[tmtranscripts] Ham on a life of service

[David G. Schlundt, Ph.D.]

10/03/2004

Ham: Greetings, children, I am Ham and I am very happy having you here 
this evening. You each are making consistent and fairly steady progress 
in your spiritual lives. Each of you consistently engages in spiritual 
self-examination and spiritual self-reflection. You are also growing in 
your individual ability to effectively pray because your spiritual 
priorities are growing in importance in your lives. Prayer then becomes 
an effective tool in orienting the mind and the will toward the 
spiritual rather than allowing the physical stresses of life the upper 
hand. When you have true spiritual priorities they orient all of your 
thinking and all of your life's decisions toward the spiritual priorities.

The life of the spirit then begins taking on a life of its own, so to 
speak so that when you are giving your life to the spirit, the spirit 
gives your life also to you. A life of selfless service is that which is 
most exciting and rewarding. When you actually succeed in removing the 
factor of narrow self-interest from your thought process, then greater 
purposes can invade your will. This is the purpose the Master gives you, 
it is not the purpose you design for yourself. To be willing to be used 
for the Master's purpose creates the thrilling possibility that some 
minor interaction, some chance encounter, may be a turning point for 
some person you don't even know.

Those who are certain about God's power do not seek to create power of 
their own but rather seek to be instruments of God's power instead never 
knowing the outcome, never deciding such things. Those who are certain 
of God's power can rest in quiet certainty about all things in life. To 
the one certain of God's power, man's power looks tiny and vain. So for 
those happy people who rest their hearts in certainty, the pressures of 
life grow smaller because the great certainty of God's love overshadows 
all else.

The kingdoms of the world are temporary things. The great riches of the 
world count as nothing in the kingdom of heaven for in that kingdom, the 
humble street sweeper who gave God's love to all he encountered did more 
and is counted greater in the kingdom than the most powerful human on 
earth.

Of course the Father desires that you should use the talents he has 
given you, that you should each develop what you have and grow in the 
spirit through the use of your God-given abilities in doing good and 
serving your fellows in the world. The Father loves all his children and 
desires for all his children to love him and to bring for his love. 
Human beings always, as all children do, must test their own strength. 
You must come to the end of your own human efforts before turning to the 
spirit. But happiness is only found by turning to the spirit first 
rather than last. Happiness and contentment are only arrived at by 
making your lives a process of dedication to your highest ideals and 
those highest ideals always reside in the spiritual realm, even in the 
Father's person.

Each of you is always going through a process of moral decision making 
both in your personal conduct as well as other broader issues and 
orientations. This moral decision making must continually be fine tuned 
because the decisions you made yesterday have to be made again in a 
slightly different way today and made yet again in an even more 
different way tomorrow. All of this moral decision making brings you 
closer to the Master's ultimate will for you. If you forgive someone 
today, you may still have to forgive that person tomorrow and still 
another the day following. There is never a point when all decisions 
have been made for the progress of eternal life consists in progressive 
decision making and continual adjustment of one's self to God and to 
God's creation. All of mankind's progress comes from the gradual 
adjustment of society to ever advancing ideals.

Each generation must rediscover Jesus and his life. You must reorient 
your society to an ever expanding conception of God's will for mankind. 
This constant process is the steady advancement of each individual 
mortal. The Father loves mankind as a whole, yes, but he loves each 
individual completely and the Father values each human being equally. 
The choice of eternal life is in your own hands for the Father to trust 
his children with their own ultimate destiny decision is testament to 
the profound love the Father gives to each individual personality.

Each individual gradually comes to exalt every more true and lasting 
values. Each human life progresses in this way and so the glittering 
fools gold of youth is gradually and painfully replaces with true spirit 
value and a gradual deepening and appreciation of value in others.

Let us go now to addressing each of you this evening.

Rebecca, you are doing very well my daughter. Do not be concerned or 
worried about yourself. Continually fling off the old insecurities which 
are a false refuge. Cling instead to truth and the Master's hand and 
allow him to guide your way rather than ever thinking that you must plan 
for your future rather you must be open to your future instead.

Amalain, you are also doing well my dear. You also have a tendency to 
over involve your own emotions and personal feelings with things that 
are outside of your control. In this way you can kick yourself over 
something that isn't your fault, but you can pretend it is. You must 
instead release this need to experience guilt and to be responsible 
about things you can't be responsible for. Similar to Rebecca, both of 
you were made to feel to much responsibility as children and you 
willingly took on guilt and shame for the family as a whole. You cannot 
continue this process as adults. You must release these old cycles of 
guilt and the assuaging of guilt through penance. The Master has said 
many times, give me your burdens. Now is the time for you to do this. 
The sins of the world are not on your shoulders. Is this helping your 
understanding my dear?

Q: Yes, thank you.

Ham: My daughter Julia. My dear, you are also learning to let go of the 
old patterns of childhood as well. You have long felt yourself to be at 
some level outside the family, outside the family of humanity even and 
now you are beginning to adjust to the feeling of being chosen and 
worthwhile and valued. Your orientation in life is changing and this 
will change your life in profound ways. But this change will be internal 
before it is external. He who saves his life shall lose it, while he who 
loses his life for the Master's sake finds it. You are beginning this 
process of losing the old life and you will gain a greater life. You are 
doing very well my dear.

