"When you come to the edge of all you’ve known, and you’re about to step out into the great unknown, know that you will either walk out on solid ground, or you will be taught how to fly."

Rev. Scott Awbrey is the founding minister of Unity of Park City in Park City, Utah.  Their web site:  unityofparkcity.org.

The German philosopher Arthur Schopenhauer, said, "Every person takes the limit of his own vision for the limits of the world." That speaks to what I want to talk about this morning. 

We cannot see any more in the world than we can see in our own lives. If our life is one of hopelessness and helplessness, we see the world that way. On the other hand, if we see ourselves empowered by the divinity that we are, we know that nothing can stand in our way. We know that what we are and who we are will overcome every obstacle that we will ever meet. It will help us solve every problem we'll ever have. And it will help us see beyond the events in our lives to greater possibilities.

So if we do not hold a vision greater than that we have held up until now, then not only is our personal life in trouble, but the whole world is in trouble. On the other hand, we can see ourselves as limitless expressions of divine life, God in the unfolding, if you will.  We are life's longing for itself, emerging into form.

If we will open ourselves up to these greater possibilities, that becomes the inexhaustible energy that we need to move us through life. 

So this morning we will be looking at, "What is my vision for my life?" Is it greater than anything I've experienced before? If not, maybe the time is this morning to look again to see what vision we can incorporate, what vision we can elicit from ourselves that would empower us -- give us that inexhaustible energy that's available to us.

A quote from the Desiderata, 1500's: "The universe is unfolding as it should, and we've been given the privilege of being its vehicle."

I want to live my life in a state of wonder and expectancy, a humbleness in the face of such possibilities and of awe of life's revealing of itself through us, through all events, all persons and all circumstances.

As we begin to see within ourselves that we're greater than what we've demonstrated until now, we start to be aware that other people all around us are equally capable and perhaps have not discovered it.

What we want to talk about today is the vision as reality. What is it we want to make real in our life? 

I want us to look at where we are in our lives, what life has been to us up until now. And then to start to entertain the idea of what would be possible if we lived at the edge of creation, if we lived at the edge of what it's possible to be. 

What's available to us right now? We see every day all of the wonderful discoveries we're making out of this fantastic mind that we are. The awareness of who we are is growing very quickly.

In fact, somebody said that if we gauged ourselves from where we are to where it's possible for us to be this morning, the movement would be as drastic as the moment we measure from the Neanderthal man -- the first time we were called anything like human -- until now. To me that's very graphic. 

If I were living up to the possibilities available to me right now, the change would be as drastic as going back to the Neanderthal man. That is fantastic. It is a wonderful thing to contemplate. We're just waking up to those possibilities. Jesus, who performed miracles, and lived a life of love, and forgiveness, and possibilities, said, "Greater works than these shall ye do."

Kirkegaard said, "If I were to wish for anything, I should not wish for wealth and power, but for the passionate sense of what might be, for the eye which, forever young and ardent, sees the possible. Pleasure disappoints; possibility never. And what wine is so sparkling, what so fragrant, what so intoxicating as what is possible?"

If this morning, we could be so focused on what is possible for us and look at the way we've lived our life up until now, we would have a tremendous change come in our life. But the possibility exists, also, that we may have lived our lives as victims up until now. How we look at either the possibility of moving forward or the possibility of staying stuck depends upon our relationship to life, what we believe ourselves to be.

If we've lived our lives being victimized by events, circumstances and people, then there is a chance that we will not enjoy a discussion on what's possible for us to be. In fact, it could be frightening. We might barely be able to see that there may be a few options that life gives us, and we think possibility is making a few meager choices out of those options.

In Corinthians I, it says, "For now we see things through a glass darkly." We have the capabilities now to experience life from another level. Think for a moment about how a hypnotist works. He calls somebody up and hypnotizes them. They have them doing all sorts of things, but that's not reality. It's a hypnotized state. Many of us have lived our lives from a state of hypnosis. We have believed what we've been taught; that we're victims, that we can't help it, that all we need to do is just survive, just figure out how to get through life.

There's a greater possibility open to us this morning. The Bible says, "Awake thou that sleepest. Arise from the dead." And that's the invitation this morning. If we think about reality, though, there are five billion people on the planet and this morning there are five billion different realities. There are no two people who have ever had the same experiences and view life exactly the same.

The author Lawrence LeShan, in some research that he does, says that of the five billion people, everyone falls within two categories. One category is that reality is really out there, and all that humankind can do is try to discover what it is, find out what the games are, and try to survive in the midst of it. That's called coping. Coping with life, just getting by, being thankful that we can figure out how things work and just make do. 

