[tmtranscripts] North Idaho Teacher Group 8/5/01

[Rick P. Giles]

There have been reports that this transcript didn't make it through
cyberland, so I'm resending it.
Please accept my apologies if you have received this twice.

Rick

North Idaho Teaching Mission Group
Topics:Ministry, Application
Teachers: Helena, Elyon

August 5, 2001

	Ginny:  I would like to ask the teachers about ministry being so hard.  Am
I doing the right thing?  Is this what it's all about?
*	Helena (Jonathan TR):  I greet you, this is Helena.  I am happy to make
this contact in this manner.
	It is purposeful, your current engagement in ministry.  As you know from
experience your opportunities for outreach appear on the heels of attainment in
your own right.  The qualifications you have acquired are immediately
serviceable
to those around you.  The difficulty you experience is not due to your relative
level of preparedness, for that is given; you are prepared.  It is more that the
arena within which you are functioning in ministry is new and therefore
unsettling.
	Michael was our best example of technique in outreach, for his simple
method was keen interest in the individual he sought to bring closer to the
Father.  That interest impacted the soul of the one he sought to reach more than
his words.  Your opportunity is a two-fold blessing, for you are engaged with
Michael in reaching another in his flock, one of the strayed sheep.  You
know his
story of how the Father delights to seek for the lost single sheep while the
other ninety nine who are close to Him remain behind, that 
He may bring to fullness all who could and will be in His fold.
	Concomitant with your effort to bring understanding and knowledge and
insight to the table for nourishment of another soul, there is the function of
the flow of spirit, that water of life, the drink that accompanies the
nourishment.  This intangible spirit association is detected
super-consciously by
you and the one to whom you reach.  In your experiential background you can note
times when you have felt this infusion, this enfoldment, and the guidance
associated with the presence.  Trust ever and always the surety of this divine
overcare.  Picture a bucket on a pivot hinge balanced such that when it is empty
it's upright, but when it's full it tips and empties its content.  You have been
filled with a degree of wisdom and experience and are now able to tip and let
that life-giving water flow into the empty bucket below.  That becomes a gift to
another and a gift to you as you return upright to receive anew.  The friction,
the difficulties, are only the pivoting in order to give.  The transfer is the
work of spirit.
	You all have been taught that you will teach those just a little behind
yourself and will be taught by those just a little advanced from you.  This
holds
true.  There are unique situations, as you are encountering, wherein a soul is
reaching for a level and steps out of step with the path the soul has been
taking.  There is a chasm that must be crossed.  This is more difficult to
approach, for it is not the sequential manner of one lesson being taught by
another who has learned it but rather to bridge from one paradigm to another. 
You are recruited to this opportunity because you are prepared with the
necessary
ingredients to assemble that bridge and expedite the crossing to bring that
individual to the experiential step of growth where they would have been under
more ideal circumstances.  You will not be able to backtrack, to retrace
steps of
a journey that has tangented away from an expeditious course of growth.
	Be alert for any springboard, any comment, any expressed wish, hope, or
even grievance that may open discussion of conceptual considerations that you
have comprehended and are adept at expressing that could be that shunt which
will
allow the one you seek to serve to make that crossover.
	If you picture a vertical line, the path of ascent to the Father that all
individuals must make, everyone has a vertical line of their own that is less
than the ideal plumb path of ascent.  Each of us lies near, to some degree, that
perfect course.  There is where spirit enfolds all to draw us in to that ideal
ascension.  Some have let their lines tip to extremes away from that smooth
course of growth; some with keen intellects and demanding emotions which, while
powerful tools for growth, can also inhibit growth with the lure of deviation. 
This is what I mean by 'you will not be able to back up', to go down that
line to
the starting point to rise in a more ideal manner.  You will need to look
for the
crossover to help that individual adjust to the proximity of a better ascent.
	I hope I have been helpful.

	Ginny:  Thank you very much.
	When Jesus was with Ganid they met a person whom he decided not to help. 
His associates asked why.  He said because he knew that person couldn't be
helped.  At another time Jesus helped a youth in the hills because he knew
he was
receptive.  How do we develop a more delicate sense of when people are open to
our help?

*	Helena:  As you know from your studies that Jesus became a keen observer of
all mankind and sought to introduce himself to all manner of personalities that
he possibly could within the constraints of his environs.  This training of his
taught him the skills of discernment.  The one to whom he gave no counsel
was due
to his ability to discern drawn from prior encounters of those of like
orientation.  He did make comment to Ganid that this individual needed a
critical
experience to cause the desire or fellowship with their party, Jesus and Ganid,
such that this individual could catch the flavor and become hungry from the
spiritual aroma of those walking in the light.  He knew the time was not right.
	Your situation today is more like the one in the hills who is extremely
hungry but lost in just how to go about filling that need.  Notice how Jesus
worked the situation to bring about the recognition of the proper and helpful
path for that young fellow to take.
	In summary I would say that bringing yourself into contact with a variety
of personalities will sharpen your discernment for effective outreach, and any
particular episode -- this current one being a good example -- you may have a
relative degree of success and experience that fulfillment.  Or it may be the
step towards a more critical future contact ministry, this one a building block
for you as much as it would be a teaching and learning experience for the other.

