Providence (or Luck)

The soul is the arbiter of our destiny—we have the shaping of our future in our own hands. The soul is the gift of the Almighty. The term soul is used as expressing the spirit that dwells in the spirit body. It is not the spirit body merely that constitutes spiritual being. There is no such thing as destiny in the sense that any fixed rule of conduct is laid down for anyone. Some think they are destined always to be unlucky; whilst others wonder at their friends' luck, which seems likewise a mark of destiny. We ignore one important element in the way our affairs are shaped—the interference of spirits who ally themselves with those on earth. It is common for us to be under the delusion that we are the creatures of destiny—that the finger of Providence may be traced in our daily affairs. If a man falls in the street, it is just his luck and if, instead of falling, he gets a rise in the world, he thinks it is his luck again. His friends who are less profane think it is the will of Providence but these are convertible terms; what one person calls luck, another calls Providence. God's laws are omnipotent and pervade the whole universe; consequently, if a sparrow or a man falls, he does so in accordance with some law of nature—the law of gravity—which, of course, is only another convertible term for the laws of God. God does not interfere with his own laws. He does not require special providences to produce special events. They occur in accordance with laws that are common to all ages and all times and if a miracle could be performed eighteen centuries ago, so also by the same laws could it be performed nowadays, if the conditions under which it took place were the same in both cases. If spirits can and do interfere in our affairs, not by controlling matter but by controlling our spirits through our minds—such being the media by which alone they can reach our matter—there is, therefore, no difficulty in explaining why or how an event may happen amongst us, which, at first glance, seems such an extraordinary coincidence as to be little less than a providential interference. Matter is usually controlled by spirit, whether it be the Spirit of God breathing through nature's laws or the Spirit of God in man. If we take up a chair, it is matter controlled by the spirit within us, for, of course, the matter of our body is merely the agent of the spirit within. Hence, if we hear of matter in the form of clothes, money and food being sent to someone in answer to his prayers, we have a case simply of matter controlled by spirits in the same sense that we have it when we move the chair. The modus operandi is as follows—the person praying simply calls to his aid spirits—that is, men and women—who sympathise with his work; in short, he may be said to advertise for them. The difference between him and others who solicit our charitable contributions is that he advertises in the spiritual world and other men advertise in the natural world. In reality, it is nothing of the kind; it is an earnest appeal by spirit power to those whose necessities—as spirits seeking their own development—require that they should lend help of this kind. Hence we see it is a mutual benefit, not a one-sided one. It is more blessed to give than to receive is a saying whose meaning few understand as well as spirits do.