The other category, he says, is radically different. It is that human beings do not discover what is out there, but that they create and maintain their reality; that we are the organizers of and are responsible for that reality in which we live. We create the way we experience life.

Ernest Holmes said:

We do not see reality until our eyes are open, until the light of eternal truth has struck deeply into our own souls. The wise man builds his house on the solid rock of truth, and not on the shifting sands of instability. Reality is that which is real and enduring. The foolish man, living only in sense perception, has no measure for reality and builds his life on false options and erroneous concepts and the storms of experience tear the walls apart. Truth alone endures to the eternal day.

I had a professor in the seminary who was a member of the Jesus Seminar, which is a group of theologians and teachers in seminaries in major universities. A hundred of them have gotten together to take a new look and come to a new viewpoint about the life of the historical Jesus. 

They are shifting from the belief that Jesus was an apocalyptical preacher telling us about how the world would end and how there would be divine intervention at the last moment. That view accounts for some of the people who are actually looking for a third world war so that Jesus can come and rescue them before the war wipes out everybody else on the planet. 

But this group of theologians in the Jesus Seminar are exploring again all the writings, all the research, and they have come to the conclusion that many of the early writers put words in the mouth of Jesus. The first gospel was written some 91 years after Jesus died. In fact, the first book of the Bible was Thesalonians, which Paul wrote, and Paul never even knew Jesus. One man from Yale Divinity School said that we have to come clean and say that we've put words in the mouth of Jesus.

They're researching now and many of them believe that Jesus had a very contemporary message. Jesus came as a Wayshower. He came into a certain mind set and a prevailing consciousness, just as we have. His people were in bondage to the Romans, there was illness and poverty throughout the land. Mark 9: "Truly, I say to you, there are some standing here who will not taste death before they see the kingdom of God has come with power."

What he was saying was that in this moment, then as now, it is possible to live in the kingdom of good, in the face of all that's happening around us. We do not have to wait for anything to change. That was true 2,000 years ago. 

Jesus knew how the spiritual principle worked. He knew that whatever we put out, we get back. He knew that whatever we believe comes to us. He was teaching a very contemporary message, but many people have made it up to be something else. He talked about eternal truth. He said, "I am the way, the truth, and the light." He was talking about the essence of him, the I AM of him, and the I AM of him is the same as the I Am of each of us. 

We become the possibility for that. We become the model for that. It's available to us in this moment. No matter what we've done in our life in the past, it makes no difference, if we get it, that in this moment the power and presence of God is available to us. We can do all things through the Christ Mind which strengthen us.

Another place in Luke it says, "The kingdom has already arrived as a possibility." That's a modern translation. Jesus said, "It is in the midst of you." He was saying that reality is not someplace far off, but it's within each of us. That is the absolute truth. It was true then; it's true now. Each of us this morning can live our vision and the possibility of what we want to be, because it's available to us now.

Ernest Holmes said it in a little different way. He said, "There is a perfect concept of humankind held in the mind of the universe as an already accomplished fact, but we're subject to the law of our own choice." The universe holds a perfect prototype for who we can be, but we choose. There is a law that responds to our choice. We choose whether or not we actualize that. So where we are this morning is the result of all of the choices that we've ever made.

This morning if we're leading an unhappy, unfulfilled life, it's because we are operating out of a perception that says this is the way it has to be. But I’m here to say that that is not the way it has to be. We are not here to live in an experience that is contradictory to the nature of God. And the nature of God, the true nature of life, is one wholeness, peace, and abundance.

Some people think perhaps they’ve wasted their life and say, "That is the way it was meant to be. It must be my destiny." Untrue. The destiny of each of us is to be fulfilled, to live fulfilling, rewarding, healthy, successful lives. That's our destiny. And Spirit isn't concerned how we do that. It just wants us to celebrate Life.

This was the message of Jesus, and of Lao Tsu, and Buddha. Enlightened beings who knew that the experiences of this world are only a metaphor for a deeper, bigger reality. What I’m suggesting we all do, this morning, is just open the door of possibilities in our life. If we’re feeling stuck in an area of our life, then air it out. Pardon the football metaphor, but.…

If you’re feeling stuck in your profession or in some project, be bold. Take a chance. Believe in yourself and in pure Spirit within you.

If you’re feeling stuck in a relationship, be bold…drop one opinion or one judgment. Forgive someone or something.

Greater works than these shall you do. Know that you are one with God, you are strengthened, and you can do all things with this presence and power. Your life is filled with possibility, and when you come to the edge of all you’ve known, and you’re about to step out into the great unknown, know that you will either walk out on solid ground, or you will be taught how to fly.

God bless.

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