Howard, my son you also do well. You are truly coming to a new 
orientation as well and you are beginning to find your own values, your 
own truth. Much of your life has been a process of elimination, 
rejecting some things while not finding some thing better to replace 
those things your rejected. Still you are straddling two realities. You 
are trying to be ever mindful of the Master's presence while also being 
rebellious of the Master's presence as well. So you are still going back 
and forth on some personal level. But, truth is more powerful and the 
Master's love makes certain demands. One of those demands is that you 
should develop and nurture ever greater levels of self-respect and 
self-acceptance. Man gains self-respect through devotion to higher 
purpose. Devotion to self, by the self, results invariably in 
self-debasement. The spirit demand always your total self. Devotion to 
God cannot be split or parsed. You are moving though toward ever greater 
levels of decision making and this process will inevitably result in 
ever more complete personal devotion to a personal God, even though now 
this is still through a glass darkly for you. It will not be for long. 
Is this helping your understanding?

Q: Thank you very much, yes.

Ham: Jarad, you are also moving ever more completely toward total 
unselfish commitment to a higher calling. You must release the 
attachment to outcome in your work for like the man who sweeps the 
streets giving his message to love, you do not know the effect of your 
work in the world and you can never know it. This knowledge is for the 
Father. The effort is yours and the results belong to the supreme being. 
This is something your must internalize and make your own. Fear not, my 
children, for you all do well.

My son Brodan, you are also gradually but certainly moving toward this 
same orientation. For likewise, you do not know the effects of your work 
in its entirety and gradually it is dawning upon all of you that you 
cannot know those things which are impossible for you to know.

The Father holds all things in his awareness. Each of you influence the 
future in innumerable ways you will never comprehend. Part of maturity 
is the gradual acknowledgment of all that you cannot know. It is also 
the gradual acceptance of things you cannot control. Human beings have a 
hard time accepting they are not gods and each of you is going through 
this gradual acceptance. Release then your attachment to specific 
outcomes. You may have goals, of course, but you should not be so 
attached to specific goals that when the Father tries to give you 
something greater, you do not understand and cannot accept it. Progress 
in the spirit is made by the progressive acceptance of God. Coming along 
with that it the progressing acknowledgment that you are not God. And 
though this seems to be self-evident and simple, human beings are so 
constituted as to be capable of great internal self-deception so that 
they can believe themselves to have god-like wisdom. This is the trap 
that each generation must avoid. Making human beings into God helps 
nothing and causes untold suffering needlessly. Constantly keep sure of 
the fact of God's sovereignty over all things human and you will find 
life much sweeter and easier to bear as it is. Love each other my 
children and do not tire of loving. Love when it is hard. Love when it 
is impossible and you will find God.

At times when Rebecca grows weary the words seem to lean toward 
conclusion, sometimes prematurely.

Yes my son, this lesson you are undergoing is one of releasing control. 
For you have also taken on too much of the sins of the world to your 
shoulders and you have also walked in the valley of guilt and shame at 
length during your lifetime. But, you are now growing into a realm of 
greater balance and greater inner peace. You have reached now a new 
level of feeling at home in the universe and of knowing yourself to have 
been a purposeful creation of God. Human beings in the modern world have 
grown up thinking of themselves as accidents in time, as though your 
existence is just a chance event without purpose or planning or reason. 
You have even looked upon those who claim to be purposefully created 
sons of God as having to feel this way out of emotion despair. But this 
is not so. One comes to understand the greater dimension of life not 
from weakness and despair but from the robust decision making of the 
spiritual life. Accepting truth is never easy when the old concepts were 
comforting in the past. When they are being replace by greater spiritual 
concepts and awareness, there is always some pain associated with 
letting go of the old. But you, my son, are doing this and you are ever 
reaching for the greater and more profound spiritual concept and 
orientation in life. Never shrink from this and do not be tempted to 
turn backwards. The spiritual life is like the brass ring that must be 
stretched for and reached for. It is never simply given. Is this helping?

Q: Yes, thank you so much for everything.

Ham: You are welcome my son. Are there any further questions? Very well 
my children, all is well. Be at peace.

-- 
*_*_*_*_*_*_*_*_*_*_*_*_*_*_*_*_*_*_*_*_*_*
David G. Schlundt, Ph.D.
Associate Professor of Psychology
Department of Psychology
Vanderbilt University
301 Wilson Hall
Nashville, TN  37203

Phone: (615)322-7800
Fax: (615) 343-8449
Email: David.Schlundt at Vanderbilt.edu
*_*_*_*_*_*_*_*_*_*_*_*_*_*_*_*_*_*_*_*_*_*
To science God is a possibility, to psychology
a desirability, to philosopy a probability, to
religion a certainty, an actuality of religious
experience

The Urantia Book, page 1125
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