*	Elyon:  I greet you, this is Elyon.  I am going to take a few minutes to
address the topic "application" as it ties into your conversation this day.
	You use this word in two ways that are applicable to service.  When you are
approaching an organization that you wish to be enlisted in, a business, a
college, you submit an application.  It is reviewed; you are interviewed,
and you
receive acceptance or perhaps not.  This is the first step in the mode of
ministry, that 'ask and you shall receive'.  I observe that my friends and
students in my tutelage have given application wholeheartedly; the forms are
thoroughly filled out, and you are all eager to be placed in assignment.
This is
the first step, the application in the form of asking.
	Now I observe a hunger to apply yourselves, to take your comprehension, to
bridle your longings, and to apply them in healing ministry, in educational
ministry, in counseling ministry.  This is the application of expression.  It is
likewise the answer to your prior asking, for in this dynamic of 'ask and you
shall receive', you in your application of your experience in outreach becomes
the 
reception, the answer, to your petition.
	The Most Highs rule in the kingdom of men when mankind engages in the
ministry of the Most Highs.  The Father works in the lives of those about you
when you are the means whereby the Father makes contact.  When you all ascend
into the morontia realities, you will be housed in vehicles with sensory
abilities that will be far more conducive to spiritual sensibilities.  There
will
be greater harmony with the divine spirit even before fusion on a scale that to
you this day would seem as good as fusion itself.  The great preacher Paul spoke
of looking through a dark glass.  This is the condition of the souls encased in
physical bodies.  It takes effort to reach the realm of spirit.  It takes great
faith and trust, the willingness through doubt, and to not experience reward. 
Those who have attained that assurance of spirit association are the very
individuals that the celestial ministers on this planet seek out as contact
individuals for the others in your life.
	All of you were brought to a deeper desire to discover the Father because
of some or several individuals in your lives who manifested this association
with
spirit.  It would be a delight to all the indwelling spirits that the Father has
bestowed upon this world if everyone could look within, realize the
presence, and
enter into fellowship.  That is more likely to happen in a morontia realm.
Here,
however, the reach inward often begins with a reach outward to another in one's
daily arena of activities.  Until the inner experiences awaken, you may be the
only divine fragment that the other individual experiences.  This is the reason
for the importance of stillness.  Indeed, it is important to have that
fellowship, creature with Creator, but it is also important for that fellowship
to be manifest from the creature in communion with the Creator to another
creature who seeks that association.  Your time of stillness is a time of
service, of preparation.  Indeed, being alone in the hills with the Father
can be
uplifting to the weary soul, but it is also directly associated with outreach to
the multitudes.  Though Jesus stood upon a rock and could speak to a crowd the
truths of the kingdom of heaven, he did more for those who sought his counsel
those times he spent alone with the Father, for the illumination of the truths
within him became the guiding light for those gathered about him.
	To return to my topic, being alone in the hills with the Father is your
application to be engaged in ministry and He will accept.  Then you must, as I
know you are willing, apply yourselves to the needs of the many who are
surrounding you in your daily life.  You may not stand upon a rock and preach to
multitudes, but you will have just as great an impact to touch the soul of
one as
if you were to touch the souls of many.  You know that Michael was very aware of
this principle, for the many would abandon him at the slightest disappointment. 
It is the few who held true in loyalty and trust that he cherished, though he
would never grow weary of seeking whoever wished to enter into the kingdom.  He
did hold dear to his heart those who were, and today are, wholeheartedly seeking
that entrance and engagement.
	If there are other questions, I would receive them at this time.
	Evelyn: I guess there aren't.
*	Elyon:  I will then draw a close in prayer:
	To our divine counselor, the Infinite Father of love, we seek the keen
orientation that Michael exhibited while dwelling upon this world Urantia   of
desiring to be about Your will and the patience of knowing when his hour had
come.  Granted that each of us as individuals is not engaged in a bestowal
mission of epochal significance, we may not have an hour; we may have a minute. 
May we be observant when that time has come and set down our tools and be about
Your business.
	May we be emboldened in the awareness that the significance of our mission
is shared by a multitude of personalities, that where sixty minutes are gathered
an hour has arrived. Let us draw our strength in this association knowing fully
of Your ever constant indwelling presence.