#142: The Evidence of Things Not Seen

The Evidence of Things Not Seen

A Lecture in the Voice and Spirit of Neville Goddard

You have looked out upon your world and said, “When I see it, then I shall believe.” This is the very reason you have not seen it. The evidence you seek is not in the world of effects. The evidence is the acceptance you give within your own consciousness before the thing appears. Faith is not something you must find in order to receive. Faith is the evidence of the thing itself, accepted as real though unseen by the outer eye. It is the substance given to that which has not yet taken form. Without this inward acceptance there is no substance, and without substance there is no manifestation.

Consciousness is the only reality. What you accept there as true must come to pass, for consciousness is forever solidifying itself in the things round about you. If you accept the evidence of lack, the world will continue to reflect lack. If you accept the evidence of fulfillment, the world must reflect fulfillment. There is no other law. The world does not create your acceptance; your acceptance creates the world. This is why the one who waits for the outer proof before he will believe remains forever waiting. He has reversed the order of creation. He has asked the effect to produce the cause, and this can never be.

The evidence of things not seen is not a poetic phrase meant to comfort you in delay. It is the description of the creative act. When you can, in the secret place of your mind, feel the reality of your desire as an accomplished fact, you have given it substance. You have accepted the evidence before the senses can confirm it. This feeling is not imagination in the idle sense. It is the living acceptance that the thing is already so. It is the quiet knowing that if the outer world were to open before you this moment, it would show you what you have already accepted within.

This acceptance is faith. And this faith does not look to the future. It lives in the present. It says within itself, “It is done,” and rests in that conviction. Hope says, “It will be.” Faith says, “It is.” Hope postpones. Faith realizes. When you can truly say within yourself that it is already so, though every sense denies it, you have exercised the faith that moves mountains—not the mountains of circumstance, but the mountains of your own former acceptance of limitation. The old acceptance dissolves when the new one is complete. The evidence you once accepted as final loses its power the moment you withdraw your faith from it and place that faith upon the unseen reality.

You who have desired and waited, who have affirmed and yet remained where you are, the delay has not been in the desire. The delay has been in the acceptance. You have planted the seed and then dug it up each day to see whether it was growing. This is not faith. This is doubt wearing the mask of sincerity. Faith leaves the seed in the ground of consciousness. Faith does not question the manner of its growth. Faith knows that what has been accepted must appear, and it rests in that knowledge. The how is never the concern of the one who has truly accepted. The how belongs to the creative power within you. Your only office is to accept the evidence of the thing as real now, and to persist in that acceptance until the outer world conforms.

When this acceptance is complete, a strange and wonderful change occurs within you. The anxiety that once filled your mind gives way to a quiet peace. The striving ceases. You feel as one who has already received, and from that feeling thanksgiving rises naturally. Not the thanksgiving of one who hopes to receive, but the thanksgiving of one who knows he has received. This inner gratitude is the seal upon your faith. It is the surest proof that you have truly accepted the evidence of things not seen. You cannot give thanks for a thing you do not believe is already yours. When you give thanks for what the senses deny, you demonstrate that you have accepted it as real. This is the faith the world calls impossible, yet it is the only faith that ever produces results.

All other so-called faith is but hope dressed in finer words. It looks without for the sign. It waits for the world to confirm what it has not yet accepted within. But the world cannot confirm what has not been accepted. The senses are faithful reporters. They report only what you have already accepted in consciousness. They cannot report what you have not yet given substance. Therefore, when you look without for the evidence, you are asking the reporter to create the news. This is why your prayers have seemed unanswered. You have prayed to receive, when you should have accepted that you have already received. You have asked for the sign before you would believe, when the sign is the result of belief, not its cause.

Tonight you can change this order. As you prepare for sleep, turn your attention away from all that the senses report. Shut the door upon the outer world. In the quiet darkness behind your closed eyes, assume the feeling of your desire fulfilled. Feel it as vividly as you can. Let the joy of it fill you. Let the naturalness of it possess you. Do not argue with the feeling. Do not try to make it seem reasonable to the outer mind. Reason belongs to the world of effects. Faith belongs to the world of cause. When you have felt the feeling and accepted it as true, you have done all that is required. The creative power within you will take care of the manner of its appearing. It always does. It has no choice but to bring forth what you have planted in faith.

