Books are the quietest and most constant of friends; they are the most accessible and wisest of counselors, and the most patient of teachers. ~Charles W. Eliot
Thoughts are things…literally. They can be measured scientifically, and not only that, they actually manifest themselves into our reality. I see this manifestation day after day with how my library of books continues to grow.
It wasn’t too long ago when I couldn’t even sit down and read a book. If I attempted to, I would within a page or two, become drowsy and would either fall asleep or just give up and put the book down. The lap-band surgery has helped alleviate whatever undiagnosed sleep apnea I had, because now I get up to six hours of uninterrupted sleep each night, whereas before, I was waking up every hour or so all night long. That sleep has now not only given me the ability to think more clearly, but actually sit down and read an entire book from cover to cover.
I have always loved to read. I started reading as a toddler, I personally can’t quite recall the age, but my father and mother put it somewhere around three. I was reading the newspaper on a regular basis by the time I was five. My mother used to say that when I was a child, and I was too quiet, and she didn’t know what I was up to, she would always find me somewhere in my room with a book in my hand.
During the summer at the library they would always have a reading program. Read ten books and you would get to pick a prize out of this treasure chest full of toys. The librarians would never believe me, but I would read those ten books in one night. I wasn’t reading brochures either. I usually read books like The Hardy Boys mysteries, and those were usually one-hundred plus pages a book If my parents weren’t with me, I usually had to get one of them to sign off on the list of books I read just to satisfy the librarian. What those ladies didn’t know, was that for one whole school year during fifth grade, they taught us speed reading.
To get back to my point that thoughts literally become things, things that actually manifest into reality. I am talking physical objects that I can see, and touch. I see this blessing manifest itself in books all day long. Books that I want, books that I think about, I find them on the shelves of used book stores for huge discounts, or receive them as gifts. Sometimes I just go out and buy them myself.
Let me give you an example of one such book that manifested itself into my life. This is not a book that I did think about, I in fact didn’t even know that I would want, it already arrived into my life before I was ready for it. It is titled The Prayer of Jabez, Breaking Through to the Blessed Life.
I’m a fan of Joel Osteen’s ministries. However I was completely unaware of him until I started to learn about the Law of Attraction. As I was sharing what I believe with my father one day, he told me that later on that night as he was channel surfing, he came across one of Joel’s broadcasts and he was saying the exact same things I had been saying on the phone earlier. The reason I am a fan of Joel Osteen, is because most people don’t realize it, but he is teaching the Law of Attraction. In his book Become A Better You, which I highly recommend people read, towards the end of the book in bold letters he states it emphatically that you attract the things you continuously think about.
So now I record his broadcasts every Sunday, and one Sunday he spoke about a man named Jabez. A very minor character in a book of the Bible that in the first four chapters does nothing but go through all the “begats.” It is a book that covers thousands of years of descendants beginning with Adam, and right in the middle of this, the author of that book stops mentioning just names and briefly describes Jabez as if to say “pay attention to what this guy did.” And what it says is this: “Now Jabez was more honorable than his brothers, and his mother called his name Jabez, saying, ‘Because I bore him in pain.’ And Jabez called on the God of Israel saying, ‘Oh, that you would bless me indeed, and enlarge my territory; that your hand would be with me, and that you would keep me from evil, that I may not cause pain.’ So God granted him what he requested” (1 Chronicles 4: 9-10) The message of that day was to pray bold prayers, that there were storehouses of blessings awaiting you, all you had to do was to quit screwing around and ask.
This story intrigued me, I had never heard about this Jabez character and I personally don’t have a Bible, and even if I did, that is all there is to learn about this guy, because right after that it just goes off naming off names of descendants again. The next time I talked to my dad I mentioned Joel’s sermon to him, and my father said to me. “Didn’t you read that book I sent you?” My father, weeks before had sent me this little book on Jabez, I guess I just wasn’t ready to receive it yet.
That is just one book of many, one blessing of many. The last time I was at the Library, I stopped in their little used book store and found three books that were on my reading list and I ended up buying a total of ten books for less than $8.00.
The whole point I am getting at, is that I have the ability to enjoy reading again, something that means a lot to me, it always has, and because it is something that I love, and think about often with so much passion, I continue to attract it into my life. My library continues to grow, and it won’t stop. The Universe will continue to bring the books I want, and need into my life and for that, this morning I am grateful.
