Rest Easy.

Rev. Warren uses the 7-step creation process to help us find rest.

Here we go!

MANIFESTING IS A PROCESS:
Judgment, sometimes called discernment, plays a role in manifesting our dreams. Manifesting anything, whether it’s as simple as brewing a pot
of coffee to be enjoyed in the morning or as complex as bringing about world peace, is a process.

In Unity, we have a 7-step creation process as one possible
framework in which to manifest a dream. This process is based on the creation allegory given to us in Genesis all of chapter 1 through 2, verse 3

This is before we get to Adam and Eve. Charles Fillmore, co-founder of Unity, metaphysically interpreted that passage to give us our framework.
With brewing a pot of coffee, the process occurs rapidly and
mostly unconsciously. We’ve done it so many times, we don’t
really need to think about it.

When it comes to manifesting something new, though,
whether it’s a short or mid-term goal, or a huge dream we
have, the process can take years, and therefore require us to
engage in the process consciously.

Everything you can see, touch, taste, smell, or feel gets
created two times.

The first in either Divine Mind or our minds, then it gets
fully expressed in the invisible realm of Mind, or manifested
in the physical world.

I will do a quick review in just a bit of all the 7 steps, but
today we will focus on the 6th and 7th steps, which form a
bridge from the inner creation to the outer.

The 6th step is to allow love and wisdom to enter the
picture.

The 7th step is rest.

LOVE:
In Unity, we teach that love first and foremost is the ability
to bind together in harmony, and the feeling part of love, that
warmth, that affection, that tenderness for another person
comes as a result of using love.

So what do I mean by the ability to bind together?

If you watched the film The Secret many years ago about the
law of attraction or know about that law,
That’s kind of what I’m talking about.

While love is an essential phase in the co-creation process, it
also has a much grander purpose.

Love, in general, is what connects us one to another,
connects us to the earth, the universe, and Divine Mind.
Working with understanding, love is what enables us to have
empathy and compassion for another, it’s what enables us to
forgive another, even if we don’t feel love for that person.

Here’s a personal example. There’s someone I know
personally who didn’t really provide for his family and didn’t
treat them as well as he could have because of how he goes
about life.

Some of this person’s behaviors I judge to be reprehensible.

Trust me this didn’t happen overnight and took a lot of inner
work over the course of many, many months, but eventually,
working with love and understanding, I was able to have
compassion and was and am able to forgive them.

That doesn’t mean I condone their behavior; it doesn’t mean
I have to like them because I don’t. It doesn’t mean I have to
have the feeling of love for them because I most certainly
don’t.

I do, however, have to be willing to see that they are a human
being on this journey we call life on this planet.

I have to be willing to see that they too have the divine
spark in them, no matter how disconnected they themselves
are from it.

Ultimately, the power of love is what enables us to perceive
and experience that we are all one with each other and one
with Divine Mind.

More specifically, when it comes to manifesting our dreams,
it is the ability to harmoniously draw forth the people and
resources we need to help us realize our dream.

I emphasize harmoniously, because you probably can realize
your dream without love as I’m defining it today, but it
would come forth dragging, kicking, and screaming.

While love is working all the time, it works especially well
when we are deeply connected to our Divine Self.

I think of this half of the 6th step as being mostly passive, it’s
operating in the background.

Having said that, we can visualize that magnetic power
drawing to us what we need when we need it.

Also, a dream may not really be your dream if you don’t have
one of love’s offspring for it — passion.

Passion is the fuel behind your dream.

Okay, for love in this 6th step to work well, it must do so
hand-in-hand with its other half — wisdom.

WISDOM:

Proverbs 4, verses 3 through 9 reads:

3When I was a son with my father,
tender, and my mother’s favorite,
4he taught me, and said to me,
“Let your heart hold fast my words;
keep my commandments, and live.
5Get wisdom; get insight: do not forget, nor turn away
from the words of my mouth.
6Do not forsake her, and she will keep you;
love her, and she will guard you.
7The beginning of wisdom is this: Get wisdom,
and whatever else you get, get insight.
8Prize her highly, and she will exalt you;
she will honor you if you embrace her.
9She will place on your head a fair garland;
she will bestow on you a beautiful crown.”

This passage doesn’t need much interpretation. Wisdom and insight here are a feminine energy. That’s because in this sense, it doesn’t come from logic and our 5 senses alone. Wisdom is that intuitive quality that lets us know what the next action is for us to take.

THE SEVEN STEPS OF THE CO-CREATION PROCESS:

Before I talk about wisdom anymore, here is a very brief
overview of the 7-step creation process.

Day 1, or phase 1, Illumination gives us the raw idea in mind.
It’s that a-ha moment when you grab hold of a Divine idea
and you know it’s yours.

Day 2, or phase 2, Faith allows us to know beyond a shadow
of a doubt that that idea is ours to manifest.

In the third phase, Imagination gives specificity; it adds all
the glorious detail to the original raw idea. This is the “what”
of our goal or dream.

