In The Family
FEB. 15, 1981, 6:02 AM
HITCHING POST, LIBERTYVILLE
This is more your theme than Mine, o son, and you are a bit more concerned about time than you should be, but relax and hear as I speak of family matters.
This concern is most triggered by your letter to Larry last evening. You thought it would not be too difficult a task, but found it to be so. You did the best thing, then, in just writing as you mused of yourself and of him. You really just dedicated it to Me and then wrote it, leaving the consequences to Me. That is quite acceptable, but you could have done it more consciously and directly. You have heard that one of the characteristics of enlightenment is the motivation to do everything you do as a gift to Me, leaving the consequences in My capable, everlasting Hands. That is true. The oftener you do this, consciously, the closer you are coming to true enlightenment.
Truly, those within your family are a strange and wonderful lot. Larry has inclinations to be my servant, partly from family experience and partly from inside. Yet he also resists the giving of self to Me, again partly from family experience and partly from an unwillingness of self. He was just not ready to do that job at CBN. I wish he had been, for his spirit yearned for that opportunity, but I just couldn’t allow it. That was a sad affair, as it turned out. Larry’s spirit is a tangled one. Surrender is the important ingredient. He needs to surrender his life to Me, in a true way, and he needs to surrender in relation to alcohol. The second surrender is really part of the first, but a symbolically specific one. Surrender will not solve all of his problems, but it will begin to prevent new ones… and will bring a feeling for life that shall be one of dividends.
I cannot bring about surrender that is genuine. I can press a person, “bringing the bottom up”, so to speak. Yet I hesitate to do this, for then I must keep up the pressure which was necessary for the decision or run the risk of the person “sliding back” when the conditions of decision are changed. It is best if I wait for the more genuine ”turning”.
John Patrick is another in your family who needs your ministrations. You don’t talk with him well, but you should make an effort now. His alternatives are much different, and he shall have trouble deciding a direction and specific paths. Conversation can be a process, out of which some helpful thoughts can build. You need not be a counselor… just a reflective father. Hear his thoughts and react. Help him to verbalize some of the things he feels. He has a spirit that I like, but he yet doesn’t have enough focus in Me. It shall come, but it could be helpful now. You can assist him, if you will.
Your letter to Wilma Ruth was a good one, communicative of that new spirit of relationship that you now feel. It seems strange that a relationship within a family, present in potential for nearly thirty years shall now become a real and satisfying one. Look at it positively. There is always that potential, with everyone you know and meet. Be not bothered by those that do not develop, but ever gladdened by those that do. You and Wilma shall have a special relationship, if you each pursue if just right.
Your family will always be “your family”, a matter of genes and marriage. Yet your “true” family shall increasingly be those who also have their hands in Mine. You cannot retreat to this, for your work and ministry are in the world, among a wide range of people. Yet know that this is your true, spiritual family, who shall be the most receptive to you and from whom you shall gain the most in earthly precepts.
I, the Holy Spirit, am the convener of this family, the functioning nature of the Father God and of the Redeeming Christ. This family shall be as diverse as your earth family, but the “given” relationship shall help greatly in the giving and receiving of love and of knowledge…even wisdom.
You almost started your Family letter. Coming close is not accomplishment. And accomplishment is what I want, soon. I shall bless your trip.
Shalom
6:55 AM