Strength
Spiritual Strength: A Guide to Empowerment (video)
STRENGTH: The ability to endure, stay the course, persevere. The disciple ANDREW represents the stability that lies at the foundation of every true character. The month is FEBRUARY, the corresponding color is LIGHT GREEN and the location is the small of the back.
The Unity book The Revealing Word, which gives metaphysical definitions, defines strength as “the energy of God. Freedom from weakness, stability of character; power to withstand temptation. The capacity to accomplish. Strength is physical, mental, and spiritual. All strength originates in Spirit, the thought and the word spiritually expressed being the manifestation.”
Strength was a faculty much prized by the Hebrew people, and the Bible is full of exhortations to “be strong” and to turn to God for strength. The word strength appears 242 times in 232 verses.
Physically having strength means that we have the stamina to do the things that we want to do. It is vitality, endurance and the ability to persist. In the mental area of expression, strength is that quality of mind which enables us to think for ourselves. It helps us not be easily swayed by the opinions of others. It helps us not be manipulated by others. Strength gives us the courage, confidence, and strength to stand by our own opinions and convictions. On an emotional level, strength expresses as the ability to remain calm in the face
of outer temptations to get upset and act out of anger, it helps us not “go to pieces.” Strength allows us to handle the inevitable “bumps” of life.
Spiritually, strength enables us to persist in prayer, to build a stronger and stronger faith in our spiritual nature and the activity of God through us, and to do the things that need to be done by us as we grow spiritually. There are steps through which we develop the faculty of strength.
- Nonresistance: The first step is to get rid of habits that continually deplete this faculty. Resistance is the greatest theft of strength. Anger, fear, argument, worry and other forms of resistance deplete our strength. They leave us feeling tired. We resist when we forcefully try to convert others to our opinion or when we forcefully oppose another’s attempt to change our opinion. We resist when we lose our temper, worry about things and generally try to fight – mentally, emotionally, or physically.
- Relaxation: The second step in building strength is to learn to “relax and let go.” I think all of us can think of times when we got so much done because we approached our tasks in a relaxed manner as opposed to a time when we were tense and tried to accomplish something.
- Infilling: The third step in building strength is to go to God in prayer and to affirm God’s inflow of strength as a spiritual gift. Turning to God is always a correct answer. It is going to that source of Truth deep within us.
- Direction: As we feel our strength increasing it is our responsibility to use it wisely, to channel it for good. Our purpose here on earth is to fulfill God’s divine plan and the faculty of strength helps accomplish God’s good. It is important that we use our faculty of strength wisely. Balance is always important. Physically if we don’t cultivate strength, we don’t have the stamina to do the things we need to do.
- Incorporation: As we are open to God’s gift of strength, we begin to embody it in various ways. Strength becomes part of our makeup.
The everlasting Truth is that life is always going to give us opportunities to use our strength and to develop greater strength.