Eric Butterworth says, “Things may happen around you, things may happen to you, but the only things that matter are the things that happen in you. The internal unfolding of divine ideas never ceases. In prayer, we affirm order in every area of our lives. We attune our awareness to the highest and best image of ourselves that lives at the center of our being. Every expression of my mind, heart and hands is under divine direction. Abiding in this highest consciousness, I become the light of the world.” This is The Power of Order.
As we seek this light from within, in all that we do, we become the light of the world. This month we are awakening to and with the Power of Order. As we develop our personal consciousness into Spiritual consciousness, we begin to deliberately train, deepen our understanding and use our innate powers more effectively.
The Power of Order is the ability to organize, sequence, balance and adjust. It works with the Power of Love to create harmony in our lives. The color is olive green and the location is behind the navel. It is this location because our physical development, from fetus to adulthood, unfolds sequentially, in a certain order, according to a divine pattern.
There is a scripture in the Bible, Ecclesiastes 3:1-2, “For everything there is a season, and a time for every matter under heaven: a time to be born; a time to die; a time to plant and a time to harvest what has been planted.” Turn, Turn, Turn, a song from the 60’s, was based on this scripture and illustrates the Power of Order in our lives.
Charles Fillmore, said “Order is the first law of the universe. Indeed, there could be no universe unless its various parts were kept in perfect harmony.” Sunrises are followed by sunsets: winter gives way to spring; an apple seed grows into an apple tree; human birth occurs in the ninth month after conception, the hexagonal honeycomb; the migration of animals and monarch butterflies are all evidence of order in the natural world. Spirals in shells and ferns represent creation, growth and the circle of life. The spiral conveys the idea of perpetual movement, signifying continuous growth and vitality. The order we sense in the natural world is a material representation of Spiritual Order. Order is built into all of life. It is the architecture of the Universe. The order of the divine permeates all things.
The possibility of transformation is always here! So, we claim divine order in the midst of circumstances that appear chaotic. As we align with the divine pattern of perfection at the center of our being, divine adjustment occurs in a harmonious way at the circumference of life.
Our Power of Order is mainly concerned with our ability to clarify values, to set priorities for our lives and discern what is really important, for each of us. We put first things first. Order helps us to establish and maintain worthy personal and social priorities. Every day we say “yes” and “no’ to things – On what basis or ordering do we make these decisions? What do we put first? Do we take care of our heart first, our soul, our loved ones etc. Or do we rush off to work without a notice.
Underdeveloped Power of Order is when one cannot create balance in their life, there is lots of disorganization; redoing things to finish a project; or the home is messy even though they claim they can find whatever they need. Overdeveloped Order is when one is fastidious and obsessive about everything having a place and being in it. There is a compulsiveness, about things being done in a certain way.
Think about the messiest place in your home. How many times have you thought about cleaning it up, getting that area “in order”? This is using the Power of Imagination and the Power of Order. As you actually begin the project and invest time and energy creating a special place for everything, you can literally feel a sense of organization and balance flow through your very being! We use order when arranging ingredients for a recipe; doing a project; getting a degree; getting ready for work in the morning.
We doubt the reality of Spiritual Order when circumstances appear random rather than orderly, like when a child dies before a parent. When a limb must be severed to spare the rest of the body. When a lover leaves inexplicably. When we laid off or fired from a job. We think, the universe is unfair or we think it is God knowing what we do not know. “God’s will” is often the explanation for inexplicable circumstances.
As humans, when we cannot reason or understand what or why something is happening or has happened, it ceases to be Divine Order, and leads us to think of it as “God’s Will” as if God is a super human making these decisions, calling the shots. When things in life happen that we cannot understand, they are in Divine Order because, they cannot not be in Divine Order.
Linda Martella -Whitsett in Divine Audacity says “We claim our Spiritual Power of Order by activating organization, adjustment and evolution.”
Organization – Order is the framework, structure, pattern and sequence at the heart of all that lives. We use our Spiritual Power of Order in our trinity: Mind, Idea, Manifestation. Mind or Divine Mind, is the Oneness referred to as God. It is the source of all possibilities. When we are one with the One-mind we have access to ALL that can be. We catch hold of one idea in the One Mind and we develop it by using all our Spiritual Abilities or Powers. This Idea grows as a seed grows in soil. We water it with enthusiasm and anticipation. The Idea manifests as our experience.
