Excerpts by Dr Ernest Holmes
The reason we can make our requests known with thanksgiving is because we know from the beginning that we are to receive and therefore we cannot help being thankful. This grateful attitude to the Spirit puts us in very close touch with power and adds much to the reality of the thing that we are dealing with.
We cannot doubt that the Spirit has already made the gift of Life – since we live. Ours is the privilege of acceptance. Thus we are to assume the attitude of a grateful beneficiary of the Divine gifts. This should be done simply and directly. The Spirit is not something that was, or that is going to be or become. The Truth is that which is; it exists at the very center of our being.
The Great Life Principle is always surging to express Itself and needs no coercion. It does, however, need direction, just as we would direct electricity or any other natural force. The will is a tool, an implement. Backed by feeling and conviction, by acceptance and grateful recognition, the will permits the Great Creative Force to do something for us. It does not concentrate this Force; it merely looses It into definite action.
The attitudes of praise and thanksgiving are salutary. They not only lighten the consciousness, lifting it out of sadness and depression; they elevate consciousness to a point of acceptance. Praise and thanksgiving are affirmations of the Divine Presence, the Divine abundance, and the Divine givingness. It is only when we live affirmatively that we are happy. It is only when we recognize that the universe is built on affirmations that we can become happy.