Bernie, our black, 11-year-old Scottie, loves to sit on the rock step to our back door. It’s high up, so that he can survey the acres of land all around him that he loves. He’s at peace there. Watching him on a beautiful summer morning reminds me of the numerous times in the Bible when someone goes up the mountain to find God.

“They shall not hurt nor destroy in all my holy mountain.” Isaiah 11:9

Peace, joy, health, harmony are all promised to us if we will earnestly search for God. The Bible uses a lot of sacred-word symbology to give the fullest meaning to its messages. One of these symbols is a mountain. Going up a mountain means that you are raising your consciousness up, to be closer to God.

The promise, then, is that all the good things of life—joy, peace, prosperity—come to us the closer we align our hearts to God.

Most people have heard the Lord’s Prayer. That means that you have heard and probably said, “Thy will be done in earth, as it is in heaven.” When you say these words, you are expressing a desire to align your heart with God’s Will.

Is this really something you want to do? Or are you afraid that when you do God’s will you will have to give up much that you love about life?

My experience with many years in sales, working with people, and then many more years as a motivational speaker, has shown me that lots of people don’t want to give up all the goodies and toys they have. They believe following a life closely aligned with God’s Will requires giving up their “stuff.”

That is an error in thinking. God is Divine Love. God’s Will is that we are joyous, at peace, with no nagging fear, and living in a world filled with harmony and bounty.

But you’ve heard that it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle, a narrow and low gate, than it is for a rich person to get into heaven. The problem is not that some people are rich in material things. It’s that they are so tied to those things that the stuff has become a false god to them. They worship the money and stuff more than they want to revere God.

You have probably seen the bumper sticker that says, “The one who dies with the most toys wins.” Whoever believes that is worshiping those toys to the level of a false god.

You can have the toys, you can have the gold; just keep all of it in proper perspective. Use it to do good and remember to help others less fortunate. Go skiing on the weekend, and remember to be kind and generous to everyone all week long.

Align your will with God’s by being compassionate, forgiving, caring, non-judgmental, and tolerant of others’ views. Pray regularly, asking God to help you get better at these things. When you master these characteristics and keep them as an integral part of your personality and inner soul, you will have taken a giant step toward being aligned with God’s will.

You don’t have to give up your money or your toys to begin to find inner peace, freedom from fear, and true joy. Just focus on all the great attributes of love. Then you will be able to sit on the holy mountain, like Bernie, and enjoy the glorious view.

One of those days Jesus went out to a mountainside to pray and spent the night praying to God. (Luke 6:12, NIV)