This recording features the Sunday Talk portion of the service. For the full service watch here.
Spring Forward into Divine Confidence – Rev. Aimee Daniels
DESCRIPTION
What if divine confidence isn’t something you create, but something you uncover? As we spring forward into new possibility, we remember that the key to unlocking imagination has always been within us — sealed in our own consciousness. True confidence arises from recognizing the divine presence already expressing as us. When we trust that inner source, we spring forward not because we have proof, but because we know who we are.
SUMMARY
This talk by Rev. Aimee Daniels, focuses on themes of divine confidence and spiritual growth. She begins with an acknowledgment of International Women’s Day and the theme “Give to Gain,” emphasizing generosity and collaboration for gender equality. Rev. Daniels discusses the concept of divine confidence, drawing inspiration from Neville Goddard’s teachings on living from the wish fulfilled and the importance of inner transformation. She highlights the significance of understanding and knowing, as taught by Emma Curtis Hopkins, which leads to the dissolution of fear and the recognition of divine intelligence within. The talk encourages embracing spiritual curiosity and allowing life to unfold naturally, rather than forcing outcomes. Rev. Daniels also leads a meditation practice to embody the state of being desired, fostering a sense of deservedness and gratitude. The talk concludes with a prayer affirming oneness with God and calling forth peace, love, and collaboration in the world.
TRANSCRIPTION
This transcription was auto-generated, please excuse typos, errors and omissions.
Rev. Aimee Daniels:
It is so good to have you all back. Missed you. Glad you’re feeling better, Paige. Great song, right? That could be a talk in and of itself. What would I do today if I were brave? But we’re going to get to that. So today is volunteer appreciation Sunday here. So we’re going to be celebrating our volunteers later, but it’s also International Women’s Day. Woo. And the theme this year is Give to Gain. It’s a mindset of generosity, collaboration and investment in women to achieve gender equality. And that is what empowers women to collective progress. I love that. So I just wanted to presence that. And it was super funny on the way here. I’m driving. I’m letting my music shuffle and I am woman came on. I could have asked for that song this morning. Okay. Let’s dive in. Ben, if you could go to my first slide.
Thank you. He’s on it. Okay. So many of us remember learning how to ride a bike. It’s been a long time ago for me, but you remember learning how to ride a bike. At first, someone’s running alongside you, maybe they’re holding up the back of the bike. And we’re wobbling. We’re trying to hold our balance. It’s a little scary. And then there’s a moment where the person who’s spotting us, for lack of a better word, let’s go. And then we’re riding by ourself, but we don’t realize it right away. Right? And nothing outside changed. The road didn’t change. The bike didn’t change. But what changed was something inside of us. We shifted from being hesitant to knowing. And divine confidence often begins with a moment like that in our spiritual life.
Last night, we moved our clocks forward for daylight savings time, and we didn’t create more light by doing that. We simply chose to live as if the light was already there. And spiritual life invites us to do something similar, to move our inner clock forward, and to begin living from the light that’s already present within us. And so I chose this talk title today because last Sunday, Reverend Linda had us do a little meditation and reflection at the end. And the words that came to me were divine confidence. That’s what came up for me. And as spiritual folks, our confidence should be in the divine, right? Call it God, call it spirit, call it the universe. And Neville Goddard, who we’re taking our inspiration from this month, talks about sealed instructions. And I want to focus for a second on what I highlighted in this quote, because last Sunday, Reverend Linda talked to us about thinking from, so thinking from the wish fulfilled, the future state, instead of thinking of the future state.
And I want to take this a step further. We much must translate vision. So this idea of what we’re calling in into our beingness, right? And we want to live as if we’re already it. And we can surrender to the evidence of the senses, right? What’s happening in the world around us, but when we do that, we underestimate the capacities of our inner self. And Neville suggests that the possibility of our lives are not created outside of us, but they’re already present within our consciousness. And this kind of makes sense to me. Do you have certain things in your life that are kind of … They’re kind of themes in your life that you just kind of came in with them and you never really thought about it. I’ll say, themes might be a bad word, but like I’ll say for myself, I’ve always loved to bring people together.
It’s one of the things that I love. I’ve been wired like that since I was little. No one said to me, “Oh, you should bring people together.” I just did it. For a long time, I didn’t even know I was doing it, but I think that and encouraging people for me, I think I came wired in with that. I don’t know why. No one ever said … I mean, I could make up a story which could probably be partially true that I could have used more encouragement as a little person. It probably was true, but I think I also came a little bit wired for that. And I’m sure if you thought about it, there’s ways that you came in that you’re simply wired with, right? Like the divine planted them.
