What we put first in our lives is what we receive from life. The treasure of our heart both measures and determines our wealth, or our inner poverty. But not everything we love in life loves us back. Not everything we serve serves us as we imagine. Only the Divine, the light of Truth, never fails us... never.
There's only one reason why we ever find ourselves confused, depressed, angry with someone, or upset with ourselves for whatever reasons. We suffer as we do in these moments because we have handed over our heart and mind to a "power" that promises to "make the crooked places straight" but that is actually powerless to help us at all. What we really need is a new and true power at work in our life that's greater than we know how to supply for ourselves. There must be no mistake about this understanding.
As the truth of our situation becomes clear -- that we experience in life what we are, no more, no less -- we can begin simply to release ourselves, to let go of what we're sure we must have to be free... and all of its certainty about how things should be. And, from out of this new awareness a whole new kind of need is awakened within us, one that goes before us at all times. It is a silent request to the Almighty: Please step in and rule this moment.
This practicing of the presence of a power beyond our present self places us in a new relationship within ourselves. By working to remember ourselves and our God in this fashion, we agree to forget our former relationship with who we have been and its legion of impossible demands. In essence we agree to a new order within ourselves that is for us in a new way; we agree to have a new "first" within us. And as this inner agreement becomes established -- through our willingness to put God's life before all of our other concerns -- we will find that God, in turn, places us where troubles can no longer touch us.