A True Evaluation

MON., NOV. 21, 1988, 6:36 AM
FARM, STUDY

What is success in living? What is success in teaching? How would I have you be? These are important questions even as I tell you that consciousness of evaluation is not desirable. In one sense I want you to know what I would have you do and be and how I would have you be as a professional and as a functioning Presbyterian Christian. In another equally important sense I don’t want you consciously trying to conform to some recognized goal or standard.

I have told you that I want your major focus in teaching for the remainder of your career to be on the spiritual as a vital dimension in the health of a person and of a community. Because you know that the spiritual is the unifying dimension and does not seek its “own way” a concern for the spiritual does not mean talking about it ceaselessly. It should always be included, and you are comfortable introducing it quite naturally and differently in each of your classes.

Then the true test is whether you conduct the class in a spirited and spiritual fashion. You know that there are many spiritual paths here in the earth, so you must be accepting of the affirmation of different ways of recognizing and acknowledging spirit. You still must be cautious in revealing the details of your own path, guided so regularly by Me, the Holy Spirit. Yet you must also be aware of opportunities and take a few chances.

You shall have way more opportunities for the application of your spirit than you can realize. Success is measured not in the counting of accumulated actions, but in living generally true to your spiritual path. Thoughts, motivations, and little actions… spontaneous ones… are part of the measure of success. Your path is, in part, a mystical one, with intuition and spiritual leading (including some often sudden actions desired by Me) rather than one of clear, specified goals.

Even as you are different in some ways, you and Lenore are a spiritual team in this earth life. You are rightly discerning when you arrange to have her known by classes and by individual students. She often will, in her unique way, make contributions to lives that you cannot make. So, yes, one aspect of your spiritual paths in relation to students is devising ways for her to participate with them.

Yesterday offered a true evaluation. From out of the past came a man, a former student, who had not been obviously successful as a student of yours. You were frustrated at his lack of progress and in the ways he behaved, even as you knew his cultural values and expectations were different from yours. So he returns, with affirmations that both you and Lenore have influenced him in quite positive ways, and that he attributes some of his present success to you two. You took a chance in taking him into your home for a time, and that was appreciated. You were not consciously trying to be a good spiritual model, and this is important. You just did what you should have done.

Of all the opportunities that you have now, which are comparable to this success with Mohammed? Spend little time in trying to answer such a query. You know of letters long overdue which can have much good effect in lives. You must balance your life so that some of these are accomplished. If there is a truly special need I shall let you know in one of My many ways.