[tmtranscripts] S.E. Idaho Transcript 5-10-02

[Bill Kelly]

S.E. Idaho TeaM

5-10-02

Prayer(Bob S.): Hear these words of encouragement.   Never doubt the words
you hear if they ring true, for they have the impact, the authority, the
blessing of Him Who created us all.  Now we ask that each one here will
listen with open minds to the words which their elders have prepared for
them.  From the Master Who created all, we pray.  Amen.

Daniel(Bob S.): This is Daniel.  My friends, my companions, my stalwart
students, welcome.  On behalf of the teaching staff I give you our most
heart warmed thanks for your efforts last week to seriously deal with the
task before you and your efforts earlier tonight to rekindle those thoughts
and ideas which emanated from Aaron's work with you last week.  Tonight our
program will continue where last week's lesson left off.  We, again, have a
guest presenter who will guide us through this evening's lessons.  One
moment please.

Tomas(Bill K.): Greetings!  This is Tomas, your former teacher and devoted
friend.  I bring salutations and warm feelings from Gerdean who still feels
she is an essential member of this S.E. Idaho teaching mission family.  You
know that she is in a state of great comfort, for her heart's desire began
in Albuquerque where she and I teamed up and I began to transmit through
her lips. We have traveled the United States: the Eastern seaboard, the
Northwest, and now we are back in the comfortable climes of the Southwest.
She looks with pleasure at your transcripts for they do give a sense of
your spiritual comradery and progress.  She treasures, as do I, the time
that she was with you as it was most important that we team up with an
experienced TR, as well as provide opportunity for others of you to learn
the process of transmitting/receiving.  I have been assigned this evening's
main address, which I regard as a real privilege.  However, before the
prepared part of my lesson, I will respond to Jonderock's  comments. Thank
you, Bob, for jumping in and completing the circle of your participation in
this group by sharing your heart's desire to gain greater patience.  

The issue of patience has to do with the same topic that we have been
discussing from many Teaching Mission outposts.  The subject is learning to
balance one's personality so that Spirit rather than ego is in the driver's
seat.  Impatience is a manifestation of imbalance.  It is one of the out of
balance noises that the wheel makes when it is not spinning smoothly,
evenly, and in perfect balance.  Impatience implies that things are not
going the way the impatient one desires, either in direction or in time
frame.  It is a subtle, but real, manifestation of the ego, so you see.
Therefore, to request more patience is really to request more balance in
one's life.  

Notice that Jesus was characterized by a seeming lack of being in a hurry.
Many times his apostles asked him questions such as, "Now will you
establish the Kingdom?", meaning, "Are you going to get in gear and act, or
just keep talking?".  He would say, "My hour has not yet come. We must wait
on the Father for these things".  

Impatience was part of the fall of Lucifer, for he desired to speed up the
evolution of the universes.  He would have had, in the full universe
manifestation of Light and Life in the completion of the Supreme, the kind
of autonomy that he took upon himself to grasp.  He was sure that he had a
better way than Michael and this so called invisible Paradise Father.  Now,
please understand, I am not accusing any of you of the iniquity of Lucifer!
 I am pointing out that impatience was part of his problem.  Likewise, Adam
and Eve defaulted in their mission because they became weary.  The tempting
proposal to speed up the up-stepping of the races appealed to their
impatience and they yielded.  Jesus was completely patient because he knew
Who was in charge of the universe.  Even he,  a Creator Son, would wait
upon the will of his Father.  That is why I have characterized impatience
as an ego manifestation of personality imbalance.  

Thank you for proposing this very realistic, rubber meets the road type of
problem, Bob.  Please understand my words as devoid of criticism, stated or
implied.  If you all were perfectly in balance you would be up here in the
morontia estate, fused and progressing further on.  So it is a virtue to
recognize one's experiential status, one's areas of growth needs, rather
than to avoid them or deny their existence.  Therefor your prayer to be
more patient is of the highest order, being the desire to be more in
balance and to let your trust in our Father so settle your heart that
anxiety, irritability, and impatience will melt away as does the frost on a
sunny spring morning.  These are my words to you.

