By Marianne Williamson

No matter what is happening in our lives, we choose how we wish to think about it. And the greatest gift we give ourselves is often our willingness to change our minds. Despite what might seem to be the saddest and most intractable situation, we have the power to believe that something else is possible, that things can change, that a miracle can happen.

This simple shift in how we think can make all the difference in what happens next. How we think releases an infinite number of possibilities that could not have occurred had we not believed that they were possible. Such is the power of our thoughts to attract as well as deflect miraculous breakthroughs.

Free will means you can think whatever you want to think. You cannot, however, make untrue what is true or true what is untrue. The universe does care about you. The universe is set up to work on your behalf. And the universe is capable of bringing miraculous transformation to any situation of brokenness or lack. Regardless of what has happened in your life, the universe is able and prepared to bring you comfort and repair. You are loved, and your purpose is to love. From a mind filled with infinite love comes the power to create infinite possibilities. We have the power to think in ways that reflect and attract all the love in the world.  Such thinking is called enlightenment. Enlightenment is not a process we work toward, but a choice available to us in any instant.

Enlightenment is the answer to every problem. In any situation where you seem to be at the effect of forces over which you have no control, remember that God dwells within your mind, and there are no forces over which He has no control. Therefore, through His power within you, there are no mortal conditions over which you are powerless. Whenever your good is obscured by the appearances of a nonloving world, the universe is programmed to lift you out of that condition and return you to an abundant state.

As an expression of divine perfection, the universe is both self-organizing and self-correcting. To whatever extent your mind is aligned with love, you will receive divine compensation for any lack in your material existence. From spiritual substance will come material manifestation. This is not just a theory; it is a fact. It is a law by which the universe operates. I call it the Law of Divine Compensation.

Just as there are objective, discernible laws of external phenomena, so there are objective, discernible laws of internal phenomena. The law of gravity, for instance, is not just a “belief.” It is true whether or not you believe it. Spiritual laws are not just beliefs, either; they are descriptions of how consciousness operates.

Once we know this law—that there is a natural tendency of the universe to improve all things—then we lean naturally into the arms of God and allow Him to lift us up. We surrender our thoughts, then He uplifts our thoughts, then our experiences change. The practical issue is whether we choose thoughts that activate or deactivate the Law of Divine Compensation. We activate it with every loving thought. We deactivate it when we give more credence to the reality and power of the material world than to the reality and power of love.

If our circumstances tempt us to think thoughts such as, “I must not be good enough,” “I will never have another chance,” “It will take forever for this to right itself,” or “I hate whoever is to blame for this,” then miracles, though they are programmed into the nature of the universe, cannot make their way into our awareness. With every thought we think, we either summon or block a miracle. It is not our circumstances, then, but rather our thoughts about our circumstances, that determine our power to transform them.

The Law of Divine Compensation applies equally to all situations, but in this book we will focus on its application to money and the lack thereof. In a time of economic uncertainty—when circumstances make it particularly tempting to believe in the scarcity of the material plane over the abundance of the spiritual—our capacity to think differently is the miracle-worker’s edge. Bills stare you in the face. Foreclosure looms.Credit is wrecked. Jobs aren’t available. And with all that comes chaos on many fronts. Who doesn’t need a miracle then?

If you identify only with your body and its reality, rather than with your spirit and its reality, then you’re tempted to think that diminished material assets somehow diminish who you are. But you are not merely a being of the material world; you are a being of unlimited spirit. And in spirit there is no lack. You are not lacking just because your circumstances are.

If your core belief is “I lack” and you carry that belief with you, then you will subconsciously perpetuate co-create the circumstances that reflect the belief. But your circumstances are completely malleable: they simply reflect the dictates of your mind. Regardless of what limits exist in your material world, your immutable truth is that you are an unlimited spiritual being. By remembering this, you summon the Law of Divine Compensation. You are a loving idea in the Mind of God. Circumstances should not and need not tempt you to believe otherwise. The universe showers you with love not because of what you have done or not done, but because of who you are. Think of the universe itself as a personal love note from God to you. God is love, and in sharing His love you share His power. By aligning yourself with thoughts of infinite love for yourself and others, you gain dominion over the lower thought forms of the world.

In a material sense, your situation might indeed be bleak. You might have been given a raw deal, even been betrayed by others. You yourself might have made a huge mistake. Still, what matters is what you think now: Are you lingering in the past, or are you allowing for a miracle in the present? Are you blaming yourself and others, or blessing yourself and others? Are you clinging to your faith in the reality of the disaster, or opening your mind to the possibility of a miracle? Realign your thoughts with the thoughts of God, and in any given instant the universe is ready to begin again. The laws of time and space are more malleable than we think.

Mistakes and wrong turns need not throw us off. The capacity for correction is built into the universe, just as it is into the workings of a GPS. If you’ve programmed an address into your GPS but then take a different turn than it recommends, the GPS automatically creates a new route. And so does the universe. Perhaps you thought you’d get to where you wanted to be financially through achieving a certain credential, doing a particular job, or making a particular investment. But then something happened: the economy worsened, you made a mistake, or someone else did. The Law of Divine Compensation gives us the assurance that the universe will simply create a new route. What is lacking shall become abundant, and what is wounded shall be healed. From “out of the blue”—or miracle-mindedness—miracles will flow forth naturally. Why? Because perfection is your eternal home, to which the universe is programmed to return you whenever you have deviated, for whatever reason, from the thoughts that get and keep you there. That is how loved you are.

This post was excerpted from THE LAW OF DIVINE COMPENSATION: On Work, Money, and Miracles by Marianne Williamson. Copyright 2012. Reprinted with permission by HarperOne, an imprint of HarperCollins Publishers.