With the fourth phase, Understanding gives us the “why”,
and Will gives us the “make it so” command.

As Rev. David talked about last week, in the 5th phase,
Judgment, discernment, allows us to evaluate all the options
and select from them.

That brings us to what I’m talking about today, the 6th
phase, in which love and wisdom play a key role.

WISDOM:

Wisdom, working with love, gives us the action to take in the
physical realm.

For example, let’s say your dream is to write a children’s
book.

You have the story, you can see it in your head; perhaps,
you’ve even written the first draft of it.

Now you need an illustrator.

You get the intuitive nudge to call a long-lost friend and they
end up knowing an illustrator.

You use your will to contact that illustrator; they are not able
to assist you with your project; even so, they give you 3 more
names of illustrators they know.

Wisdom working with love tells you to call the second person
on the list.

You engage your will to make it so.

During the call, the illustrator turns out to be very interested
in the project and wants to do it.

Further, they think of a publisher to approach because your
story would be right up their alley.

Love brings harmony and those binding connections,
wisdom gives us the right actions to take for what needs to
happen next.

You can try to use one without the other in this step, but your
results will not be optimal.

That is because Love is indiscriminate; it casts a wide net.
You can actually attract people and circumstances that are
not truly in alignment with your dream.

In our children’s book example, using love alone, you may
end up calling the 1st illustrator and wind up frustrated
because it was a solid dead-end.

Wisdom without love can be cruel and result in disharmony.
That’s the dragging, kicking, and screaming I mentioned
earlier.

Like love, wisdom’s purpose is more than just to help us
create our dreams.

It can be used to guide us in our everyday lives.

When David and I were living in the New York City area, I
was working as a software development consultant for a very
small firm.

Most of its clients were Wall Street corporations.

I was starting to be really unhappy in my job and I wanted
out.

One day, I got very strong guidance with specific action to
take. Call your old employer and ask for a position.

This was back in early 2001.

My old employer was in Kansas City. I was already
planning on moving back to KC, but wasn’t ready; our lease
wasn’t going to be up until the end of October and this was
February.

Keep in mind, remote work was practically unheard of back
then.

I used my will to make the call, got the job easily, and quit
the one at the boutique firm with appropriate notice.

Less than a month after I had left, I got a call from a former
colleague there. The firm had dissolved and everyone was let
go.

Could I have ignored that action step, that guidance I was
given?

Absolutely. It wouldn’t have been a great outcome for us.

But I didn’t. I honored the guidance and I know my
highest good was served.

SABBATH:

Now we’re on the 7th and final step, rest.

Yes, you heard me right, rest easy from your work.

In my earlier years on this spiritual evolution journey, I’d
hear from teachers that I must actively co-create that which I
desire to manifest.

I’d attend a different class or workshop and hear from other
teachers to let go and let God.

It drove me nuts!

In my very analytical mind, it was a binary proposition.
Which is it, which is right? Just tell me which one, damn it!

Turns out, they are both right.

This was something that took my stubborn mind many years
to wrap itself around.

We must first mentally create our dream, then take the
actions in the physical world that are in alignment with its
creation as long as we are getting those action directions
from our Highest Self in the form of love and wisdom.

When we have completed those actions and no more
directions have been “downloaded”, it’s time to stop.

It’s time to rest easy and allow the Universe to work its magic
in the background. This is the letting go part.

That time of rest allows your mind and your body to be
renewed.

Things are still happening for your dream, remember, the
faith you have aimed at your dream lets you know it is yours,
even if it seems like nothing is going on in the physical realm.

Before long, the resting phase will complete, then the next
action step or steps will be revealed to you.

PUTTING IT ALL TOGETHER:

These seven creation steps are not necessarily linear.

Nor are they steps in the literal sense so much as they are
phases. Some of them can happen simultaneously or right on the
heels of one another.

You might be in the judgment/discernment phase only to
have your imagination come up with something even better
than you had before.

You might be in the understanding phase only to be
launched into the love and wisdom phase.

You might be feeling blocked and therefore set your project
aside, taking the rest that is the 7th phase.

Using all of these tools together, these phases of creation,
eventually, your objective, your goal, your dream will
manifest.

These phases are actually gifts of your mind; they can be
used in your daily life, too, as you’ve heard from some of our
stories.

GRATITUDE:

In a time of meditation, just imagine how you’ll feel when
what you desire to manifest does so.

Once you are feeling that, then next, in your body and mind,
feel the gratitude that you are living out your dream.

However you say thank you to your Higher Power, give
thanks, and then add the phrase, “or something even better.”

This gives space for the feeling you desire to experience, as a
result of manifesting your dream, to come about in a way you
may have never anticipated.

Be open to your dream manifesting physically differently
than perhaps what you had planned.

After all, it’s that inner experience you truly desire, that
inner feeling that is truly important to be expressed.

Be flexible with how it manifests on the outside.

CONCLUSION:

As we prepare for meditation and prayer, here is an
affirmation for you to work with.

Affirmation: I do the work that is mine to do, and then I rest in faith.