2003-08-24-Being Grateful For Our Weaknesses
Nashville #174
Contents
• 1 Heading
o 1.1 Topic: Being Grateful For Our Weaknesses
o 1.2 Group: Nashville TeaM
• 2 Facilitators
o 2.1 Teacher: Ham
o 2.2 TR: Rebecca
• 3 Session
o 3.1 Opening
o 3.2 Lesson
3.2.1 Weakness
o 3.3 Dialogue
3.3.1 Delusion
3.3.2 Listening
o 3.4 Personal Counsel
3.4.1 Crisis
o 3.5 Closing
Topic: Being Grateful For Our Weaknesses
Group: Nashville TeaM
Facilitators
Teacher: Ham
TR: Rebecca
Session
Opening
HAM: Greetings, my children, I am Ham and I welcome each of you here this evening. This evening, we shall discuss the slow and steady process of understanding yourselves more completely. No human being is born or presently lives in perfection. All individuals carry many different obstacles to growth. Most of these obstacles are borne unaware. It takes time for human beings to be unafraid of themselves in order to examine their imperfections. But this very process is the engine of spiritual growth. Without imperfection to overcome, human beings would not have the foothold to propel themselves forward in growth.
Lesson
Weakness
HAM: Each human being has personal weakness which manifests perhaps in vanity or pride, envy, things which have traditionally know as venial sins. These are the handholds and footholds of growth. They are the rungs of the ladder you climb. As you step closer toward God, you must step over these personal weaknesses recognizing and overcoming them in some sense. Life is designed in order that seeming obstacles can become footholds once they are recognized and acknowledged. Each person must, over the course of a lifetime, recognize these little weaknesses within themselves and once recognized, once accepted, they are transformed into the propellant for growth.
The Master always encouraged living life fully in full social contact, full engagement with the arena of life for this is the only way imperfection can be seen. His later followers who cloister themselves and isolate from the world actually have great difficulty with growth and can live an entire life like a struggling seedling in need of nourishment and light, barely growing at all. And so their usefulness in the world is very limited. Outer piety cannot take the place of the rough and tumble existence life affords.
Many times people who live a sheltered existence become completely dominated by weakness. Those who are shown their weaknesses through failure and defeat learn to take hold and keep going, they learn to change and grow. In the unforgiving arena of commercial life, any weakness can easily create failure, and I am speaking of things like pride, vanity, things that can project self- satisfaction but hide a lack of self- awareness.
For each human being, there is not one Achilles heal, one overwhelming tendency that bespeaks immaturity. No, for most human beings a combination of things working in tandem creates those obstacles and also opportunities. It is therefore incumbent upon the faithful to feel overwhelming gratitude for these human failings.
Without them, you would have nothing to overcome, nothing to get a foot hold on. It is exactly the little failings which can lead to great spiritual success. Also I don ’ t want you to magnify your supposed failings in your own minds. These are small things. These are part of your path and the way in which you overcome these things can lead to great moral victories and set you upon greater paths than you have known before. Be unafraid of who you are right now, this moment. Be unafraid to admit your failings honestly and openly for this is all part of the way and a very important part of the way. Be grateful for your imperfections, but be ever more grateful for the Father ’ s plan of perfecting.
Dialogue
Delusion
Q: Would you say that you are still engaged in this process of uncovering your own perfections?
HAM: Yes, all ascending sons are likewise engaged. I would say that over time these things grow more subtle and more insidious. As you know they are even found among such highly created beings as Lucifer was.
Student: But they weren’t ascendant beings.
HAM: : Yes, that ’ s my point.
Q: It is hard to understand how we act like we are more when we feel we are less. It seems like a high created being like that, pride is always a lie.
HAM: : The sons of that order you must remember are created to function in the realm of the ascending sons. Therefore, they are not created in perfection as on the higher worlds, created directly from the Father of from the Eternal Son.
Q: The point I have always puzzled me, I understand how people, pride in people, overcompensation for low self esteem, but those other, do you see what I am saying.
HAM: : Well, yes, but pride has dimensions you have not explored.
Q: It is kind of pretending.
HAM: : Yes, it is a kind of delusion. All human beings have their delusions, it is safe to say that none are without them. When personality and mind interact, there is then a personal aspect of mind that is individual and within this realm are many different delusions which are personal colorations of perception. Character is the willingness to let go of delusion. Human beings are under a delusion in general that the morontia and spiritual realms are peopled with perfect beings. But this is untrue. Perfect beings are found in Havona and scattered throughout the universes one finds them. They are perfect, but they are also incomplete. They are limited in their experience. Only the Father can be said to be complete, absolute, as well as perfect. His creation must be fragmentary in some way. Even your indwelling adjusters are sub-absolute. Though they partake of the Father’s absolute nature, they themselves are a fragment of him. Their experience gives them greater and greater completion over time. And this is the Father’s plan, this is creation. This is existence. And this is the Father’s great love for his creation, that he would personally indwell the lowliest will creatures and partake of their experience in time and space. No, the universe is not perfect immediately upon leaving this world. You will find imperfection all the way to Paradise. But remember, the universes are perfecting and the Father’s command is “Be you perfect, even as I am perfect”.
