Living Life Fully

SUN., JUNE 16, 1996, 6:35 AM
FARM, STUDY

Earth life is a unique adventure. Like all good adventures there is the possibility of gain or loss, of success and failure. As I have told you, endlessly, the central purpose of an earth life is spiritual growth. Most of you humans don’t realize this… or realize it in a very dim, limited way. At the end of any day you could be asking yourself, “In what ways has My spirit “progressed” today.” Even you, with all of My friendship and guidance don’t do this. But then I’ll say, part of the adventure is living life relatively unconscious of its central purpose and of what this “purpose” means.

You are pleased and proud to have been named Teacher of the Year for the University. This wasn’t a goal of yours, but you did have to make a prepared document, so, in a sense, you were conscious of the possibility. Still, what you did as a teacher wasn’t pointed directly toward this specific award. Somehow what you had achieved, as a teacher, represented by the words and numbers, in your “presentation”, enhanced by the spirit of what you and others wrote, came forth, and you were chosen. Consciously and unconsciously this has affected and influenced your teaching style since. You were called an outstanding teacher once, so now you approach each teaching opportunity with that as your base. Continue to be outstanding… even if this isn’t an adjective I apply to you very often.

It has bothered you some that your research and publication “career” has diminished greatly over these last years. You were never named Researcher of the Year, and you are not surprised. You performed this well enough to be successful here at this institution, but your professional goal has been more focused on being a good teacher. During Our time together I have encouraged you to see this as an art form rather than something more scientific and measurable. And you now “live” this rather fully, even as the “creation of a work of art” in each class takes more and more time and effort, for you. So… you are in the process of living your life fully as a teacher, in classes that you love.

Today is Fathers Day, so how fully have you lived your life as a father? You have pleasant memories of your fathering of young boys, even as you had more than you were comfortable with… and you also were trying to be a successful professional, with time a limitation. The memories of your relative failures as the father of teenagers have dimmed, but you saw yourself as quite less than outstanding during those years. And yet these sons have become responsible adult men (with some lagging in Matthew) and good fathers, themselves. You can’t take excessive credit for this, but it is one obvious result of you and your efforts. You couldn’t have lived life as fully as you have without that time of trial… those teen years.

Other spirit realms don’t have the range of challenges that I’ve allowed, here in the earth. You needed this challenge in your life, as a kind of balance to your good health, your good marriage, your successful career, and your adequate financial resources. You came through it reasonably well, including the experience of one son being killed. This is a unique challenge to spirit, as other deaths may be for other people.