The One Thing That Matters

Hello and welcome. I'm your host. Joseph Devlin, and on today's show, we're going to read an essay titled The one thing that matters, by Emmet Fox, so let's get at it. The most important of all things to possess is peace of mind. There's absolutely nothing else in the world that is equal in value to that. Nothing else that life can offer is so important, and yet it seems to be about the last thing that many people work for. They strive, both spiritually and materially, for everything else under the sun. Whereas if they had everything else and still lack peace of mind. They would be miserable if anyone should come to you with a billion dollars in one hand and peace of mind in the other. If you took the billion dollars, you would be the most foolish person on earth. Peace of mind includes all other good things. If you have this, it does not matter where you are or what surrounding conditions may be, all will be well. Even if the outer picture were an unpleasant one in itself, it would cause you no grief if you had peace of mind, and very soon, that picture would inevitably change into something better. Peace of mind is positively the greatest of all God's gifts. Pray for this and the rest will take care of itself. Peace I leave with you, my peace I give unto you, said Jesus, implying that this was the highest good he had to give us. And truly, peace of mind is the one thing that matters. All right, so this particular reading I have been reading daily for about nine months now, and the significance for this reading is, to me, is that I've always been searching for peace of mind. In the midst of my addiction, I felt that that substance was going to give me my peace of mind, and it couldn't fill what I was looking for. As I've been reading this essay over each day, it has given me new insight into the choices that I'm making throughout my day. There's so many times where I say, hey, I really do want peace of mind. However, I will choose the chaos instead. I think we can all relate to a particular situation, or we can all recount a particular situation when we've either been with a loved one or a friend, and in like, the back of our mind, we're saying, Okay, I'm in the middle of this heated discussion, and I should just kind of shut it down. Don't say anything else. But then this point boils up, and you're like, I just got to say this point. I got to say this point. I know if I say this point, it's not going to go over well, but everything gets heated. Everything's heated in the midst of the conversation, and then you finally just blurt out what you're about to say, and you blurt it out, and it just kind of escalates things, and things become more of a problem and it's like kapow, and in my mind, I wanted to choose peace of mind. My mind, I knew that whatever I was going to say was going to make this situation worse. Yet, for some reason, I chose to have the last word to put my two cents in where it really didn't benefit anyone, and afterward, nobody feels good. I don't feel good. There might be apologies that need to be made, or there's just now a new awkwardness with the group of people that you're with, or your spouse or your partner. So how do I how do I help myself not to make that decision, not to act on that okay, I'm just going to get that last word in. And for me, this is just one of the examples the importance of this essay, because the one thing that matters is that peace of mind. And you know, not only do I know, through my own addiction that I was searching for peace of mind, but the 1000s of people I've worked with, ultimately, we get to a point and we're describing happiness, but most of the time we're talking about we want a peace of mind. We want peace in the situation. We want peace in our household, and that peace is going to look a little different for each and every one of us, but it's still, ultimately the thing that we're looking for, and much of that is dependent upon how I am. I have learned, such as with my children, I have learned that when they are upset over something, and they come to me and they're crying and they're, you know, they barely catch their breath. And it could be something that, you know, happened outside with a game that wasn't fair, or maybe they came home from school. And, you know, there was a problem at school, and like, they are just overwhelmed. You know, one thing I know I can do is bring peace to that situation. You know, there's ultimately a comfort that they find in me as being their dad. And you know, I could sit with them. One of the first things I do with them is I begin breathing with them, I just begin regulating my breathing and bringing peace to the situation as I'm listening to them, and I'll say, Okay, tell me more. Okay, you know, that sounds like that was difficult, you know. And just keep letting him go and just having him tell me more and by me just regulating my breathing, breathing in, breathing out, it starts to regulate their breathing, and it brings them to a place of peace, where they can now describe what's going on, their point of view, where they're coming from. We can also start to figure out, how do we make things right? How do they see a way to make things right? And this is one of the many examples that I get the opportunity to bring peace into a situation. And I want to say that because at the end of this reading, it talks about, you know Peace I leave with you, my peace, I