81.
When you say: “I AM,” that is the Lord. Go tell them I AM hath sent you. So when you walk in the feeling “I AM so and so,” it is not seen as yet, but that is something you are bringing to the Lord, and the more you feel it to be real, the more natural it becomes. Then it clothes itself in external facts, but the external fact is not the truth of it. Truth and fact oppose each other. Truth does not depend upon fact. Truth depends upon the intensity of your imagination. Therefore, if I actually am intense about it, that is true. I might tomorrow find a corresponding fact to bear witness . . but, as I said earlier, let me not continue in that assumption and the fact will fade, proving it was not reality at all. Reality was in my assumption, and so truth depends not upon fact, but upon the intensity of imagination.
82.
God’s law was established in the beginning, as everything must bear fruit after its own kind. If it’s a pear tree, it bears pears; a plum tree bears plums, and an apple tree, apples. Bones represent the law of identical harvest. Assuming you are known or unknown, wanted or unwanted, wealthy or poor, your assumption is your seed and because of God’s law you will bring forth that which you have assumed you are.
83.
For we are told: “All things were made by him, and without him was not made anything that was made.” Then we discovered that we could imagine ourselves to be what we want to be and . . remaining faithful, remaining loyal to that assumption . . it became an external fact in our world. If “all things were made by him, and without him was not anything made that was made,” and we did this as an experiment and it worked, well then . . we discovered God! And he wasn’t some being in space who would return. We found him in ourselves as our wonderful human imagination.
84.
Tonight I give you a principle: God is the great artist, who . . as your own wonderful human imagination . . is perfecting his work through the ages in the making of his own image in you. Do you have an image? Name it. Now, are you willing to simply assume that you have it, and wait for its objectification.
Every image has its own appointed hour to ripen and flower. If it be long, wait, for its appearance is sure and will not be late. Are you willing to wait for the happiness you now seek, or are you going to try to go on the outside and make it so? If you are willing to apply this principle and let it happen, you will become the successful businessman, doctor, minister, or whatever you desire to be. If you will assume your desire and live there as though it were true, no power on earth can stop it from becoming a fact, because you are God and your only opponent is yourself.
85.
We must act on the assumption that we already possess that which we desire, for all that we desire is already present within us. It only waits to be claimed. That it must be claimed is a necessary condition by which we realize our desires. Our prayers are answered if we assume the feeling of the wish fulfilled and continue in that assumption.