sentir el alcohol del dios.”

You spoke clearly and confidently, knowing that you said just what the book told you to say.

What you didn’t know was that the driver (who is a native of the country) hears, “Desire to go beautiful tranquility somewhere and where I can feel the alcohol of the God.”

Now let me ask you, where do you think he will take you?? When you end up at a saloon instead of a botanical garden or church, you might look at your Spanish book and throw it away saying, “This language doesn’t work!!!”

Now, have you met anyone who has discovered the language of prosperity… made an attempt to use it, and then threw it all away because “it” didn’t work? Maybe you’ve even thought about throwing it all away.

Realize this: the language of faith and prosperity is just that: it’s a language… of the Spirit. It takes time to develop fluency. It takes practice to understand the cause and effect of thinking, feeling, and acting in this new and certain way.

When things don’t go the way you expect them to go, accept the results and simply learn from them. Take the lessons that are available in every challenge, every setback, every experience and let them work in you, so you can get closer to your goal more accurately the next time.

Don’t throw away the principles that you know deep down are true, even if the results you get aren’t what you expected them to be. When you end up at a saloon instead of a beautiful botanical garden, it wasn’t because the “book” or “language” didn’t work; the language actually works perfectly. You simply missed one critical word, substituting the word for “Holy Spirit” with the Spanish word for “spirits” (alcohol). The words we choose as we set goals will also make a critical difference in the final outcome.

Let me give you an example. For a long time I had a goal statement that said, “Money comes to me frequently and easily from multiple sources in increasing quantities on a continual basis. People want my products; God helps his children through me.”

After about a year of using this statement as an affirmation, I realized that the part, “People want my products” is exactly what I was getting: thousands of people who wanted my products. But the goal stated that way doesn’t exactly translate into revenue. That’s when I changed my statement to more accurately reflect my true desire: “People BUY my products; God helps his children through me.”

See the difference? One word can make a big difference. It’s a language thing.

We communicate our desires and receive what we ask for. “Ask and ye shall receive” is a true principle. But this language of faith that we are trying to learn comes from a foreign culture, a way of life that perhaps we remember from somewhere long ago, but has been temporarily forgotten in this mortal realm. Furthermore, it is important to remember that in God’s culture, or “way of life,” when someone asks Him for increased faith, He doesn’t necessarily deliver faith, but opportunities to exercise faith.

When we ask for financial freedom, He doesn’t give us piles of money but opportunities to develop multiple streams of income. When we ask for strength, we are given challenging experiences where we can develop the very strength we asked for. (The movie “Evan Almighty” illustrates this point beautifully – it is a movie I highly recommend.)

You know, the bottom line is this: The more fluent we become in God’s language of faith, the more peacefully we will grow toward accomplishing all we truly desire.

ANNOUNCER: This has been a Little Bit of Wisdom with Leslie Householder. Listen to her podcast and download her books free at www.aRareKindofFaith.com.

Leslie Householder
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This Post Has One Comment

  1. Lucy

    Thank you, Leslie for sharing. Your explanation of this “Language of Faith”, like everything you share, always takes me a notch higher. You demonstrate the points so beautifully, the point is crystal clear.

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