2000-11-05. Father Relationships
Nashville #100
Topic: Father Relationships
Group: Nashville TeaM
Teacher: Ham
TR: Rebecca
Opening
Ham: Greetings, I am Ham and I am grateful that each of you has come this evening. I cannot express the happiness that overwhelms me each week when we come together once more. This evening, we shall discuss the willingness to be led.
Lesson
Spirituality, Value
Within your minds lives an ancient infinitely wise, infinitely loving spirit. This spirit has come directly from the bosom of the Father to help you in your journey back to him. His guidance for you depends upon one thing and one thing only, your own willingness to follow his gentle leading.
Much of your lives consist in showing forth a strong will, a capacity to make decisions, to help others, to honestly and truthfully carry forward in your relationships and in your work. Your relationship with the Father is different. In this relationship, you are required to set aside all those things which work in the world, you are required to set aside every consideration and every thought of your own will.
In this relationship, it is incumbent upon you to find a true attitude of humility. To say, in effect, “It matters not about me and my wants and concerns, what matters is the fulfillment of your will not mine”. This attitude is only arrived at slowly and usually through many fits and starts.
You are all in the habit of wishing for things and then setting about making those wishes come true. When you follow the Father’s leading, all your own wishes and desires become subordinate. His desire for you is supreme and this may or may not coincide with those things you want for yourself.
Ask yourselves, are you willing to give up the things your want and perhaps have wanted all your lives, things you have worked and suffered for, things you have sacrificed for? Can all these things really amount to nothing in the Father’s eyes? Well, the short answer is yes, they do amount to nothing in the Father’s eyes, only you yourselves are of value. The Father’s desires are completely centered upon increasing your own self-worth.
Now, how are you valuable to the Father? What makes you more valuable? As you grow in the spirit, you begin to bear the fruits of the spirit and it is in these fruits that you increase in value. Do you increase in temperance, tolerance, forbearance, love for you fellows, respect for yourself in the true sense? Do you gradually become a fountain of spiritual refreshment for those in need? As you bear the fruits of humility and kindness, as you offer gentleness and love, then do you grown in the Father’s estimation.
All human beings are of equal value in the ultimate sense, but some are of more practical value than others. Growth in the spirit increases your value to your fellow men and thus your value in the Father’s kingdom.
When you make such progress as to reach the third psychic circle, you receive a personal pair of guardian seraphim. This is truly a measure of your willingness to be led in the kingdom, your willingness to bear spiritual fruit for the Father and it is a measure of the value he places upon this.
Living a mean and narrow selfish existence gives the Father very little practical value. Such persons are loved equally, understood equally, but they are not used equally. Making yourselves useful to the Father requires a childlike trust and hopefulness, a complete willingness to let go of what you think of as you and yours and to embrace the greater I Am.
The Father does not require that you should go forth and conquer the world in his name, but he does require that you should conquer yourself in his name. Listen, therefore, closely to the small gentle voice within you which speaks constantly to your hearts imploring you to listen and to follow.
God is an active spirit, he is not distant nor is he silent but he is close, so close as to be within you and he is ever speaking unto you that you should hear and seek after the better way that he shows forth. Take care that you pledge yourselves to him even as he has pledged himself to you and put nothing between you and him. Keep this relationship sacred. Are there any questions at this time?
Dialogue
Guidance
Q: With respect to guidance, does the Father guide us in the little matters of life as well as the big decisions.
Ham: Always, in everything. Seek him in the small things and you will not have trouble with the larger things.
Q: Other than the willingness to be used, is there any specific instructions you could give me that would help me be an instrument of Gods will, or perhaps that get in the way for me in my life?
Ham: Only that you become habitual in your prayer, not my will but yours be done. Learn to pray this with complete wholehearted sincerity, without a shadow of a hairs turning as they say and you will have that which you seek.
Seeker
Q: Ham do you have any counsel for me tonight?
Ham: Certainly, son. Yes, you have a strong rational mind, a mind which seeks after truth and seeks justice in the world and yet you must understand that neither truth nor justice can be found in the world, it must be found within. The Father is both of these things and infinitely more. Think of yourself not so much as a crusader for righteousness but rather as a seeker of righteousness, a seeker of truth. It is always a great temptation for intelligent beings to grasp what truth they have and want to spread that truth, or be a crusader for that truth. But, in doing so, one loses track of the seeking. Even the Master as he taught and spoke to the masses, remained also a seeker, seeking not to give out a portion of truth, but rather seeking to be the living truth in all its aspects. Remain always as a seeker.
Growth
Q: Ham, It seems to me that somewhere in the Ubook it talks about capacities, (48:7.5) I seem to remember that people are like vessels and are made to hold different amounts of creativity or spirituality and it seems to me that it said that one cannot exceed one’s capacity. I may be remembering it wrong. Can we exceed our capacities through the growth in God’s will?
