10/20/2002

Ham: Greetings my friends, children and students. I am Ham and I am
happy to be here with you once more. Yes, you are correct in you
understanding that the Father’s kingdom transcends all mortal
experience. A human life may seem to be a complete and total failure in
human terms and yet to have served in the highest capacity for the
spirit at the same time.

It is human to look to the past for your examples. It is human to gauge
progress in human terms. Your churches measure their success in
terms of parishioner numbers, in terms of the collection plate, in terms

of new buildings, employees and so forth. Just like all human business,
they follow that example. But, I say to you, that the spirit moves in
mysterious ways, the spirit uses every single available human heart to
enter and transform.

You serve your fellows day by day by helping to prepare their hearts for

the spirits entry. The work that human beings can do for each other is
mostly limited to material help and yet there are those opportunities
when one person can help to prepare the soil of another soil for the
implantation of the seeds of the spirit.

The Master is still the sower. His spirit is ready to plan seeds of
truth in
the hearts of those who will respond. His spirit is not idle, but is
always
watchful, always ready, always working to husband the fruits of the
spirit. All these things are invisible and yet they effect the world in
which
you live greatly.

Your world continues to make small steps of progress in the spirit. Year

by year, little by little as you each grow in the spirit so do you
advance
the spirit in your world. There is no substitute for individual
spiritual
growth, there is no magic road, no instantaneous healing, no instant
conversion that can take the place of the small steps one after another
of the spiritual progressor.

Wisdom is not bestowed in a blinding flash of light. Wisdom is gained by

difficult daily struggles, by individual adjustment, by the tiny changes

that are wrought in your hearts by the spirit’s presence and influence
day by day.

The harsh realities of life must be face with the spirit. It does not
serve
the spirit to weave fantasies or to set one’s self above the struggles
of
daily living for it is in those struggles, those small adjustments, that
the
spiritual progress of your planet depends.

Many of you at the beginning of these lessons wished very sincerely
that some magic means would be provided to save you from the day to
day difficulties of life. You wanted to think of yourselves as chosen
and
as such as being privy to the keys of ease that would smooth the path
of mortal toil. And then it was necessary for their to be
disappointments
and for the hard knocks of life to be experienced. And all of you
remained and put your shoulder to the wheel and pressed forward
without complaint, without feeling disillusioned to the point of
abandoning the teachings.

No, you who remained found within the teachings to take the small
steps necessary, a way to examine yourselves and to change little by
little and to grow gradually into stronger and more serious and more
dependable men and women.

No experience that you endure upon this planet is wasted. Mistake not
your lives are filled with purpose, you lives are directed and are given

that you may understand this purpose and achieve the goals which are
linked in its purpose.

The teachings do not sweep away the mundane, but the teachings
elevate the mundane so that you can perceive its meaning. This is a
time of great questioning, a time when those who have seemed to be
the most fervent believers are dropping away at their first human
disappointments and are looking for something that will replace what
they perceive to be the ordinariness of their lives with something very
extraordinary.

This, my children, is the allure of false religion from radical Islam to
the
various isms in this country, those who seek to be taken away from the
pain of living. But I tell you now, the pain of living holds within it
the
greatest value of your mortal life.

It is a mark of immaturity to want everything to happen quickly and
painlessly, to want to be lifted out of the hard work of mortal living
and
set above your mortal companions. That is why these suicide bombers
are young people and it is a terrible and cynical manipulation of their
youth by their elders that is abhorrent in the universe.

When you take up the work of the religious life, it may seem to the
world
to be the same as living a completely secular life. To be a true
believer,
to be a true self-sacrificer requires the ordinary, mundane, difficult,
back breaking labor of life. The work may not change, but the believer
changes every day. To the outside world, the work is the same. But, to
the believer, the work is gradually and steadily more and more sacred.
The demand of the world do not magically disappear when you decide
to dedicate your lives to a higher calling, but they are gradually
transformed and elevated from mundane demands into a noble calling.

The Father does not ask that you leave yourselves behind when you
enter his doorway. He asks that you leave gradually and steadily
selfishness, intolerance, and all of the web of negativity that may have

captured you before. Yes, you do leave your past behind you. But his
door is not one that is entered once and then everything is changed.
His door is rather a moment of commitment when the mind is completely
convinced that the spirit holds a better way than the demands of the
flesh and the ego.

You have all come very far. You have found in your lives greater and
greater measures of peace amid the storm of life. But most of all, you
have found withing your hearts greater and greater measures of love,
understanding, and forgiveness for your fellows and for yourselves.
This is the mark of religious living and make no mistake, it is
absolutely
unmistakable in the eyes of others.

Many of you when you began wanted to preach the new religion, to be
modern day Peter’s and Paul’s. But, the task before you is much more
difficult. The task is to be yourselves for there is no way to grow in
the
spirit without discovering who you, yourselves, really are and this is
even the great goal of eternity for their will never be a time when
those
inner petals stop unfolding. You will always be growing and revealing
the beauty of your inner selves to the world.

The life of the spirit is not lived for the approval or the benefit of
others
as much as it is lived for the approval and benefit of He who sonshiped
you in the first place, He who claimed you. Live your lives for him and
you will automatically live your lives for others as well. Dedicate your

lives to him, and he will give you all you need to fulfill his promise
to
you. That promise is one of eternal unfolding, eternal self-discovery,
eternal life.

Do not be daunted by the effort required. Do not be discouraged by
temporary set backs or unexpected change. Rather, keep striving day
by day for the goals of the spirit. Love God with all your hearts and
all
your souls and the more you love him the more you will be able to love
him and others as well. Know there is no shortcut but would the victory
be as sweet if there were?

When you find yourselves on the mansions worlds reminiscing about
the hard times on Urantia, you may almost wish they were a little harder

for it will seem to have been not so bad in the end. The reasons for
your suffering in this life will be fully understood in the next. You
will see
why things were difficult, why they could not have been easy, and your
gratitude will be overflowing for the very difficulties you despair of
now.

This evening we shall not entertain questions as Rebecca’s mortal
mechanism has been weakened by an unfortunate infection. But, it is
understood that our meeting will again take place next week and the
week after and all your questions will be answered then.

This week, take time to enjoy your lives. Take time to be grateful for
your blessings. Give thanks for one another, for your friendships, for
your love, and cleave ever closer together for this life is sweetest in
the
sharing of it. Be at peace. That is all for this evening. As always, my
prayers and my love go with you each. Farewell.