Emmett Fox is a famous metaphysical teacher who once told a story about a starving artist who was so poor he couldn’t afford to buy a canvas to paint on. He buys a painting from a sidewalk vendor for a few pennies to clean and use for his own. As he is cleaning it, he finds a painting underneath and it turns out to be a very expensive Corot, and his poverty days are over.
Often times we go through life stuck in certain patterns of lack, pain, depression, fear, anger, addiction and misery. There seems to be no way out. Every time we think we are about to rise above it, something happens and we sink back into old patterns. Emmett Fox tells us this story of the starving artist to model for us something that so many of us have forgotten. Underneath all of the stories and beliefs and ego and fear, there is a magnificent masterpiece waiting to be revealed.
I love this story, and I know all too well the feeling of not being able to get out of the rut. I decided to go into meditation for some guidance and I asked the angels what do we need to know to break this cycle?
Almost immediately I feel a rush of warm energy from head to toe and back up again, and I knew that Archangel Metatron was on the scene. He says to me, “My Beloved, the only thing you need to know is how Loved and Sacred you are.” I feel my heart expand with Love for him and I know this is a true answer, but I want to know more. “Metatron, how do we do that? If it was that easy, we’d all be doing it.” He answers, “It’s simple. Humans make things so hard and complicated. Three steps there are to break the cycle of negativity. One, pray every day. Two, meditate every day. Three, be grateful for what you have so that we can bring you more. Gratitude is the gateway for angels, your guides, for God to be able to bring you more and more and more. When you are not open to what you already have, we can’t bring you more. You stop the energy of abundance coming to you when you aren’t loving what you have.”
I said to him, “It’s hard to feel grateful when you are scared you are going to become homeless with your young children. It’s hard to feel grateful when you are living with an abusive spouse, or your children are using drugs, or you are depressed. What can we do to feel grateful when we feel like there is nothing to feel grateful for?”
A deep silence came over the room. I felt a warm energy of deep love and kindness come over me. Metatron said, “Be grateful that the sun came up that day. And then get on your knees and pray. Pray a prayer of gratitude for just one thing. Find one thing that you are grateful for. And God will begin to answer your needs. To put it another way, when you become present enough in your current time and space that you can find something to be grateful for, that is when you begin to create something just as good, or better, than what you have right at that moment. It’s the way things work. It’s a Universal Law. And it is simple. The only thing stopping you, is you.” Then I heard him laughing his huge laugh, like the sky was laughing, and a smile came over my face.
It is simple. The messages from the angels are always the same. Pray, meditate, be grateful. From that, we reconnect to our inner creative power. We begin to soar above our problems and our excuses and our limitations. Thank you, Archangel Metatron for reminding us of the three simple steps to change our lives forever.