Ham: Yes, you are understanding correctly. What this book was referring to is a person’s capacity at a certain time.
Q: in this lifetime?
Ham: Just a time, a second, a moment. Most, if not all, human beings grown during their lifetime and their capacities expand. Spiritual growth, by its very nature, expands capacity. What the book was referring to in pint cannot hold a quart was that you cannot give a quart’s worth of spiritual understanding to someone who can only absorb a pints worth at that time/
Q: When you give all that you are to the Father then does he make you more than you are.
Ham: yes, a very apt summation.
Q: A personal message for Norbert please.
Ham: Certainly, son you are making good progress and your sincerity and earnest seeking is very much appreciated. Do not fear your human failings, nor should you expect too much perfection of yourself. Rather, learn to accept yourself as you are today, and from this you shall grow.
Truth, Revelation
Q: This is a question from Derrick. I have a question regarding the relationship of the Teaching Mission and the Urantia Book and the timing of it all. In reading the ubook, I get the impression that things take time, usually a lot of it and that our perspective of time in one lifetime is distorted. It has been 2000 years since the last epochal revelation and now in the span of a single lifetime we have the Urantia Book and the Teaching Mission. Why was not mention of the teaching mission made to the forum. It seems to me that the teaching mission is more of an after thought than part of the plan from the start.
Ham: Of course my son. Your planet is undergoing a massive effort at spiritual uplift, the Urantia Book was a forerunner to the more personal teachings which you have been receiving over the last quarter century. Yes, these are both parts of the same plan, of course. As always seems to happen with immature human beings, when someone receives part of the truth, one tends to exaggerate this part and to make it seem to be the whole. The Urantia book was never meant to be an orphan. Truth is always living, it cannot be crystalized into a single book.
The Urantia Book contains many advanced truths which have helped to pave the way for a more comprehensive teaching effort, but it is not, of course, the final truth or the final revelation for this time period. All of this effort is to prepare your world to eventually receive another Son. You have lost so much ground and have had so many set backs that extraordinary efforts are being made to help bring you up to a level where a Son could be received with gratitude rather than resentment. Your world has a long way to go before this can be possible. Fear not my son that you must choose between loyalty to a book containing truth or loyalty to a teacher bearing truth. Remain loyal instead to the living truth and all else will come into perspective for you.
Q: When you said the last quarter century, what did you mean there?
Ham: There have been several teaching attempts during that time.
Q: By supernals?
Ham: Yes, and before that, but more intensely the last 25 years.
Q: Do you have anything for Esmirelda?
Ham: Yes my dear, be happy at the progress you have made and that you have come to a greater understanding of yourself and others. Continue to grow in this understanding, in this effort to love yourself and others. Continue to be good to yourself, to allow yourself to make mistakes, allow yourself to be human.
Q: Elena?
Ham: Daughter, you also have grown much over the past couple of years. You are now gaining a greater perspective on yourself and your life, you are able to take things more in stride and to be more forgiving in your attitude towards yourself and others. You are doing very well.
Q: Rebecca?
Ham: Daughter, you are doing well. You have far to go with all your efforts. Have the ability to love yourself and to be generous with yourself even as you are with others. Continue with all your efforts for they are very much fruit and it is good.
Q: Jarad?
Ham: Certainly, my son, you are doing very well. You have a yearning for some resolution, some final verdict if you will concerning your work which will never be completed. All of creativity, artistic work, is part of the next step and a part of the step which preceded it. This work is your life, it is your development, your gift and so this is what is valuable. Continue to work and to develop this great gift. Be unafraid of seeming failure or seeming inactivity for all of it is progressing, but especially progressing is your abilities. This is what is important. Is this helping?
Q: Yes, I think, do you think it is true that I care less about where it takes me as long as it is what the Father wants me to do.
Ham: Yes, you are certainly progressing in your attitude, absolutely.
Q: Ham, do you have a message for me this week?
Ham: Certainly, my daughter, you are experiencing emotional highs and lows, sometimes almost like a battle with yourself and this is, of course, natural and not to be despised because of what you are learning. It is always the hard lessons of life which expand one’s capacity. Ease, the absence of worry is always sought after by human beings and never attained for these things would be detrimental to your growth and remember growth, spiritual growth, is the Father’s number one priority, there is nothing more important to him. I know you all are thankful for the many blessings of tribulation that you have received.
Q: Ham if you have any feedback for me I would appreciate it.
Ham: Certainly, son, you are doing very well and have much to be thankful for, including the tribulations. You are undergoing some very intricate training in your personal and professional dealings. This is designed to widen and broaden your appreciation and understanding of others. Though you have always been sympathetic and interested in others, this is a time to deepen and to strengthen that understanding and sympathy. Allow yourself to be changed by your experience. Embrace this time of learning.
Are there any further questions?
Closing
Very well then, once again my love and my prayers are with each one of you. Go then in peace. That is all, farewell.
