[tmtranscripts] N. Idaho TeaM 06/05/05

[rickgiles]

North Idaho Teaching Mission Group
Topics: Faith is a Spiritual Fitness of Being.
Teachers: Elyon

June 5, 2005

*	Elyon (Jonathan TR):  Greetings, this is Elyon.  Once again 
we are associated in spirit and in consciousness, aware of one 
another, sharing the love that Michael extends to all of us.  It 
is a vitality that nourishes the soul and energizes our common 
fellowship.
	You are all experienced in the extension of your faith.  
While you were young in your spirit growth your faith began as a 
hope or an inspiration, an energy force that stimulated you to 
reach for God, reach for truth.  Soon in the accumulation of 
experience you discovered that your faith not only served to 
entice you higher, but became itself the platform, the vehicle 
upon which you moved.  The acquirement of more faith changed 
from that hope and desire into the possession, a bonafide 
spiritual strength.
	Faith is like fitness.  To become fit in body one undergoes 
many exercises.  The goal may be to lift an immense amount of 
weight or to climb a cliff, to run many miles, but to do so 
requires multiple sessions of smaller efforts, without which you 
would utterly fail to reach your goal.  Prior to the willful 
initiation of spiritual growth within a human being when the 
light of God is beginning to be perceived, one is like a fitness 
trainee who is changing into gym clothes.  There is the thrill 
of anticipation of becoming better, of growing, but the effort 
has yet to be made, that first faith exertion.  That is the 
faith of perception.  When once you begin actual training faith 
is now the exertion, your willful application of yourself to 
attain.
	Over your years you have perceived many episodes in your 
life wherein small exchanges with another increased your 
spiritual strength.  These small workouts build character; they 
are like your trust pushups, your hope crunches.  They foster 
the development of reactions within you that make you more 
nimble, agile, strong, and forceful.  The desire of the human 
heart is to serve our Sovereign Son once he is recognized as 
your Creator Father to effect upon this world the spread of love 
and light just as he did so well while dwelling here.  Your 
ability to undertake such a mission is acquired through the 
small encounters, the mini workouts of every day.  When one does 
not undertake such exertions daily there is a weakening of 
spiritual strength, an atrophying of faith.  Then small 
opportunities are overlooked.  Under such a condition when 
exertion is required there is the risk of injury.  But if each 
day some effort is made stamina is maintained, endurance is 
fostered, strength increased.  Then when the opportunity strikes 
to excel your abilities are up for the challenge.  Faith is a 
spiritual fitness of being.
	This applies to stillness, for one cannot expect to sit in 
the quietness of the presence of Father and expect an 
overwhelmingly illuminating revelation without the continual 
preparation of the mind and the will for receptivity.  One must 
lift ten pounds many times before being capable of hoisting one 
hundred.
	There is another element to this fitness and that is 
knowledge and understanding.  Just as a fitness trainee will 
learn posture, limitations of the physical body, cycles of 
effort and rest, diet and hydration, so do you undertake the 
education through philosophy of yourself regarding cosmic 
reality, the comprehension of tried and tested exercises that 
others have discovered that leads to growth.  You have learned 
how nourishing worship and fellowship are to your well-being and 
to your inspiration.
	As time passes you acquire a fitness that becomes your base 
level of ability just as today you are stronger than you were at 
two or three years old.  Your faith does not weaken entirely.  
It is a ratcheting effect.  But in order to ascend higher there 
must be a period of training and exertion until you click into 
the next level.  The approach will be identical in methodology 
each time.  But your lessons and experiences will change, for 
they define what you will realize, what truth you will 
comprehend, what state of being you will attain.
	I applaud you all for understanding that spirit presence 
within yourselves is not merely a passive state of receptivity, 
of relaxation, but is at every point in time you are willing to 
exert yourselves, even if it is merely for preparation, 
understanding that at a moment of service performance you will 
be up for the task, capable with the eye to being successful.
	Thank you for pondering my words.  I wish to receive your 
responses.

	Evelyn:  Tom’s tweak about helping an old acquaintance -- 
who probably now is a new friend -- is a good example of 
sustained effort, applying himself not only with the earlier 
wishful prayer to be of service, but then going beyond the call 
of duty when the opportunity came up.

*	Elyon:  Jesus spoke of going the extra mile.  To be able to 
go that second mile one must have already experienced the 
duration of traversal of one mile.  Such repeated extensions of 
oneself in service to another affords the individual the ability 
and the drive and the responsiveness to enter into that second 
mile and present the ministry that that second mile provides.

	Tom:  From past transmissions I’m thinking we shouldn’t 
concern ourselves with missing past opportunities for service.  
But with faith you don’t want to miss those opportunities for 
faith strengthening, and a daily regimen of attention to that 
will add a corresponding higher ratio of visualizing and acting 
on service opportunities.

*	Elyon:  Yes, my friend, well said, for in time and space 
opportunities for service appear to arrive and then end as a 
single event that comes to completion, the desired service 
rendered.  But each one does add to a continuum of service 
undertakings.  Faith is like the thread upon which is strung 
each undertaking, each service project.  The stronger the faith, 
the more that necklace of service holds together.  The stronger  
your faith, the greater your projects such that even a medallion 
of great importance in service to this world may be worn about 
you.
	I will dismiss this classroom at this time.  When your life 
appears to be a treadmill see it as an opportunity for spiritual 
aerobics, a time to exert yourself in the application of that 
which you have come to comprehend as truth and beauty and 
goodness, that each step has the force of spirit behind it.  
That force offers you the opportunity to turn, to leave the 
tread, and to travel the trail.  I take my leave, farewell.