Listening
Q: Is it ever our business to discuss with someone else their shortcomings as we perceive them and if it is, how do we go about that, how do we do it if it is ever our business?
HAM: : Yes, of course, it is fine to discuss spiritual struggles. Remember the Master could teach through questions as well as providing answers. Human beings are engaged and open when asked a question but often are closed when receiving an answer.
Q: The awful ordeal of listening.
HAM: : Yes. It is wise, as much as possible, to follow the Master’s model and to help others through the asking of questions before you dive in to here’s what I think your problem is mode which always causes the other person to throw up barriers and not to listen. Take your time, don’t be in a hurry to change someone over night, and you will grow ever more skillful in planting seeds of thought. Coming at someone with too much harsh truth can also be a manifestation of vanity, I know and you don’t kind of thinking, and usually it falls on deaf ears. But, guiding someone into self-realization can be a very rewarding experience, one where both of you will learn a lot.
Personal Counsel
Crisis
Q: Do you have any counsel for me this evening?
HAM: : Certainly, my son. You are doing very well. Be at peace with yourself. Give each day and each job before you your honest full effort. Be careful not to bite off more than you can chew, in other words be increasingly honest in your self-assessment. Pray for those around you who need spiritual comfort and pray that they find spiritual comfort rather than material comfort which masks and postpones the need and the search for spiritual comfort. Remember that the human beings who search in the material world for something that can only be found in the spirit must eventually come to and end of that search, a crisis point. This is an immutable law of the universe, it cannot be changed. Remember that their own indwelling spirit is seeking that crisis point, that time of turning when the person will turn to the spirit rather than the world. Cooperate then with their adjuster and their angels rather than being sucked into their material search which will only lead to increasing pain before the crisis.
Q: May I ask for a message for Jim please?
HAM: : Certainly. Be at ease my son, you are well. Remember that you can serve only one master for some times the things of the world, the material world, can be a seductive lure. Every time you have a conflict, remember the simple words the Master repeatedly spoke, “It is my will that your will be done”. This is a psychological method of freeing yourself from ego involvement and of allowing yourself to be lead and releasing the burden which you keep picking back up, the burden of figuring things out, being in charge of your life. It ’ s OK sometimes not to be “in charge” of your life. It ’ s OK to drift with the Master’s leading. Be at ease my son, that is all.
Q: Do you have anything for Rebecca?
HAM: : Yes, my daughter. Your way right now is turning, changing and you are also feeling that drift, that not being in charge which is a help for you right now in your desire to let go of control. You are finding a way to move forward and a new and unique way to use your wisdom and skills. Place your hand firmly in the Masters and he will show you all that you need and give you guidance at each step. You are growing with the inner strength you will need rather than the outer strength you have heretofore relied upon. Abandon one for the other and your way is clear.
Q: Jarad?
HAM: : Yes my son, you too are going through some inner change relying less and less on the old props and finding greater and greater inner truth. This truth will blossom and your inner strength of character continue to solidify around it. Your way is also clear as your reliance on the Master’s hand grows more complete. Trust in that relationship and allow him to provide those things necessary for the journey. Be at peace, you do well.
Q: Do you have a message for Joan?
HAM: : Yes, of course. My daughter, you do very well. You are continuing to grow and to find your way in the spirit. Remember that the Master’s spirit is always with you. He is an ever present friend and a willing helper in your life. Be at ease, you will find the way is easier than you think.
Q: Do you have a message for Norbert?
HAM: : Certainly. My son, you do well. Have patience with yourself. Do not try to move too far too fast. Do not be distressed as you go through the inevitable difficulties of life for you will have everything you need at every step of your journey. Have courage and confidence for all is well.
Q: Do you have a message for Charlie B?
HAM: : Certainly. My son, take heed of this lesson. Do not be hard on yourself or rather let go of your need for self-punishment and criticism. You are a person with a complex mixture of these little sins we talked about. Like all people, you will not be able to sort everything out at once. Be careful to be a student as well as the teacher. Become the child as well as the father.
Q: Do you have any feedback for me this week?
HAM: : Yes, my son. Also take heed of this lesson. There are parts of your personal nature which are quite fragile and have been protected for a long time but which can use and honest airing and open examination. In many ways you are stronger than you think you are weaker than you think you are in other ways, just like all people. See how the strengths can be weaknesses and weaknesses strengths. Be unafraid of yourself. Be unafraid to be a human being with human failings and human problems. Being a teacher has forced you to project a persona of confidence and assurance. Examine this, how it is a help and a hindrance, in your spiritual life. You do very well.
Closing
HAM: Is there anything further at this time? Very well then, until next week my love and my prayers are with you each. Farewell.