Then there is adjustment, the second feature of order. Homeostasis in the body is our body adjusting to changes. Spiritual adjustment is our power to modify thoughts, words and actions to support our wholeness of being. We shift our awareness to adapt to a new spiritual understanding. Spiritual practices such as meditation, journaling, releasing and saying affirmations provide a process for conditioning our consciousness. Balancing activity with stillness because they support one another. Motion and rest, one is as important as the other. Our adjusting ability is inherent and is born of our Power of Wisdom. By our Power of Order, we know what we need moment by moment, whether it is activity or stillness; structure or flexibility, tradition or innovation; dependence or independence upon others.
Our ability to adjust is a rich spiritual resource from which we draw to bolster an affirmative outlook on life. Activating our power to adjust, we literally change our energy, shift our awareness, uplift our attitude and transform our life. The Revealing Word says, “The divine idea of order is the idea of adjustment, and as this is established in a person’s thought, his or her mind and affairs will be at one with universal harmony.”
Evolution is the aspect of the Power of Order demonstrated as development, progress or growth. Also referred to as, spiritual unfolding or transformation. Evolution moves in the direction of expansion and is inherent. The idea of evolution or harmonious expansion is a divine idea flowing from Source or One Mind. Our urge to evolve comes from our “catching that divine idea” and cooperating with it. From the One Mind to our human mind, from our human mind to our being. This is the power of evolution. Charles Fillmore says, “Evolution is the result of the development of ideas of mind. What we are is the result of the evolution of our consciousness, and our consciousness is the result of the seed ideas sown in our mind. Therefore, spiritual evolution is the unfolding of the Spirit of God to expression. It is the development achieved by individuals working under spiritual law.” (Keeping a True Lent, pg. 165)
Desmond Tutu won a Noble Peace Prize for his efforts to end apartheid in South Africa. He says “We are only the light bulbs and our job is to just stay screwed in.” Order is staying screwed in, so that our light has the connection it needs for us to shine. Order is giving our soul the necessary time and attention and stillness it needs so we can cooperate with the creators orderly and creative design for our lives. Order is not about crawling into a protective hole so we can run away from the disorder within us or around us. Order is simply stepping back far enough so we can regain perspective, or step in close enough that we can tend the wounds.
Nobel Prizes are prestigious awards for excellence in the arts and sciences. Alfred Nobel, a Swedish chemical genius, became incredibly wealthy by inventing dynamite and blasting gelatin. He originally hoped the high explosives would serve for peaceful purposes. But he licensed his formulas to governments and the military of many countries who quickly adapted them for weapons of mass destruction.
One day Nobel’s brother, Ludwig, died and a French journalist mistook Ludwig’s death for Alfred’s. The obituary called Alfred Nobel “The merchant of death”. When Alfred read the obituary about his life in the newspaper, he received a psychic wound so deep, he never recovered from it. He was pictured as a man who made a fortune by enabling armies to achieve mass destruction and kill many people.
Having been faced with this negative appraisal of what his life amounted to, and what he would be remembered for, he took his fortune and willed it to establish the prizes, which still bear his name. This is adjustment – shifting to another priority and evolution and growth. He is remembered for his legacy of honoring great achievements in various fields, which benefit humanity. Hardly anyone outside a chemistry class thinks of Nobel as connected to explosives. The unique opportunity to see his obituary and reassess his life caused him to give the last part of his life an entirely different direction, which has left an enduring impact on humanity.
This is the Power of Order – Staying open to this kind of adjustment in life.
This week I invite you to meditate on the Power of Order in your life.
- Where do you need to create more order?
- What do you need to do, so you can tune into that innate sense of direction that your inner wisdom has given you?
- Do you need to build some kind of stable/structure? This “structure” will enable the Spirit of love to be born in you & it has somewhere to go.
- Do you need to screw yourself in a little tighter so that electricity/your light, can just beam out through you?
- Where do you have to loosen up your sense of order so you are free to fly in that Good Orderly Direction of your life?
- Finally, where in the world around you, is there disorder that needs to be healed to make the path safe for you and others.
- The Power of Order is our innate gift.
- It is the balance and harmony we need to find that Good Orderly Direction and follow it.