And Neville tells us that man must assume the feeling of the wish fulfilled and continue there and until that which he feels objectifies itself. So we’re practicing that being in that state that we’re calling in until we see it objectified because imagination … I think if my mom were here, my mom would be like, “Imagination is kind of fantasy, Amy.” I had a friend, she used to always say, “Well, she’s a dreamer.” It’s like there’s something wrong with that, right? But imagination is actually the doorway through which the deeper pattern of life begins to express. And you can see that all around us and the things that have been invented in our lifetimes, right? Where did those come from? They came from imagination. Someone had that idea in mind and they brought it forth. But divine confidence begins when we trust the life that’s already moving within us.
And I’ve got a little play on word on this one because the reason I think divine confidence came to me, just to be honest, is there’s places in my life where I lack confidence. Anybody else lack confidence any place in your life? Right. Like we all do. We all have our stuff, right? But it’s both moving from confidence that the divine has me, but it’s also confidence of the divine, right? Like the divine is always present. It’s always working on our behalf. Emma Curtis Hopkins tells us that there is a stage of awakening, which she calls understanding. She says, understanding is the light of God within the soul. So often we think of, we’re going to have belief, right? I’m going to believe in something. And belief is kind of like hope, right? I believe in that. I hope for that. But understanding knows. When you have understanding, you have a deep knowing, which is really what we’re trying to cultivate because when our understanding awakens, spiritual truth stops being something we hope for and it becomes something we directly recognize within ourselves.
And you have probably experienced this. If you meditate, you begin to feel the field around you, right? If you pray, or if someone prays for you, for me, probably a little stronger when someone else prays for me, because then I get out of the way, right? You begin to feel that which is around you. Or maybe you’re out in nature and you have an awareness come over you, right? That’s knowing, right? Sometimes it’s an intuition in the shower, like you’ve been struggling with something and boom, it drops in. That’s knowing. And that’s really what we’re talking about here when we talk about understanding. It’s like having a deep knowing. And when we have a knowing, we stop asking whether life will support us and we begin to recognize that the life of God is always already expressing as us.
And the other thing that Hopkins teaches is that when understanding awakens, fear dissolves, right? So if you’re fearful, which it’s pretty easy to be fearful, always, but especially right now, right? But the divine intelligence is bigger than that. Fear thrives when we believe we’re separate and alone, but understanding reveals that the intelligence guiding the universe is already present within our own consciousness, but we have to make room for it. And I guess I want to say a little bit more about what’s going on in the world right now, because it is in the world of form, this is scary. Let’s be honest. It is scary.
And I think I said this the last time I talked. I truly believe right now sort of the underbelly of what always has been there is just up to be healed. I truly believe that, but in the world of form, it’s scary. And so we need to stay in our practice. That’s the most important thing. And we need to hold the vision of what we want to call in. We need to be that within ourselves and we need to do what we’re called to do. That’s different for other people. It might be having a practice of peace for you or bringing people together to call in a different experience as this country. My sister’s working on a political call bank every week to help get candidates elected that she feels more, reflect more what she would like, how she would like to see us behave in America, for lack of a better word.
So it’s hard, but we have to try to rise above what is happening in our practice and then allow ourselves to be guided. What’s mine to do in everything that’s happening? What’s mine to do right now? And it’s probably different for each one of us, right? But I think God always has the final words. So somehow something’s moving here to open up to something different. That is what I believe. So divine confidence, let’s go back to what we’re talking about because I think having divine confidence right now, confidence in the divine is even more important than ever, right? I think good always has the final word. It just doesn’t look like it right now, right? But good is going to have the final word. So let’s talk about divine confidence and confidence in the divine. It’s not about like, I’m confident, like my personality is confident, right?
We all know people who are confident or sometimes overconfident, right? But it’s, we all know those people, right? I always say they like themselves a lot. That’s what I say. But it’s confidence that the divine life is expressing as us. That’s what we want to have confidence in. And fear comes up in our life, right? Fear comes up in our life. And what I do is I talk to myself when my fear is up and I remind myself like, you know, God’s got this, right? And like my human self is afraid right now, but I know I’m going to be okay no matter what, right? Because I and spirit are one, that’s my true self, it’s eternal, but we need to remind ourselves of that, especially with everything that’s going on right now, like truly we will get through this and hopefully will turn out to be a better country, right?