Bob: Thank you, Tomas.  Those are well placed words.  I feel you are right
on target.

Tomas: Yes.  So, now, I will discuss the material which I had prepared.
The topic that I wish to explore has to do with the partnership of faith
with hope as they are undergirded by love.

Faith that transcends the difficulties of life cannot be had without the
accompaniment of a living hope.  It is possible to have faith in all sorts
of things that do not have any hope component, but the faith that you need
to sustain you in your mortal living has to be in partnership with hope.  

When you are children your faith in the truthfulness of your parents comes
as a result of the verification that is provided by seeing them fulfill
their promises.  When they promise you something, then you have hope that
it will come to pass.  When it does come to pass, that strengthens your
faith in your parents.  If they give you promises that are not fulfilled,
you lose faith in the veracity of their words.  At the same time hope
diminishes as a result of flagging faith.  And underneath that faith and
hope the feeling of the security and the foundation of love also erodes.  

It is the same process which works in your adult life as well.  If you are
promised something and it does not come to pass, you lose faith in the
veracity of the promise maker.  If the promise you were given is couched in
the framework of love, that is, the thing promised is an evidence of love,
and it doesn't come to pass, you lose faith in the truthfulness of the
promise maker and you lose the sense that love is real when it is expressed.

Faith is trust in the goodness of God, in His love.  Hope is an expectation
that His promises will be fulfilled.  Have you not all experienced
fulfillment of the promises that have been given you by God?  Have you not
all discovered to some extent that as you turn your will over to the will
of your Indwelling Spirit that you do experience joy and peace?  Have you
not?  Have you not found that you have had the courage and the strength to
endure the difficult times; that you have been given the wisdom to solve
the problems that you have offered to the wisdom of a Higher Source?  Have
you not found that your faith grows as your hope is continually validated,
and underneath it all, then, your sense and awareness of the love that
powers the universe, the love of the First Source and Center, is the most
real of all realities?  

If your faith were based upon material promises, then you might be in
trouble!  If your faith is based on a sacred scriptural text, as are many
people's faith so based, then when that text is found to be faulty and
human in origin, your faith would crash.  And if your faith were based on a
material promise of prosperity and happiness in a bed of roses for life,
indeed, would your faith crash; and you would, like many people, say,
"Where is the God of love in this screwed up world!"  

It is in your own hearts that you have the evidence of the promises which
have been given you.  Jesus said many times that the Spirit within is Its
own proof.  It is your spiritual experience which is real, which is the
basis of your expanding faith and your exuberant hope.  It demonstrates
this contact and communion experience, that God loves each of us so much
that He has come and given us a part of Himself to be in our custody and to
be that great Gift.

This security of love, in the knowing of your sonship and daughtership, is
a reality so profound that no material catastrophe can truly shake it.
Therefor, Jesus often pointed out that even if all things material were to
crash, what would this matter to a believer in the Kingdom of Heaven.  The
up and downs of life, the good and bad fortunes that come and go, these
things and circumstances do not touch your spiritual reality, your soul,
and do  not jeopardize your eternal ascension career.

Now, while all of this is true spiritually, do not conclude from my
comments that you are not allowed to enjoy your material world.  Such a
conclusion would be grossly in error!  I am talking about the basis of
faith and hope and the underlying divine love which is one spiritual unity
experience.  This is not to say that the material realm is illusion,  or
that it is wrong to enjoy the comforts of home, to take pleasure in your
hobbies and enjoy your friends and family; of course not!  All of this is
to be enjoyed fully.  

Just don't put your treasure in the material realm.  Let it be in the
Kingdom of Heaven.  For where your treasure is, there will your heart be,
also, said our Lord. We have talked before about this materialistic error
at this point in the development of Urantia.  It was the error that Jesus
addressed, a misplaced value system, where people are trusting in the
security of their material wealth and in the source of meaning and love
coming only from human resources,  rather than trusting in the love of God
which is shown abroad in their hearts.

