Better Than Your Best

Please feel free to use these prayers for your own use in whatever context you feel they are appropriate. 

Invocation

Lord,

Help us to remain true to the self-evident truths so long ago proclaimed but existing from the beginning of time, that we are all created equal, and that we are endowed by You as our common Creator with certain unalienable Rights.

Imbue us with a renewed enthusiasm and respect for these, our mutual rights of life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. Cause us to know without doubt that from these rights issue forth genuine responsibilities to work for the common good so that all can truly experience the true fullness of freedom.

We pray the presence of Your Power to be within and among us this evening as we seek to manifest these truths within our individual hearts and within the soul of our nation.

We seek Your guidance as we again pledge our allegiance to the timeless proclamation of individual liberty and our uncompromising independence from any tyranny, foreign or domestic, that would seek to deprive us of any of it.

Steady us in these turbulent times, Lord, so that we will never waiver from our reliance on our faith in Your unyielding love for each of us.

Benediction

We now depart in Your love and with Your peace. But we are no longer the people who earlier gathered; we are now the people who leave to live with renewed passion, filled with infinite power and divine wisdom to be co-creators with You to make all things new.

We leave with deeper commitment to embody the words of the one in whose honor we have gathered this evening:

“With malice toward none; with charity for all; with firmness in the right, as God gives us to see the right, let us strive on to finish the work we are in . . .”

By Ken Wallace

In my recent book, “Your Better Self: A Simple Guide to Where You Want to Be,”I cite Benjamin Franklin’s 13 Virtues as being an excellent beginning for your journey toward manifesting your worthy aspirations and becoming your better Self. I’d like to share now Ben’s friend, Thomas Jefferson’s, 10 Rules that helped guide him to the astounding achievements credited to him.

Let me know if you think there is value to how he lived his life. Do you think you can benefit from organizing your life around the following?

1. Never put off until tomorrow what you can do today.
2. Never trouble another for what you can do yourself.
3. Never spend money before you have earned it.
4. Never buy what you don’t want because it is cheap.
5. Pride costs more than hunger, thirst and cold.
6. We seldom repent of having eaten too little.
7. Nothing is troublesome that we do willingly.
8. How must pain the evils cost us that never happened.
9. Take things always by the smooth handle.
10. When angry, count ten before you speak; if very angry, count a hundred.

Each week, especially Mondays, brings with it a slew of emotions accumulated from all the weeks and Mondays in the past.

Mondays are usually greeted, if not with a sense of downright dread, then with a less than enthusiastic attitude and a low-grade anxiety. It’s like going through a briar patch – as you travel through it, more and more burrs from the branches stick to your clothing. As you accumulate more “attachments” (physical, mental and emotional) as you go through life, the spiritual speed with which you travel decreases and the goals you set for yourself begin to loom loftier and soon appear to be bigger than your ability – and now your desire – to achieve them.

Monday is your cue to start fresh by casting off your psychological anchors that are weighing you down and holding you back from achieving your worthy aspirations. Every Monday, begin the week with these words: “If it is to be it is up to me.” Sound familiar? Hackneyed? Stale? Only if you’ve never tried it.

William James wrote: “Our belief at the beginning of a doubtful undertaking is the one thing that insures the successful outcome of our venture.”

Here’s a tricky question: Do you believe this?

Ken

“Government is not reason. Government is not eloquence. It is force. And like fire, it is a dangerous servant and a fearful master.”
- George Washington

“When leaders become worshiped because of their perceived eloquence and “reasoned” approach to the issues at hand, then the force of their persuasion is soon translated into the force of tyranny and the servitude of the easily led.”
- Ken Wallace

Provided you actually believe that the future can be better than the present in any manner you desire, the question you face today is: In whom do you place your faith to provide a better future? The answer is critical to determining how much effort you’ll expend to make it so.

Freedom is the requisite circumstance that offers the means to materialize worthy aspirations and noble endeavors. Without it, nothing improves; everything becomes weighed down with the growing sense of futility. Why bother living when soon you’ll be dead? Such is the prevailing attitudes of a nation led by platitudinous, vacuous and self-important “leaders.”

We suffer at the hands of politicians. Where are the leaders? A leader doesn’t have to be elected in order to lead a nation effectively. Please, leaders, let us hear from you so we will finally have someone to follow rather than worship.