Faith

DEC. 13, 1980, 7:16 AM
CROW CANYON, DINING TABLE

Faith, o son, is such an important aspect of the spiritual dimension to health… your professional focus… that I must teach you some more about it… as you watch the hills become more golden. Faith is, first of all, a gift from Me, and it is given in different proportions to different people. Yet it also can be developed from the exercise of spirit. Since Faith is fundamentally “in Me” each incident in which you feel My presence and influence is an exercise of faith.

There is an important difference between the strengthening of faith and scientific proof, which is a favored way of knowing in your culture. Science (and pragmatism) look for success and positive results as its criterion. Faith develops as fully from experiences that should be called unsuccessful as from obvious triumphs in which I am involved. For example, at this point your leg is not feeling better and better… healing is not dramatically clear. This morning it seems to be worse. Yet I have told you that this is a time of healing and that you must have faith in Me and in the healing capacities of your good body. Continue to do the exercises and exert the rhythm of rest and exercise that maintains and builds strength.

You see, relationship with Me is ultimately satisfying and rewarding, but faith, one of the fundamentals of your relationship with Me, must be tested and some of those tests must stretch your evaluation of results. When I seem to have failed… when My way and My affirmations have not seemed to “ring true”… what do you do? How do you feel? If you give up on Me because of some apparent ”failure” then faith is weakened, and our relationship loses some of its vitality. Faith is strengthened by a rhythm of “success” and “failure”… just as all important spiritual relationships are.

The relationship between two people in marriage grows strong and stronger because of a combination of wonderful, awful, and blah incidents and experiences. If the principle of faith had not been eroded by the principle of scientific pragmatism there would be fewer marriage break-ups and more strong marriages. The criterion of “success only” or “success mostly” is that which makes for instability. Coupled with that, many people have a time frame that is too brief… they look for positive results in too short a time.

One of the characteristics of relative spiritual maturity is a longer sense of time. Again I can say this is a gift from Me, but it usually is in relation to actual spiritual development over lifetimes in the earth and in learning and serving in other realms as life continues. Oh, I could enact a miracle and give a deep, powerful, strong faith to one who has not developed to merit it. Picture a man (as you just did, in your spiritual mind) with a beautiful new suit. It is of fine material, well tailored, a suit to be admired, even coveted. However, it is too large. The man is proud of it, but it does not feel comfortable, and his movements within it are not pleasing to self or to others. If he is a man he shall not “grow into” the suit. It shall be just “not right” for him, and despite its beauty and elegance he shall always have some uneasiness in wearing it.