John Baker

FRI., OCT. 7, 1983, 6:04 AM
FARM, STUDY

You are slow in responding to My call this morning, o son. Your mind wanders, and seems reluctant to be stilled and hear. I am glad that you discerned My commitment call to you this week. You were becoming a bit too lax in coming to learn from Me, and you haven’t kept a term commitment for some time, so I extracted an easy, gentle one. I’ll even modify it to include work on the Ruminations… but four mornings a week it shall be for the weeks remaining in this month, commencing with this one.

After this introduction… I shall affirm that I have some comments on that ever-emotional film you and your class saw last evening, “John Baker’s Last Race.” It is a unique film about a young man’s capacity to accept his impeding death and to live life fully and for others until he died. Though there was no mention of Me or of reliance on the strength of God that I offer, it was an ultimately spiritual film.

You are privileged to live on toward old age… which means that you were not one to die in childhood or youth. You have had your own children and now your own grandchildren. You have buried one son, but experience four others progressing toward or into good manhood. But note I say that this is a privilege, not a right. There can be no secular, governmental guarantee of life or health. Oh, you can accept the illusion that a government such as yours can do this, but there can be no guarantee.

John Baker died from a fault in his own body. Magnificently as it had performed in competitive running and no matter how powerful his spirit was (and still is!) his life on this earth was a short one. And yet he lived it in such a memorable fashion that it is recorded and maintained… in order that still other lives might be influenced and turned by it. Consider the number of humans who live on into much older age and then die, virtually forgotten… or not remembered or noted.

You know that I have taught you repeatedly that the ultimate goal is to live your life for others and for Me. John Baker had the chance to do this fully BECAUSE he knew he would die soon. Life and good health can be barriers to this development and manifestation of spirit. In your own life you know that you have lived selfishly… for your own satisfaction and pleasure for much of your time here in the earth. Those times cannot be undone. And they have helped to bring you to where you are now. And from here I call on you increasingly to truly dedicate and consecrate what you do to Me.

Take the time to write letters. Take the time to write positive and constructive comments on students’ papers. Continue to have students here at the Farm. It is a giving of self in which Lenore also can have an active part.

It truly does not matter whether you live on for one year or the thirty one you project. If John Baker had lived longer he could have touched more lives, and, yes, the earth would have been “improved” by this. Or one could say that if I, as Jesus, had lived a long life with many more years of ministry, the earth would have benefited. Perhaps. But not guaranteed. There is a value in knowing that the end of your influence is near… in the physical sense.