Not only did she experience a softening and mellowing of her inner spirit, but she properly used a great quality which she possessed, namely, the driving force to get what she wanted. This led her to the point where she was willing to change herself so that her dreams could be realized. She had that quality of mind whereby she took herself in hand, she applied the spiritual techniques, and she had a profound and yet simple faith that what her heart told her she wanted could be obtained by the proper creative and positive procedures.

So the formula is to know what you want, test it to see if it is a right thing, change yourself in such a manner that it will naturally come to you, and always have faith. With the creative force of belief you stimulate that particular gathering together of circumstances which brings your cherished wish to pass.

Students of modern dynamic thought are realizing more and more the practical value of the ideas and teachings of Jesus, especially such truths as the dictum, “According to your faith, be it unto you.” (Matthew 9:29) According to your faith in yourself, according to your faith in your job, according to your faith in God, this far will you get and no further. If you believe in your job and in yourself and in the opportunities of your country, and if you believe in God and will work hard and study and put yourself into it—in other words, if you “throw your heart over the bar,” you can swing up to any high place to which you want to take your life and your service and your achievement. Whenever you have a bar, that is to say a barrier, in front of you, stop, close your eyes, visualize everything that is above the bar and nothing that is below it, then imaginatively throw “your heart” over that bar and see yourself as being given lifting power to rise above it. Believe that you are experiencing this upthrust of force. You will be amazed at the lifting force you will receive. If in the depth of your mind you visualize the best and employ the powers of faith and energy, you will get the best.

Naturally in this process of achieving the best it is important to know where you want to go in life. You can reach your goal, your best dreams can come true, you can get where you want to go only if you know what your goal is. Your expectation must have a clearly defined objective. Lots of people get nowhere simply because they do not know where they want to go. They have no clear-cut, precisely defined purpose. You cannot expect the best if you think aimlessly.

A young man of twenty-six consulted me because he was dissatisfied with his job. He was ambitious to fill a bigger niche in life and wanted to know how to improve his circumstances. His motive seemed unselfish and entirely worth while.

“Well, where do you want to go?” I asked.

“I just don’t know exactly,” he said hesitantly. “I have never given it any thought. I only know I want to go somewhere other than where I am.”

“What can you do best?” I then asked. “What are your strong points?”

“I don’t know,” he responded. “I never thought that over either.”

“But what would you like to do if you had your choice? What do you really want to do?” I insisted.

“I just can’t say,” he replied dully. “I don’t really know what I would like to do. I never thought it over. Guess I ought to figure that one out too.”

“Now, look here,” I said, “you want to go somewhere from where you are, but you don’t know where you want to go. You don’t know what you can do or what you would like to do. You will have to get your ideas organized before you can expect to start getting anywhere.”

That is the failure point with many people. They never get anywhere because they have only a hazy idea where they want to go, what they want to do. No objective leads to no end.

We made a thorough analysis, testing this young man’s capabilities, and found some assets of personality he did not know he possessed. But it was necessary to supply a dynamic to move him forward, so we taught him the techniques of practical faith. Today he is on the way to achievement.

Now he knows where he wants to go and how to get there. He knows what the best is and he expects to attain it and he will—nothing can stop him.

I asked an outstanding newspaper editor, an inspiring personality, “How did you get to be the editor of this important paper?”

“I wanted to be,” he replied simply.

“Is that all there is to it?” I asked. “You wanted to be and so there you are.”

“Well, that may not be all of it, but that was a large part of the process,” he explained. “I believe that if you want to get somewhere, you must decide definitely where you want to be or what you want to accomplish. Be sure it is a right objective, then photograph this objective on your mind and hold it there. Work hard, believe in it, and the thought will become so powerful that it will tend to assure success. There is a deep tendency,” he declared, “to become what your mind pictures, provided you hold the mental picture strongly enough and if the objective is sound.”

So saying, the editor pulled a well-worn card from his wallet and said, “I repeat this quotation every day of my life. It has become my dominating thought.”

I copied it and am giving it to you: “A man who is self-reliant, positive, optimistic, and undertakes his work with the assurance of success magnetizes his condition. He draws to himself the creative powers of the universe.”

It is indeed a fact that the person who thinks with positive self-reliance and optimism does magnetize his condition and releases power to attain his goal. So expect the best at all times. Never think of the worst. Drop it out of your thought, relegate it. Let there be no thought in your mind that the worst will happen. Avoid entertaining the concept of the worst, for whatever you take into your mind can grow there. Therefore take the best into your mind and only that. Nurture it, concentrate on it, emphasize it, visualize it, prayerize it, surround it with faith. Make it your obsession. Expect the best, and spiritually creative mind power aided by God power will produce the best.

