Home  Relationships The power of God's law of harmony
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The power of God's law of harmony |
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By K. Proctor
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A potentially stormy dispute calmed by a spiritual realization.
Several months ago I was working with another small business owner and we were trading services. Because we weren’t clear up front about how exactly we wanted to work the trade there were some bumps in the road. During the bumps I felt I had made some notable sacrifices in order to keep the trade working. Now that I look back at that, I'm not happy with my concessions but felt it was the best and easiest way to move on.
This client has been challenging for me because of his extremely slow response time and his attitude about my hourly rate being higher than his. I can tell he is taking it personally that I charge more despite the fact that we are not remotely in related industries.
The rate issue came up as we were talking about how many hours we had each worked. To that point I had worked one more hour than he had so he asked me to bill him for the 1 hour and if we wanted to keep working together he’d sign a real contract with me. He asked me to send the bill and a new contract. I did.
Two months later the invoice was still unpaid and the contract unsigned (now I know this is a blessing). I finally got the check this week and it is not for the full amount of the invoice. I inquired why and got no reply. He then sends me a bill for his time and I check in with him to see if that is to even out the difference between my bill and what he paid. And he said no. He thought two months ago we agreed he could pay less than my normal rate (which we didn’t agree to).
So it’s been a tough back and forth because of the difference in his memory and my notes and memory. I have felt really “off” with this client and felt for some months that we should just end the working relationship and any future work.
That is a long way of saying it has been frustrating.
I was agitated yesterday about the delays and back and forth and his waiting two months to question the amount due. In my head I thought that if he didn’t agree with the invoice he should have brought it up much earlier. Oh well.
So you see where my thought has been about all this. The only way to get away from this mental turmoil was to finish the day and get it out of my thought totally.
I knew that wasn’t ideal but at the moment it was the best I could do.
This morning I woke up realizing I had to deal with this again and would wait for his reply and see if he is willing to agree with me or if we have a sticking point.
Then I realized the only way out of this was to pray. I realized that I wanted to: (a) clear my thought about him (that he was always late, perhaps trying to cheat me, or whatever); and (b) I wanted to re-affirm that God was really in charge of my business, my work and every person (so that included me and this client).
From my history with prayer I’ve found this a good approach and yields the best results. I picked up this idea of prayer from a chapter on prayer from the book Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures by Mary Baker Eddy.
Back to my prayer. I started thinking about God’s laws, God’s government and how I could never live outside of His laws and that those laws create harmony. So I realized I could live with harmony and not anxiety. I could live with gratitude for the opportunity to learn a bit more about clarifying things in work relationships before you get started. I could stop reacting to the material actions and circumstance and see God could clear all the confusion up right away. I didn’t have to wait for the client’s reply. I could see God’s laws would enforce harmony because God has infinite power (He handles way bigger issues than this with just as much surety).
Instead of reacting to the circumstances, I could focus on the operation of God in my life and what power that has to immediately resolve issues and guide me and all His creation.
So before I even got another reply from this client I decided I would expect a peaceful response - one that would give us both peace and resolution without feeling loss. I didn’t know what that would look like, maybe an email saying he was sorry for any confusion and we will both pay the remaining invoices in full. But I am leaving it to God and watching and listening for how I should act so I keep on track with His wishes instead of just reacting.
I’m also going to let go of the feeling that I’ve been taken advantage of because the terms weren’t clear up front. That isn’t a healthy thing to keep in mind. Also I’m going to stop labeling this client with any negative judgments and I’m going to stop labeling this as an unhealthy relationship. I’m sure that is no help to me to have in my thought either.
Lastly, I remembered that the Bible says “..with God all things are possible” – that means that harmony and resolution can be my experience right now. God is all powerful and is always present in my life so I can move on, assured in His power and love for all mankind. Plus, He knows what I need and is caring for all involved.
In exploring this idea from the Bible I came across the great idea below. It is about shifting your thought to God, to His Truth and away from a limited view. I know this kind of shift has powerful results.
“The law of Christ, or Truth, makes all things possible to Spirit [God]; but the so-called laws of matter would render Spirit of no avail, and demand obedience to materialistic codes, thus departing from the basis of one God, one lawmaker. To suppose that God constitutes laws of inharmony is a mistake; discords have no support from nature or divine law, however much is said to the contrary.” (Mary Baker Eddy)
Now that is a powerful message. And I’m holding to God’s power and support. And I know it will bless all involved. I’ll keep you posted on how it turns out. Read more from this blogger at Spirit and Entrepreneurship .
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