That’s prayers for that. So Centers for Spiritual Living teaches that there’s one infinite life present everywhere expressing as each of us. Earnest Holmes said, “The divine presence within you is your immediate and constant source of power.” I love that quote, “Your immediate and constant source of power.” We say one presence and power when we talk about God. And if the divine presence is within us, then the same intelligence that created all of this and that shapes the unfolding of all of this is the intelligent presence within our own awareness. That intelligent presence is in our own awareness, but we have to open to it, right? We need to take our attention away from the world and we need to open to that divine intelligence. And divine confidence arises when we remember whose life we’re living. I’m going to use the word God’s life. If you don’t like that, say spirit’s life, but we’re living God’s life, right?
Like this energy that infuses us, the reason I’m breathing right now, that’s God’s life, right? And that’s true for all of us. I mean, think about what a miracle that is that we’re even here, right? Think about that. There’s all these statistics like the percentage likelihood that you’d be sitting right there is like one in a billion. I know that’s not exactly correct, but it’s a miracle. This life we have, it’s a miracle, right? So how are we going to use this? If the instructions for our becoming are already within us, how do we access that? We often try to force life, if you could go to the next slide, Ben. We try to make outcomes happen through our effort and our control. Anyone do that besides me? I’m just going to work harder, right? But many spiritual teachers suggest a different approach. We want to allow and not force.
And the way that we allow is to quiet the mind, inhabit the present moment, and to listen inwardly. Then we can sense the movement of a deeper wisdom, but often we’re like the water trying to rush through the rapids here, right? Like we’re going to force it. Anybody ever been on a rapid in a … The first time I went, we tipped over. It was terrifying. You realize how strong that force is, but I went again. I got over it. But that’s what I want you to think about, like, am I forcing or am I allowing? It’s a very different energy and it requires us to surrender and be a little curious. I wonder what’s trying to happen right now instead of like, “Oh my gosh, I must make this a certain way.” But just to embrace a bit of spiritual curiosity and to align ourselves with the deeper movement of life that’s trying to happen.
And sometimes we don’t know what that is, right? We can be calling in this future state that we desire for ourselves, but we can feel like we’re blocked. Anyone ever have that experience, right?
And so the way that I think about that is to just say, “For some reason, this is why my life is moving the way it is right now. And if I trust enough to know that it’s going to show up, I can also trust enough to know that maybe that which I’m pushing so hard for isn’t for me, right? It’s not for me. ” So let’s talk about accepting the now. I had to bring Eckhart Toll in here because I think this can be a little bit confusing or conflicting for me myself, right? We’re like, “You can call in what you want, but then we’re also supposed to be surrendering at the same time.” And it can feel like a conflict, right? Like which is it? So Eckhart says, “Accept the present moment as if you chose it. ” Accept the present moment as if you chose it.
So we have this idea we want to think from the end and embody the state of being we want to call in, but we also want to keep our attention in what’s happening right now. He also says that so many people miss the now because they’re in the future, right? So if we surrender to life, it’s like yielding, right? It’s not opposing the flow, it’s allowing. And I think the subtlety here is that if we’re surrendered to seeing where spirit is taking us, then we cultivate the sense of what we want to call in, right? But that starts with our beingness, but at the same time, we want to allow ourselves to be where we are. And often when we stop resisting, that’s when clarity starts to come. I can think of so many examples in my life, and I’m sure you can too, where it’s like, I thought something was going a certain way and then it didn’t happen, but something better happened, which also was the same felt state that I was calling in.
It just came a different way. And so we need to stay open and stay rooted in our knowing of spirit and to have confidence of the divine as the truth of our lives. That is the truth, right? It’s a power and presence that’s seen and unseen. I was at, on Friday, I do work with an organization called Vistage outside of Cityside, and we had a gathering of people. Some of them are retired, some of them are still working, but they’re all people who have done the work we do for more than 10 years. And the person who organized it and decided that the theme was like really around fire and like what keeps you fired up, but there was also a little play on words about getting fired, right? And so it was like working with this idea of like, where’s your passion? And then this idea that sometimes something ends for something new to begin.
And it was really cool. And there were so many stories of people who were like, “Yeah, I got fired and then this happened and that happened and here I am and I’m so happy that I’m here.” So I just share that because it’s like life works that way for us and we just have to appreciate what’s happening and Eckerd tells us that life becomes helpful and cooperative when we surrender. Isn’t that a great thought? And you’ve seen this, right? You’ve seen this in your own life where you’re like, “Wow, that seemed like a coincidence. That was synchronicity, that was serendipity.” You’ve seen that, right? If your focus is on the state that you want to call in.