It may be that as you read this book you are down to what you think is the worst and you may remark that no amount of thinking will affect your situation. The answer to that objection is that it simply isn’t so. Even if you may be down to the worst, the best is potentially within you. You have only to find it, release it, and rise up with it. This requires courage and character, to be sure, but the main requirement is faith. Cultivate faith and you will have the necessary courage and character.

A woman was compelled by adversity to go into sales work, a type of activity for which she had no training. She undertook to demonstrate vacuum cleaners from house to house. She took a negative attitude toward herself and her work. She “just didn’t believe she could do this job.” She “knew” she was going to fail. She feared to approach a house even though she came for a requested demonstration. She believed that she could not make the sale. As a result, as is not surprising, she failed in a high percentage of her interviews.

One day she chanced to call upon a woman who evidenced consideration beyond the average. To this customer the saleswoman poured out her tale of defeat and powerlessness. The other woman listened patiently, then said quietly, “If you expect failure, you will get failure, but if you expect to succeed, I am sure you will succeed.” And she added, “I will give you a formula which I believe will help you. It will restyle your thinking, give you new confidence, and help you to accomplish your goals. Repeat this formula before every call. Believe in it and then marvel at what it will do for you. This is it. ‘If God be for us, who can be against us?’ (Romans 8:31) But change it by personalizing it so that you say, ‘If God be for me, who can be against me?’ If God be for me, then I know that with God’s help I can sell vacuum cleaners. God realizes that you want security and support for your little children and yourself, and by practicing the method I suggest you will be given power to get what you want.”

She learned to utilize this formula. She approached each house expecting to make a sale, affirming and picturizing positive, not negative, results. As the saleswoman employed this principle she presently acquired new courage, new faith, and deeper confidence in her own ability. Now she declares, “God helps me sell vacuum cleaners,” and who can dispute it?

It is a well-defined and authentic principle that what the mind profoundly expects it tends to receive. Perhaps this is true because what you really expect is what you actually want. Unless you really want something sufficiently to create an atmosphere of positive factors by your dynamic desire, it is likely to elude you. “If with all your heart”—that is the secret. “If with all your heart,” that is to say, if with the full complement of your personality, you reach out creatively toward your heart’s desire, your reach will not be in vain.

Let me give you four words as a formulation of a great law—faith power works wonders. Those four words are packed with dynamic and creative force. Hold them in your conscious mind. Let them sink into the unconscious and they can help you to overcome any difficulty. Hold them in your thoughts, say them over and over again. Say them until your mind accepts them, until you believe them—faith power works wonders.

I have no doubt about the effectiveness of this concept, for I have seen it work so often that my enthusiasm for faith power is absolutely boundless.

You can overcome any obstacle. You can achieve the most tremendous things by faith power. And how do you develop faith power? The answer is: to saturate your mind with the great words of the Bible. If you will spend one hour a day reading the Bible and committing its great passages to memory, thus allowing them to recondition your personality, the change in you and in your experience will be little short of miraculous.

Just one section of the Bible will accomplish this for you. The eleventh chapter of Mark is enough. You will find the secret in the following words, and this is one of the greatest formulas the Book contains: “Have faith in God (that’s positive, isn’t it?) for verily I say unto you, that whosoever shall say unto this mountain (that’s specific) be thou removed (that is, stand aside) and be thou cast into the sea (that means out of sight—anything you threw into the sea is gone for good. The Titanic lies at the bottom of the sea. And the sea bottom is lined with ships. Cast your opposition called a “mountain” into the sea) and shall not doubt in his heart (Why does this statement use the word heart: Because it means you are not to doubt in your subconscious, in the inner essence of you. It isn’t so superficial as a doubt in the conscious mind. That is a normal, intelligent questioning. It’s a deep fundamental doubt that is to be avoided) but shall believe that those things which he saith shall come to pass, he shall have whatsoever he saith.” (Mark 11:22-23)

This is not some theory that I have thought up. It is taught by the most reliable book known to man. Generation after generation, no matter what develops in the way of knowledge and science, the Bible is read by more people than any other book. Humanity rightly has more confidence in it than any other document ever written, and the Bible tells us that faith power works wonders.

The reason, however, that great things do not happen to some people is that they are not specific in their application of faith power. We are told, “Ye shall say to this mountain.” That is to say, do not address your efforts to the entire mountain range of all your difficulties, but attack one thing that may be defeating you at the moment. Be specific. Take them one by one.

If there is something you want, how do you go about getting it? In the first place, ask yourself, “Should I want it?” Test that question very honestly in prayer to be sure you should want it and whether you should have it. If you can answer that question in the affirmative, then ask God for it and don’t be backward in asking Him. And if God, having more insight, believes that you shouldn’t have it, you needn’t worry—He won’t give it to you. But if it is a right thing, ask Him for it, and when you ask, do not doubt in your heart. Be specific.

The validity of this law was impressed upon me by something that a friend of mine, a Midwestern businessman, told me. This man is a big, extrovertish, outgoing, lovable gentleman, a truly great Christian. He teaches the largest Bible class in his state. In the town where he lives he is Mr. “Town” himself. He is head of a plant employing forty thousand people.