I am going to conclude now at this point and see if I have muddied the
waters for you in some respects so that you need to clarify what I have
said; or for you simply to comment as you wish and interact with me.  The
floor is now yours.

Virginia: Tomas, as you were talking this came into my mind.  I want to
clarify what I think you were talking about in that love, love of the
Father is underneath.  I saw this line, and above that faith plus hope
equals a spiritual life.  We need the faith to have hope beyond the
existence we are in.  Am I understanding what you said?

Tomas: Indeed did you see exactly the picture that Isaac was seeing.  So
you have both caught my intention.  Yes, underneath is the love.  Divine
love is why everything exists.  But faith and hope conjoined together,
faith in a spiritual experience and a hope that has seen fulfillment in the
fruits of the Spirit within one's life, you see.  So, exactly have you seen
what I was trying to convey.  Thank you very much for your feedback.

Virginia: You just broadened it a bit saying that the expression or the
equal signs are the fruits of the Spirit.  That is a better sum of the
equation, faith plus hope equals the fruits of the Spirit.  Thank you.

Tomas: Certainly that is part of the concept I was trying to convey.
However, you original statement is also true.  The hope is not a hope in
just the limited mortal experience, but it is a hope that carries on into
eternity.  So you were right, also, in your original expression.

Virginia: Thank you.

Tomas: Other comments or questions?

Lori: As always, Tomas, you put it together so eloquently and beautifully.
I also had the graphic image of love, faith, hope and back again to love,
faith, hope.  Very clearly.

Tomas: Wonderful.  When Paul said, "And now remain faith, hope, and love,
but the greatest of these is love", he has been misunderstood when some
conclude that only love matters.  What he was trying to say was that love
is the greatest because it is the underlying reality.  If there were no
love, there would be no faith and hope. So, thank you for your perception,
also, of the same graphic reality.  

Bob S.: I had a little different picture.  The picture that I had is that
the love of the Father is underlying our faith and hope, but out of that
isn't more love generated in our lives.

Tomas: Indeed!  Jonderock, you are an A student tonight.

Bob: No, Ken is the A student.  I am the A- student.

Tomas: No, you share the honors. (Bantering and comments.)  If you prefer
to quibble over who gets an A or an A-, that is your business.  I will
continue with what I was saying, however, and this is what I wanted to
complete my thoughts with, my friend, Jonderock.  You are exactly right.
The love which you give out is part of that mosaic which is the powerizing
of the Almighty Supreme.  The complete picture is that love comes from God,
goes through the individual personality in service and then comes back to
the Supreme which results in the eventual perfectedness of the time/space
universes.  I was narrowing the focus down to the trinity of faith, hope,
and love.  So thank you for adding that dimension to it.  Are there other
contributions that you would make?

Ken: I would just say, Tomas, welcome to our group here this evening.  Your
lessons are excellent and I would like to add that we send our love and our
respect to Gerdean.

Tomas: Very good, my friend.  Indeed, I am comfortable here in the presence
of you all.  Gerdean would give her eye teeth to be here tonight!  So I
will convey that love, and she will see it in print, too.  Well, then, our
evening is concluded.  I am given the honor of the closing prayer.  Let us
stand and hold hands once again.

Eternal Father, You have not hidden Yourself in eternity but come into each
of us through Your Spirit presence.  Eternal Son, You have not been aloof
in Paradise but have come to us through Your Creator Son, Christ Michael.
Infinite Spirit, You are the very Source of our mind, the life of our
bodies through Your Divine Minister Whom we all worship and honor along
with all other aspects of Deity.  All praise be to You.  All glory be to
You.  All joyful obedience be to You, for You are that absolutely
overflowing, gracious, Source of Love which underlies our very beings.
Help us to remove the blocks that ego would put in the way to that flow of
Love through us, so that we can experience the joy of serving each other
and contributing to the perfection of the Supreme.  We ask all these things
because we are Your children.  Amen.