The Sermon on the Mount_ The Key to Success in Life - Emmet Fox [26]
Precisely the same rule applies to any other form of error thought. Business or family difficulties should be handled in exactly the same way. Let us suppose that upon opening your morning mail you find bad news concerning business affairs. It may be that you find a notice informing you that the bank in which most or all of your money is deposited has failed. Again, the usual thing in such cases is to accept the worst and to dwell upon it at almost any length. Many people in such a case would quite saturate themselves with the thought of ruin by thinking over it all day long and probably all night long too, and by discussing it in all its details with other people and rehearsing every kind of trouble and difficulty that might come to them as the result of the occurrence. In addition to all this, there would, in many cases, be bitter resentment and condemnation towards the people—bank officials, and so on—who would be held to be responsible. Now, even a very slight knowledge of the causative power of our thoughts will show us what the result of all this must inevitably be. It must be to increase and multiply the trouble, and make it more and more difficult to escape from it.
Of course, in such a case, a student of the Jesus Christ teaching would sooner or later start to drive all such thoughts out of his mentality, substituting for them his knowledge of the true Law of Being. It may be, however, that having been taken off his guard by the suddenness and seriousness of the blow, it will be some time before he begins to handle the problem in the light of Truth; and it is this delay that will increase his difficulty many times. The proper thing to do, according to Jesus, is, immediately he becomes aware of the bad news, to turn to God—his real support—to refuse to accept the suggestion of trouble as binding upon him; and literally to drive the thought of loss and danger right out of his consciousness, together with the fear and the resentment that go with it. If he does this, working steadily until his peace of mind is restored, he will presently find himself safely out of his difficulty. In some way or other the trouble will disappear, and his fortunes will be restored. Either the bank will speedily recover itself—and there is no reason at all why one person’s prayer should not save the bank and the fortunes of thousands—or, if this for any reason be not possible, he will find that a sum of money equal to or greater than the one he lost in the bank will come to him from some other and probably quite unexpected direction. “Whosoever shall call upon the name of the Lord shall be saved.”
The same principle would, of course, apply equally to any kind of difficulty whatever, since universal harmony is the true Law of Being. A dispute, or quarrel, or misunderstanding should be handled in the same way from the first moment you become aware of it.
Ye have heard that it was said by them of old time, Thou shalt not commit adultery:
But I say unto you, That whosoever looketh on a woman to lust after her hath committed adultery with her already in his heart.
(Matthew V)
In this unforgettable paragraph, Jesus stresses the Master Truth, so utterly fundamental, yet so unsuspected by the world at large, that what really matters is thought. People have always been accustomed to suppose that as long as their deeds conformed to the law, they have done all that can be reasonably expected of them, and that their thoughts and feelings are of little importance, and that in any case these are their own business exclusively. But we know now that any outward act is but the sequel to a thought, and that the type of thought which we allow to become habitual will sooner or later find expression on the plane of action. We understand now, in the light of Scientific Christianity, that thoughts literally are things, and that our choice of conduct really lies in our choice