Lowered Expectation
Matthew 14:13-21; John 6:1-21
Illustration
by John Marks Templeton

Would it surprise you to learn that everything in your life right now is pretty much the way you made it? That from hundreds of options you chose your responses to whatever situations presented themselves? Would you agree that you have exercised the capacity to choose what you have received? If so, doesn't it stand to reason that if you made the choice in the first place, you can change it?

What a powerful notion! Whatever happens to you, you can say, "I am the master of my life."

But just as the good that comes to you is a demonstration of your mastery, so is the negative. Consider how hopping fleas are trained. The fleas are put into a glass jar. As they try and jump in the jar, they bump their heads on the lid. Over time, they forget they can jump and, for fear of bumping their heads, never go beyond the limits of the jar, even though the lids have been removed. Through continued failure they have become conditioned to confinement. So it is with us, if we let it be. Our self-made limitations sometimes cause us to forget that we can fly. We respond like the disciples, "We only have five small loaves of bread and two fish.  We often needlessly confine ourselves to glass jars. We may yearn to use our lives creatively, but our invisible prisons remind us: "You can't do that. It isn't practical. You're not smart enough. It will cost too much. People will laugh at you. You're too young. You're too old. Your health won't allow it. Your parents won't allow it. It will take too long. You don't have the education."

But suppose we could remember that we were made to achieve? Suppose that we could remember that miracles do happen?  Suppose we really believed that we are children and heirs of this magnificent universe? Would we then still allow our jars to limit us to hopping just so far and no further? Suppose we became aware that resentments, hurts, hates, grudges, illness, greed and the like are glass jars that have been, or can be, removed, that, indeed, we may be hampered by the illusion of our own self-imposed limitations? We attract to ourselves whatever our minds are focused upon.

Once aware, we can change and then we will no longer be confined to that glass jar. We will be ready and able to achieve.

Discovering the Laws of Life, Continuum, 1995, 242, by John Marks Templeton