Spiritual Adapting

NOV. 6, 1981, 5:22 AM
FARM, STUDY

You spoke at length yesterday, o son, about adapting as a measure of health, and you also spoke, in some detail abut the spiritual as a dimension of health. This morning let Me help you think about the combination of these two – spiritual adapting.

Adapting is what you do in new and unique situations… or in familiar situations when some of the elements are missing or have been changed. Successful adapting means accomplishing what you desire or need to accomplish in some new or altered way. Hear some examples of spiritual adapting.

The first shall involve Me. Yes, this is a good case in point. Your spirit is not attuned to Me this morning. Your mind dwells on other matters and will not “turn off” as it should. You still must write this lesson, so your spirit must do some adapting. Can it override the mind? Is that the best strategy? Can it encourage the mind, gently and easily, to cease and desist for a time, in order that spirit might direct? Is there some strategy other than force or persuasion when your time is limited?

Consider also that your spirit, despite its record of maintaining good, fruitful contact with Me, is functioning below normal today. You see that this adapting is an artful combination of trying harder and not trying. This is a key feature in spiritual adapting – learning how to generate the most functional combination of effort and non-effort. You see at some point trying harder becomes counter-productive… more effort produces less result. Still, if you ceased effort all together you would probably have nothing on your paper, and the morning meditation would have been a flop.

In a situation such as this I am adapting to you at the same time you are adapting to Me. You know I am ready with the teaching but we are in “poor tune” as the sky lights up outside. One approach to adapting would be to quit completely now and pick up the lesson at another time, in another place. You have done this before, with some success. But this does not seem to be an appropriate strategy for this time. Continuation is the way of the morning.

You have not experienced many true failures. The Scott-Foresman project was one, and that required some spiritual adapting. You had tried… you had functioned as a writer as best you could. You tried adapting to what was desired, and the response was that you had not been successful. Also I have suggested, at least, that this would be a good experience for you. Your spirit must accept the reality of defeat and yet must defend the self. It must feel, as you are beginning to feel now, the opportunities for growth that come uniquely in defeat. You know that here on your Farm waste can become a resource. In like fashion, one aspect of spiritual adapting is the capacity to see that growth and development can result from situations of failure.

Continuous success would be comparable to never ending sunny, warm days. Initially this is a stimulus to growth, but finally growth ceases if there are not some gray days of steadily falling rain.