His office desk is full of religious literature. He even has some of my sermons and pamphlets there. In his plant, one of the biggest in the United States, he manufactures refrigerators.

He is one of those whole-souled, rugged individuals who has the capacity to have faith. He believes that God is right there in his office with him.

My friend said, “Preach a big faith—not any little old watered down faith. Don’t be afraid that faith isn’t scientific enough. I am a scientist,” he said. “I use science in my business every day, and I use the Bible every day. The Bible will work. Everything in the Bible works if you believe in it.”

When he was made general manager of this plant it was whispered around town, “Now that Mr. —– is general manager, we’ll have to bring our Bibles to work with us.” After a few days he called into his office some of the men who were making this remark. He uses language they understand, and he said, “I hear you guys are going around town saying that now I am general manager, you will have to bring your Bibles to work with you.”

“Oh, we didn’t mean that,” they said in embarrassment.

He said, “Well, you know, that’s a —– good idea, but I don’t want you to come lugging them under your arms. Bring them here in your hearts and in your minds. If you come with a spirit of good will and faith in your hearts and minds, believe me, we’ll do business.

“So,” he said, “the kind of faith to have is the specific kind, the kind that moves this particular mountain.”

Suddenly he said to me, “Did you ever have a toe bother you?”

I was rather astonished by that, but before I could answer he said, “I had a toe that bothered me and I took it to the doctors here in town, and they are wonderful doctors, and they said there wasn’t anything wrong with the toe that they could see. But they were wrong, because it hurt. So I went out and got a book on anatomy and read up on toes. It is really a simple construction. There’s nothing but a few muscles and ligaments and a bony structure. It seemed that anybody who knows anything about a toe could fix it, but I couldn’t get anybody to fix that toe, and it hurt me all the time. So I sat down one day and took a look at that toe. Then I said, ‘Lord, I’m sending this toe right back to the plant. You made that toe. I make refrigerators and I know all there is to know about a refrigerator. When we sell a refrigerator, we guarantee the customer service. If his refrigerator doesn’t work right and if our service agents can’t fix it, he brings it back to the plant and we fix it, because we know how.’ So I said, ‘Lord, you made this toe. You manufactured it, and your service agents, the doctors, don’t seem to know how to get it working right, and if you don’t mind, Lord, I would like to have it fixed up as soon as possible, because it’s bothering me.’”

“How is the toe now?” I asked.

“Perfect,” he replied.

Perhaps this is a foolish kind of story, and I laughed when he told it, but I almost cried, too, for I saw a wonderful look on that man’s face as he related that incident of a specific prayer.

Be specific. Ask God for any right thing, but as a little child, don’t doubt. Doubt closes the power flow. Faith opens it. The power of faith is so tremendous that there is nothing that Almighty God cannot do for us, with us, or through us if we let Him channel His power through our minds.

So roll those words around on your tongue. Say them over and over again until they lodge deeply in your mind, until they get down into your heart, until they take possession of the essence of you: “… whosoever shall say unto this mountain, be thou removed, and be thou cast into the sea, and shall not doubt in his heart, but shall believe that those things which he saith shall come to pass, he shall have whatsoever he saith.” (Mark 11:23)

I suggested these principles some months ago to an old friend of mine, a man who perpetually expects the worst. Up to the time of our discussion, never did I hear him say anything other than that things would not turn out right. He took this negative attitude toward every project or problem. He expressed vigorous disbelief in the principles outlined in this chapter and offered to make a test to prove that I am wrong in my conclusions. He is an honest man, and he faithfully tried these principles in connection with several matters and actually kept a score card. He did this for six months. He volunteered the information at the end of that period that 85 per cent of the matters under investigation had turned out satisfactorily.

“I am now convinced,” he said, “although I wouldn’t have believed it possible, but it is evidently a fact, that if you expect the best, you are given some strange kind of power to create conditions that produce the desired results. From now on I am changing my mental attitude and shall expect the best, not the worst. My test indicates that this is not theory, but a scientific way to meet life’s situations.”

I might add that even the high percentage he attained can be raised with practice, and of course practice in the art of expectation is as essential as practice on a musical instrument or with a golf club. Nobody ever mastered any skill except through intensive, persistent, and intelligent practice. Also it should be noted that my friend approached this experiment at first in a spirit of doubt which would tend adversely to affect his earlier results.

Every day as you confront the problems of life, I suggest that you affirm as follows: “I believe God gives me power to attain what I really want.”

Never mention the worst. Never think of it. Drop it out of your consciousness. At least ten times every day affirm, “I expect the best and with God’s help will attain the best.”

In so doing your thoughts will turn toward the best and become conditioned to its realization. This practice will bring all of your powers to focus upon the attainment of the best. It will bring the best to you.