give unto you. And Jesus said that, implying that that was the highest good he had to give us. And when we really think about that, if I can give you my peace, that I have, if I have to have it, and then I can give it to you, and I can leave it with you, and it says the only like, the one way we get there is by prayer. So I know that I have to also, also cultivate a life and an existence that includes prayer. And I know many of us, many of you are listening, there's things that we can do on a daily basis to bring in that prayer and that peace and that meditation into our own lives. I liked being in the concept of divine peace. Then there's enduring presence, and there's freedom from fear. I know that that's something that gets originated from outside of me, and it has everything to do with me being in contact with God. And there are some short things, some small things, that I do on a daily basis. And then I'm also going to encourage you to be able to do, just to begin cultivating some of this peace in your life. And it is, it is to take a look at s a daily spiritual practice. Can you take two minutes in the morning before you start off, just to be in prayer or meditation. And with that being said, it's just hey, just taking a moment to say, Hey, God, I'm here. Could you be here with me? Others of us, we have, more formal, prayers or readings that we do, or practices. And this could go, two to 15 to 30 minutes, whatever it is, but begin cultivating that. Because if we start off our day that way, we're going to be more likely to be able to begin bringing this piece into situations. And it is a it is a small action step, but yet pays off huge dividends. Something I want to say about this reading too, it says, you know, if I'm offered a billion dollars or a peace of mind, which one do I want? And many times the things that I look at,it's peace, it's the same way I start my day. Sometimes I start my day as I gotta start with this, I gotta go do this, I gotta go get this email. I gotta go buy this. I gotta go all these things. I've gotta do more on a material sense. But yet, I've never fed my spiritual self. And that's that billion dollars, and that comes in many different, shapes and sizes. So if I begin the day with even setting that intention, that I'm going to make more of a spiritual connection, then I've got a better chance of having peace come into the situation. Because, after all, you know, the stresses of the days come through, and as they build up and build up and build up. If I don't have an outlet, or if I don't have a way of bringing a calm right into the midst of some of the chaos, I'm going to have a very difficult time responding in a positive way to this situation. I want to leave you with one more thing, and I think I'm going to review this again on another podcast, to dig a little bit deeper into the one thing that matters. But I'm going to encourage you to go out there and read this and look and digest it and see where it really resonates for you, on choosing this peace over that billion dollars in your life. And you know, one of the many ways that I've learned that I have to begin choosing peace is taking two minutes even before I go into an event, so such as if I pull up to my son's football practice. You know, one of the things that I do is I'll sit in the car just for two minutes and I'll just talk to God. Sometimes I'll pray, Hey, God, thank you. Hey, lead my directions. Lead my thoughts. Or I might even by thanking Him, God, thankyou for today. Thank you for the ability to be here. Whatever's on my heart, it's cultivating this sense of prayer and this sense of relationship with God. And I tell you, as I get centered, you know, and as I just kind of feel that man, you know, feeling a little bit I took a moment just to stop through the craziness of life, of just keep doing and doing and doing. And sometimes it's a minute and a half, and I get out of the car and I I go up and I go to the practice field, and I could sit there, and I could be present and watch him, and I could observe the things that he's doing. And I'm also able to, when it's appropriate, be engaged with the other adults that are there. And I don't feel like the other pressures of whatever my daily pressure would have been, maybe I had, you know, papers that I needed to get graded, or people I needed to see, and all of that kind of just washes away, and that can be present in the moment. And for me, that's a piece that's in the midst of a storm, in the midst of all those other things that are going on, because you have so many other things coming at me, like all the other practices that are around and you know different people, you know wanting to talk, and the coaches calling out this and trying to observe the place. So all of that is just a chaos, but I've learned that I can sit there and be in peace and be present in the moment, and that means I end up enjoying it even more. So I'm going to encourage you to look at this is to set up some time in the morning just to, you know, take a moment or two just to say hello to God, maybe just ask him to direct your day. Look at the places in your life where you're choosing, where you can choose peace instead of chaos. And last I'm going to say is, please read, take another glance at this, reading the one thing that matters by Emmett Fox, and I appreciate you being here with me today and until our next episode, remember, sobriety is a family affair.