Embodiment · “Being Precedes Having”
Active Faith
Demonstrate ‘active faith’ by doing one concrete outward act that shows you genuinely expect your good to arrive — ‘digging the ditches’ before there is any sign of rain — so that the act of preparation impresses the subconscious with expectancy and embodies the belief that ‘faith without works is dead.’
Speak your word for the specific good, then ask: if I truly knew it were coming, what would I do now to be ready? Do one concrete, affordable act of preparation — “dig your ditches” — before there’s any sign of rain, as someone who fully expects delivery. Keep it prudent. Then release the outcome and stay ready to seize the opening. Faith without works is dead.
What it is
Active faith is Florence Scovel Shinn’s insistence that belief must be shown, not just spoken. Her watchword is the Bible story (2 Kings 3) in which armies dying of thirst in a dry valley are told by Elisha, “Make this valley full of ditches” — dig channels for water before there is any sign of rain — and the ditches fill.
Shinn turns this into a rule: “Man must prepare for the thing he has asked for, when there isn’t the slightest sign of it in sight.” Faith is proven by an outward act of expectancy. Her stock example: a woman seeking an apartment in a housing shortage who declared, in effect, “I’ll dig my ditches by buying the blankets” — buying the household goods she’d need before she had the home, as a physical demonstration that she expected it.
Shinn’s formula echoes scripture: “Faith without works is dead.” So this is an embodiment practice: you take the affirmation off the page and into the body and the world by doing something — buying the thing, making the room ready, clearing the space, taking the appointment — that only makes sense if the good is coming.
The act is the evidence you give to your own subconscious that you truly expect delivery.
The Method
- Make your demand / speak your word. Begin with the affirmation for the specific good (see her spoken-word method).
- Decide what “preparing for it” would look like. Ask: if I genuinely knew this were coming, what would I do now to be ready? That is your “ditch.”
- Do one concrete act of preparation — before there’s any sign. Take the visible, tangible step a believing person would take (buy the blankets, clear the closet, set the second place at the table). Shinn: prepare “when there isn’t the slightest sign of it in sight.”
- Let the act carry the feeling. The point is the expectancy the act embodies — do it as someone who fully expects fulfilment, not as a desperate gamble. “Feeling” is the force behind the work.
- Keep it proportionate and prudent. Shinn’s ditches are affordable demonstrations, not ruinous bets. Choose an act you can responsibly do.
- Then release and watch for the filling. Having dug the ditch, hand the outcome over (cast the burden) and stay alert to the opening when it comes. (Sourcing note: “Make this valley full of ditches,” “Man must prepare for the thing he has asked for, when there isn’t the slightest sign of it in sight,” “dig my ditches,” and “Faith without works is dead” are from Shinn’s “The Law of Prosperity” in The Game of Life; numbered structure is an attributed paraphrase.)
Source & Lineage
Florence Scovel Shinn, The Game of Life and How to Play It (1925), “The Law of Prosperity”; the “I dig my ditches” affirmation appears in Your Word Is Your Wand (1928) (“I now dig my ditches deep with faith and understanding.”).
The principle is biblical (2 Kings 3; James 2:17) read through New Thought. → Distinct from neighbours: it is not the generic “acting as if” identity-shift of (which is about being the person), nor Wattles’ steady “efficient present action” of doing today’s work excellently.
Shinn’s “dig the ditches” is narrower and more pointed: one symbolic act of preparation that presupposes the specific result — a single outward token of expectancy, prudently sized.
Common refinements
Reckless over-commitment. The shadow side of “act as if”: over-spending, quitting prematurely, burning bridges. Keep ditches affordable — Shinn’s are.
- Acting from desperation, not expectancy. A frantic gamble carries fear, not faith. If the act feels like panic, pause; do a smaller one you can hold calmly.
- All preparation, no patience. Having dug the ditch, don’t then claw at the outcome — release and let it fill.
- Symbolic act with no real readiness. A token gesture that doesn’t actually prepare you (and a magical-thinking purchase) is theatre. Pick an act that genuinely positions you.