The Law of Attraction (LoA) espouses that
Or as others claim:people’s thoughts (both conscious and unconscious) dictate the reality of their lives, whether or not they’re aware of it. Essentially “if you really want something and truly believe it’s possible, you’ll get it,” but putting a lot of attention and thought onto something you don’t want means you’ll probably get that too. [Ref. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Law_of_Attraction]
You attract what you are. So you ask the universe, “How may I serve?”; you live a life of constancy reflecting that value; and the universe will respond back, “How may I serve you?” (See Wayne Dyer, Excuses Begone!, et al.)So why do I doubt the LoA as it applies to this mortal sphere?
1. Jesus: “Not my will, but thine, be done” (New Testament Matt. 26:39, 42; Mark 14:36; Luke 22:42), appears to exemplify that what we want is less important than what God wants for us—signifying that the submission of man to God is the key, not vice versa.When God says, “Doubt not but be believing” (Book of Mormon Mormon 9:27), I take it to mean “Doubt— not Me, My truths, My promises, My power, My knowledge, My Justice & Mercy, etc., but prove all else and hold fast to that which is good. (New Testament 1 Thessalonians 5:21).
2. The tests, trials, and martyrdom of many of God’s prophets, apostles, saints, and sages as they endured traumas and events that they neither wanted, expected, nor deserved. Take the Son of God, Himself—a perfect being, a great “I AM” [name all the virtues]—and what did He get back? Crucifixion![1]
3.We live in a world of opposites and opposition in order that the eternal purposes of God may be brought to pass.[2] Many will be asked to endure contradictions[3] that will feel unbearable.
4. The more universal LoA being that the adversary is more attracted to persons who are striving to do and be good than to persons who are not. (Read Biblical Job. Hint: We don’t always get what we desire or what we give out because the adversary’s gameplan is to continually run interference.)
5. The Attractions are, for the most part, “mortal” things that moth and rust doth corrupt (Matt. 6:19). In other words, the prime LoA focus seems to emphasize the desires of the natural man whose predisposition tends toward power, wealth, and fame (the rewards of Babylon?!)—the same rewards offered to Christ, and rejected by Him (New Testament Matthew 4 & Luke 4).
6. King Benjamin’s sermon: “For the natural man is an enemy to God, and has been from the fall of Adam, and will be, forever and ever, unless he yields to the enticings of the Holy Spirit, and putteth off the natural man and becometh a saint through the atonement of Christ the Lord, and becometh as a child, submissive, meek, humble, patient, full of love, willing to submit to all things which the Lord seeth fit to inflict upon him, even as a child doth submit to his father.” (Book of Mormon Mosiah 3:19, emphasis added).
7. If we attracted everything we thought (feared, desired, wished for, worried about, obsessed over, or deserved) most of us would be somewhere other than where we are. If anything, God is kept busy 24/7 preventing the LoA from ruining or misdirecting lives because the natural man is continually attracted to the appearance of things instead of the heart of the matter, which is life eternal.
8. God says “Ask and ye shall receive, knock and it shall be opened unto you,” and where the promise is not qualified with the words “that is expedient for you” (Doctrine & Covenants 88:64), it can probably be assumed from life-experience and trust that God will do what is both better and best for His children inspite of their wants, desires, and agendas (unless they insist[4]). God tutors and tests, both by giving and by withholding, in both prosperity and poverty, in both health and sickness, and so forth.
9. The LoA may be the law (or form thereof, like the power of the Word) that God employs in order to create worlds and universes—i.e., the power to manifest in physical form the things He has desired, imagined, and spiritually created with His intelligence.
10. Mortal man, in this telestial world, has not the knowledge, wisdom, foresight, compassion, control, patience, humility, long-suffering, kindness, etc., etc., that is required to direct the powers inherent in the LoA. Man, who hasn’t even gotten in the door of faith, hope, and charity, believes, like a 5-year old, that he can be trusted with (a cushion &) the keys to the Hummer. (Any déjà vu here of one who wanted power and privilege without enduring the path?)
11. There are elements of truth in the LoA. Our thoughts do influence and help direct our lives, and we do attract some events and consequences, but the philosophies of the LoA remind me of W.E. Henley’s poem, “Invictus” as opposed to Orson F. Whitney’s reply, “The Soul’s Captain” (ref: http://emp.byui.edu/marrottr/INVICTUS.pdf).
In my view, the LoA does not hold up to the full spectrum of life, but is a blend of the philosophies of men, mingled with scripture; and such mingling of truth and half-truths has enormous potential to harm and mislead.
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[1] The world gave Him crucifixion; His Father gave Him the power of resurrection, and that is the point. Many times the world (universe) gives the opposite of what is expected/deserved/believed, but in the final judgment, all will be worked out according to justice and mercy. In other words, that which we gave out will come back to us in the end. But when we pre-judge what is deserved and merited—what is supposed to come back to us from the universe while we are in this life, we set ourselves up for blame and pain that is often not helpful nor fully truthful.
[2] Book of Mormon 2 Nephi 2:11-15: For it must needs be, that there is an opposition in all things. If not so, my first–born in the wilderness, righteousness could not be brought to pass, neither wickedness, neither holiness nor misery, neither good nor bad. Wherefore, all things must needs be a compound in one; wherefore, if it should be one body it must needs remain as dead, having no life neither death, nor corruption nor incorruption, happiness nor misery, neither sense nor insensibility. … I speak unto you these things for your profit and learning; for there is a God, and he hath created all things, both the heavens and the earth, and all things that in them are, both things to act and things to be acted upon. And to bring about his eternal purposes in the end of man, … it must needs be that there was an opposition; even the forbidden fruit in opposition to the tree of life; the one being sweet and the other bitter.
[3] See DéjàVu~TimesII post of Monday, Sept. 21, 2009: The Agony of Contradictions
[4] And if ye ask anything that is not expedient for you, it shall turn unto your condemnation.(Doctrine and Covenants Section 88:65)