If doubts arise, as they will at first, do not fight them with words. Simply return to the feeling of the wish fulfilled. The doubts are the old acceptance attempting to reassert itself. They have no power over you unless you give them your attention. Give your attention instead to the new evidence—the evidence you have accepted within. Dwell upon it. Rejoice in it. Let it become the dominant feeling in your consciousness. As it grows stronger, the old evidence of lack and delay will grow weaker, until one day you look out upon your world and see that the thing you accepted inwardly has appeared outwardly. And you will not be surprised. You will know it could not have been otherwise. The evidence was accepted; the manifestation had to follow.

This is the law. This is the promise. This is the way your world is made. The outer world is not the cause. It is the effect. The cause is always within you. Faith is the name we give to the acceptance of the cause before the effect is visible. When you accept the evidence of things not seen, you are accepting the cause. And the cause, once accepted, must produce its effect. There is no power in the universe that can prevent it. The only power that can delay it is your own refusal to accept.

You who have felt powerless before circumstances, the power was never in the circumstances. The power was in what you accepted as the evidence. When you accept the evidence of your own fulfilled desire, you reclaim the power that is rightfully yours. You cease to be the victim of appearances and become the master of your own consciousness. And in mastering your consciousness, you master your world. The appearances that once seemed so solid and unchangeable begin to soften. They lose their power to frighten or discourage you. For you know they are but the old evidence—the evidence you once accepted but have now replaced. They may linger for a time, but they cannot remain when the cause has been changed. The world is faithful to consciousness. It can do nothing other than reflect what is first accepted within.

So the question is never whether your desire can come to pass. The question is only whether you will accept the evidence of it before it does. This is the faith that is required. Not a faith in some external power, but a faith in the power of your own acceptance. A faith in the reality of the unseen. A faith that is itself the evidence. This faith is available to you at every moment. It does not depend upon your circumstances. It does not depend upon your past. It depends only upon your willingness to turn within and accept what you desire as already true. This willingness is the key. And when you exercise it, you will find that the lock upon your desire opens easily and the thing you have accepted flows into your world with a naturalness that surprises even you.

For the natural is the inevitable when faith has done its work. What seems supernatural to the one who looks without is the most natural thing in the world to the one who has accepted within. The supernatural is only the natural not yet understood. When you understand that your acceptance is the cause, the appearance of your desire will seem the most natural thing that could have happened. You will look back and wonder why you ever doubted. You will see that the delay was only the time it took for you to accept the evidence. And you will resolve never again to wait for the outer proof before you accept the inner reality. For you will know that the outer proof is the child of the inner acceptance, and the child cannot come before the parent.

This is the wisdom of faith. This is the secret that has been hidden from so many, not because it was withheld, but because they looked for it in the wrong place. They looked for it in the world of things, when all the while it was within them, waiting to be exercised. The evidence of things not seen is within you now. It is yours to accept or to ignore. But if you will accept it, if you will feel the reality of your desire as already accomplished, you will discover that you have always had the power to create your world. You have only to use it consciously. And to use it consciously is to accept the evidence before the proof.

Tonight, as you close your eyes, you can accept that evidence. You can feel the reality of your desire as already so. You can give thanks for it as a thing already received. And in that acceptance you will know that something has already changed within you. The old man, the man who waited for the world to prove itself to him, has begun to dissolve. The new man, the man who accepts the evidence of things not seen and knows it to be more real than anything the senses can report, has begun to take his place. And with this change of identity comes the quiet certainty that your world must conform. For it has no choice. It is only the out-picturing of what you have accepted as true.

You are that one who accepts. You have always been that one. Tonight you can begin to live as that one, by accepting the evidence of things not seen as the only evidence that matters. In this acceptance is your freedom. In this acceptance is your peace. In this acceptance is the fulfillment of every desire you have ever cherished. For the evidence is within you. The acceptance is yours to give. And when you give it, the thing desired has no choice but to appear. This is the law. This is the promise. This is the truth that sets you free.