Believe to receive

Christmas is a magical time of year in part because it evokes so many memories.  I remember childhood Christmas Eves leaving cookies and milk for Santa.  Later, I grew wiser (at least in my own eyes).  “We all know Santa isn’t real,” I reasoned.  “So why waste perfectly good cookies on a myth?”

“It’s not a waste,” my dad would retort.  “Santa likes cookies, especially the homemade chocolate chip ones.”

“Don’t you mean to say that you like them?”

“Hey, if you don’t believe in Santa, he might not bring you anything.”

“Yeah, whatever.  Santa doesn’t exist.  My tummy, however, does exist and will put those cookies to much better use than someone who isn’t real.”

“I don’t know,” my dad responded.  “If you don’t believe, you won’t receive.”

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It's natural law

Little did I know the incredible lesson my dad was teaching me.  In fact, that’s really the whole crux of life right there.

For so much of what we want in life, we must first believe.  Without belief, you simply don’t receive.  That’s because you receive according to your belief.  It’s natural law.  It’s called the Law of the Harvest.

Anything in life has a price associated with it.  You must pay that price in full and in advance before you can receive.  And can you guess what the first part of that price is?  You must first believe.

Many singles tend to focus on whatever bad things happened to them.  Maybe you never got married through depressing and discouraging years of trying and not succeeding.  Or you had a marriage that didn’t work out despite your best intentions.  Or you lost a companion to death and find difficulty with the new landscape.  Looking back on whatever bad happened to you makes it hard to move forward.

But what else should anyone expect?  Your focus becomes your reality, so when you focus on what you don’t have, your reality becomes consumed with scarcity.  To flip your reality around, flip your focus around.  Focusing on what you do have and what you can give will create a reality of abundance.

And the first step in that direction is to believe.

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Belief and action feed each other

You must believe first in order to receive because all action is predicated on belief.  Even if that belief is that something might be true, that belief can be sufficient to generate action.

But here’s the kicker.  In order to keep belief alive, you must act.  Action is what feeds continued belief.  When you fail to act, it’s hard to keep believing.  That’s because when you stop acting on a belief, you starve that belief.  And without appropriate action, you simply won’t receive.

Many times we stop acting on what we once believed because our immediate results do not match our desires.  It doesn’t help that disbelief is very easy, and maybe that’s why many of us singles embrace it so readily.  Many of us hold so tightly to disbelief that we return to it out of habit.  We keep making the case for disbelief, using our bad past experiences as supporting evidence.

But that road will never lead you to the life you really want.  It’ll just keep you running in circles, because that’s the only way it can go.

If you want to go somewhere meaningful with your life, you must first believe.  No matter how impossible it may seem, you must believe that a rich and full life can be yours.  That belief can support you to action as you search for a solution, a way forward.  The act of searching reinforces the belief that a solution you can implement exists.  Keep looking forward and moving forward, and eventually you will receive what you seek.

And you aren’t in this alone.  You have the Creator of the universe on your side.  Partner with Him — bring Him your problems and your emotions and counsel with Him to find what you must do to get where you should be.  Be sensitive to the promptings of His Spirit.  Nothing feeds belief more than doing what God would have you to do.  And when you do that consistently, your life will be more rich and full than you can possibly imagine.

The hope of receiving that joy is what the Christmas season is all about.  What better time to begin to believe than Christmas?

What disbelief do you have?  What can you do today to begin to believe in the bright and glorious future you want to receive?  To receive, you must first believe.

Me?  I’m beginning to rethink my teenager assertion that Santa is a myth.  This Christmas Eve, I’m leaving a plate of cookies out for him.  After all, I won’t receive if I don’t first believe.

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