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Good (or God) gives us strength, which is not the same as purity. I don’t think we are expected to be pure or perfect in our lifetimes in order to connect with Good (i.e., God), and I’m not even sure we have to be strong. We are allowed to be miserable, and make mistakes, and still ask for help. 

A Course in Miracles is a long and complicated text (I recommend the book on tape version). In it, much is written about how we don’t actually have to work for God (or Good). We don’t have to do anything at all, really, other than pay attention to the fact that we are one with Good (or God) and if we operate from that place, we are doing exactly as we should. If we look at life and the future with certainty and positivity, the things we focus on will come to fruition. 

When I was younger, I read The Secret, just like everyone else. I was annoyed by the premise that if I just imagined a great parking spot or a mansion in the hills, it would appear miraculously. I don’t think manifestation or intention actually works that way. In reality, if we focus on positive things and work toward them with an open heart and mind, I do think a great deal of Good arrives in our lives, just usually not in the way we expected. 

I will say I have written lists of qualities I wanted in a romantic partner a couple of times in my life, and both times I got what I was looking for. The issue became I hadn’t been specific enough and I also had not been careful about what I wished for. The power of intention is almost a dangerous game for the cynic or the skeptic, just like the power of God is. We get unsettled by opportunities. We get blind-sided or turned around by our good fortune. We can feel unprepared or unlovable or unworthy, and muck it all up. 

That’s why its okay and perhaps even important to build faith over time. After spending so much time in darkness or dysfunction, it’s hard to know what to do with help or confidence or love or opportunity when it arrives. It’s easy to sabotage any of those things through insecurity, which is why faith is primarily about establishing belief in ourselves, in our lives, and in our futures through a relationship with Good or God. 

There will be mistakes along the way. The same trials we encountered before will arise again and the solutions we imagined before will not be those we imagine now, because our understanding of ourselves, of Good, of love and pain are different. The primary goal, I think, is rather simple. It’s just to remain in touch with God and keep asking for help, because that is the baseline of having faith. That is how we participate in The Holy Instant, according to A Course in Miracles, and that is how we retain and remain connected to Good and allow it to work in our lives. 

Life can be so hard. And it turns out having faith might actually be incredibly easy. Ugh, how annoying.