because we don't believe in the free giving, and consequently we cannot adopt a mental attitude of receiving, and so the Spirit cannot make the gift.

Material Obstacles

If we seek the reason why this is so, we shall find it in our materialism, our inability to see beyond secondary causes. We get things through certain visible channels, and we mistake these for the source.

"The things I possess I got with my money, and my money I got by work". Of course you did. God doesn't put dollar bills or banknotes into your cash box by a conjuring trick. God makes things generically, whether it be iron or brains, and then we have to use them. But the iron or brains, or whatever else it may be, ultimately proceeds from the All-creating Spirit; and the more clearly we see this, the easier we shall find it to go direct to the Spirit for all we want.

Easy Solution

Then we shall argue that, just as the Spirit can create the thing we desire, so it can also create the way by which that thing shall come to us, and so we shall not be bothered about the way. We shall work according to the sort of abilities God has bestowed upon us and according to the opportunities provided; but we shall not try to force circumstances or to do something out of our line.

Then we shall find circumstances open out and our abilities increase, and this without putting any undue