So we’re going to do something a little out of order today, and we’re going to do a little practice right here, right in the middle of the talk, because what I hope that you’ll take away from today is beginning to practice embodying the state of being. So we’re going to do a little bit of practice here together. So I just want to invite you to close your eyes with me. And if you want, you can put your hand on your hearts or I just put my hand on my microphone. Put your hand on your heart or wherever you feel comfortable. And let’s just take a couple deep breaths together, just breathing in and breathing out and breathing in and breathing out.
I just want to invite you to bring into your mind an area of your life where you’re calling in a new experience. And I want you to imagine that whatever that good is, that it’s already present in your life. I want you to see it in your mind’s eye. What does it look like? What does it feel like? Where are you? Who’s with you? Notice how you’re feeling. What is the energy that you’re feeling in your body as you see this coming into form? And just allow yourself to notice like in your body, as you think of this wish fulfilled, for lack of a better word, how are you feeling in your body? Are you feeling excitement? Are you feeling joy? Are you feeling happiness? Are you feeling the energy of gratitude because you’re seeing it happen? Just invite you to, even in your mind’s eye, just to notice what’s there and be grateful for it.
Just notice what’s present.
And I also want to invite you to be in the feeling state of deservedness like I deserve to have this good. I deserve to have this good because often we block ourselves because we don’t think we deserve it. So I just want you to just absolutely also know your deservedness in this moment and just let your visual awareness just expand a little bit where you are, beyond what’s right in front of you. What is the broader energy? What’s the light around you? What’s the goodness around you that you’re feeling and experiencing? And I just want you to let all that light, all that happiness, all that joy and goodness fill up your physical body to raise your vibration.
Just breathe into this happiness, this wish fulfilled. I almost hate to bring us back, but I got to bring us back. So when you’re ready, just open your eyes. Just feel the peace of that. Howard Thurman says, “There’s something in every one of you that waits and listens for the sound of the genuine in yourself.” That’s what you just saw and felt. That’s the genuine in yourself. And as you’re listening to that voice within you, then your understanding is awakening. Your knowing is awakening, as Emma said. And so I invite you to take this out into the week, and I’m going to ask Ben to go to the next slide. And I created a little slide, actually, my friend ChatGPT, and I just created this together. ChatGPT is a better artist than me, but I want to invite you this week to really spring forward into divine confidence.
When we’re in doubt, what’s happening? When we’re in doubt, we’re missing clarity, we’re missing confidence, we’re missing trust, we’re missing calm, we might be missing connection, right? But when we’re in our divine confidence, what’s present, right? Inner guidance is present, right? Divine assurance is there. You have the sense everything’s going to be okay. Recognition, seeing what’s present. We so often see what’s absent instead of acknowledging what’s present. Certainty. Certainty is present when we’re in our divine confidence or we’re confident into the divine, however you want to think about it. Certainty, you’re not afraid to move forward, right? You know that you’re being guided. You know that the step’s going to appear when it’s time, the leap of faith, and you feel like you’re in alignment.
So we’re invited to move our awareness forward. That’s the invitation. And so that’s my invitation to you this week to practice that. And I’m going to close where I began. So back on the bike. Once you learn to ride a bike, you might not have done it again for years, right? But what happens when you get back on the bike? Your body remembers, right? There’s some kind of memory like you already know how to do it and the road might change and you’re driving along, but your balance remains. And this is true in our spiritual practice. If we have confidence in the divine and divine confidence, as we do our practice, we remember. It’s like muscle memory. We come back to it. So the most important thing that we can do is to practice, to practice the presence and to know that it is always there.
So let’s take this into prayer.
So in this moment, I invite you to turn within and just to feel the goodness, just reconnect with that goodness you were feeling a few minutes ago when your eyes were closed and you were imagining what you wanted to call in. And just know that all this goodness is God, this presence, this power, this possibility, this one life that lives and moves and has its being as you, the one life of God as you. And so knowing our oneness with God, I just speak a word. I don’t know, a word of blessing, a word of blessing. That’s the word that’s coming up for me. I speak a word of blessing on each and every one of you, just knowing and affirming that that within you is so large and that you are allowing it to express and that you are allowing yourself to experience it each and every day.
To feel this light, to feel this love, to feel the possibility, and to allow that which is in you to express as your life, to set aside any doubts and to move into divine confidence, confidence in the divine, knowing that God’s got this on your behalf. And I know that this is also true for everything we want to call in in the world, greater peace, greater love, greater connection, greater collaboration. I call that forth in this country and in the world, and I declare peace. I know and call forth peace and kindness and love. That’s the world I want to see. And so I hold that truth. We hold that truth together that something greater is possible. I say yes to this, and I’m grateful for this. And together we say, “And so it is. “