Faith & Faithfulness

SUN., OCT. 17, 1982, 5:58 AM
FARM, STUDY

You come this morning, o son, in faith… faith that I shall speak to you and move this red and silver pen across this soft green paper for an hour or so. You have faith that the words and thoughts presented will be worth the early rising and the slight discomfort of the chilly room. But, of course, this faith is a product of performance, for you have ample evidence that I can and will give you these teachings in this somewhat unique way.

When you commenced this act of faith, now more than 3 ½ years ago, it was much more a matter of faith. I had called you, I had given back what you wanted and needed (your manuscript), so you, having made a commitment, were in a quiet place honoring your commitment, but with a faith based on flimsy evidence that the time would be well spent.

Now you know the result will be a special, helpful teaching, but I have not done that which was Mine to do in this present commitment. The manuscript is still missing. I have not been faithful, but you have. An interesting turnabout. Carry it through, nevertheless, including the extra day, and don’t do anything on the retyping until this commitment has been fulfilled. You shall learn an important lesson from this experience. Have faith that this shall be so.

As I have told you before, faith is what your spirit knows. Oh, Paul’s affirmation still has merit… it is the substance of things hoped for and the evidence of matters unseen. But this is more a matter of faith in terms of the mind. Hope is usually a matter of both mind and spirit. (You hope, for example, that somehow those pages of typed Ruminations will appear, somewhere and somehow, for your mind knows the cost, in time and effort, of the retyping task. Your spirit hopes, too, but with less urgency. Your spirit knows that I am involved and therefore the final consequence will be worthwhile.) The mind hopes, while the spirit knows.

Faithfulness is a matter of being true to that or whom in which you have faith. Faith is a condition of mind and spirit. You have faith that your class will gather this morning, in one of its myriad forms. Your mind assures you that because this has happened repeatedly it is likely to occur yet again today. Your spirit knows that the reason for this “faithfulness” on the part of class members is the quality of the teachings and their capacity to sustain a discussion for the full class hour. At times you have had little faith that this would happen, but now you have much evidence on which present faith is built. You shall be there with a teaching and the skill to manage the discussion. This is faithfulness. You shall be faithful because they are faithful, and they, in turn, are faithful partly because you are. Yet if there were only three there this morning the class would still go on, and you would be faithful next Sunday, nevertheless.