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5:4.3 All nonreligious human activities seek to bend the universe to the distorting service of self; the truly religious individual seeks to identify the self with the universe and then to dedicate the activities of this unified self to the service of the universe family of fellow beings, human and superhuman.
Jesus was an unusually cheerful person, but he was not a blind and unreasoning optimist. His constant word of exhortation was, “Be of good cheer.” He could maintain this confident attitude because of his unswerving trust in God and his unshakable confidence in man. He was always touchingly considerate of all men because he loved them and believed in them. Still he was always true to his convictions and magnificently firm in his devotion to the doing of his Father’s will.
16:7.7 A sense of proportion is also concerned in the exercise of virtue because evil may be perpetrated when the lesser is chosen in the place of the greater as a result of distortion or deception. The art of relative estimation or comparative measurement enters into the practice of the virtues of the moral realm.
“The hardest thing to do right, is to know that what’s needed is to do nothing at all.”
Sorry Bonita, I’ve really failed to put this into practice with you this morning. I hope you can forgive me.
111:6.3 It is the misuse, distortion, and perversion of the finite that gives origin to evil and sin.
The place where putting into practice the things that cause us to grow spiritually most are within the relationships we have with others. The relationship between parent and child being the most invigorating. When parents are positive and nurturing, children tend to become happy and confident when they grow up. Parents likewise benefit from the experience of raising kids and gain insight into the deeper spiritual realities of the relationship between man and the Father in heaven which can’t be had any other way. The more parents are able to withstand the negative things in life, the more everyone benefits in the family.
The fostering of true friendships can also be a place where these things can be put into practice properly. Marriage being the most important.
Even if these things are not as readily available as a part of life, due to isolation or circumstance, there are still many ways to interact with others, which will be enough to realize adequate spiritual growth, depending on one’s sincerity and the desire to serve one’s fellows.
“Love is the greatest of all spirit realities.”
“If my children are one as we are one, and if they love one another as I have loved them, all men will then believe that I came forth from you and be willing to receive the revelation of truth and glory which I have made.”
I do strive and make an effort to grow spiritually.
As for myself, I am completely unaware of any growth, spiritually speaking, that may or may not be going on in or with me. (I’m not aware of the growth of my fingernails either.) Growth is always unconscious..But one thing I can say for sure: I have been born again, and there is no thing, no person, no idea and no circumstance that can knock out my faith- love of God and my faith-confidence and my faith-assurance in God’s plan for me. He has a plan and I’m part of it. You are a part of God’s plan too.100:3:7 Man cannot cause growth, but he can supply favorable conditions. Growth is always unconscious, be it physical, intellectual, or spiritual. Love thus grows; it cannot be created, manufactured, or purchased; it must grow. Evolution is a cosmic technique of growth. Social growth cannot be secured by legislation, and moral growth is not had by improved administration. Man may manufacture a machine, but its real value must be derived from human culture and personal appreciation. Man’s sole contribution to growth is the mobilization of the total powers of his personality — living faith.100:4:1 Religious living is devoted living, and devoted living is creative living, original and spontaneous. New religious insights arise out of conflicts which initiate the choosing of new and better reaction habits in the place of older and inferior reaction patterns. New meanings only emerge amid conflict; and conflict persists only in the face of refusal to espouse the higher values connoted in superior meanings.
As for myself, I am completely unaware of any growth, spiritually speaking, that may or may not be going on in or with me. (I’m not aware of the growth of my fingernails either.) Growth is always unconscious.Mara,You may not be aware that your fingernails are growing but if you weren’t aware of any growth, why would you need fingernail clippers?In the same way, having provided favorable conditions, awareness of having grown spiritually is the same as being aware of having experienced spiritual birth in the first place.As for myself, I am completely unaware of any growth, spiritually speaking, that may or may not be going on in or with me. (I’m not aware of the growth of my fingernails either.) Growth is always unconscious.Mara,You may not be aware that your fingernails are growing but if you weren’t aware of any growth, why would you need fingernail clippers?In the same way, having provided favorable conditions, awareness of having grown spiritually is the same as being aware of having experienced spiritual birth in the first place.As for myself, I am completely unaware of any growth, spiritually speaking, that may or may not be going on in or with me. (I’m not aware of the growth of my fingernails either.) Growth is always unconscious.Mara,You may not be aware that your fingernails are growing but if you weren’t aware of any growth, why would you need fingernail clippers?In the same way, having provided favorable conditions, awareness of having grown spiritually is the same as being aware of having been born again in the first place.I want to become way less serious about my problems and to focus more on the work that is placed in front of me that is to be done.
One of the things I’ve struggled with over the years is overthinking everything. I should qualify that by highlighting “everything” as consisting of interpersonal situations that upset me, as well as the personal stuff about how I feel about myself in general. In one way I differ from you in that I do have the ability to focus on what is at hand. But I think what you say is about wanting to become less serious about your problems and more focused on what is placed in front of you is laudable. It seems to me the question becomes: How do you do that? Well, what comes to mind for me, and what has worked for me, is The Serenity Prayer. Once I got grip of what this prayer really said, and I applied it, I was greatly helped.
It seems to me the question becomes: How do you do that?
I like the Serenity Prayer too. But I also like this quote:
48:6.37 You will learn that you increase your burdens and decrease the likelihood of success by taking yourself too seriously. Nothing can take precedence over the work of your status sphere–this world or the next. Very important is the work of preparation for the next higher sphere, but nothing equals the importance of the work of the world in which you are actually living. But though the work is important, the self is not. When you feel important, you lose energy to the wear and tear of ego identity so that there is little energy left to do the work. Self-importance, not work-importance, exhausts immature creatures; it is the self element that exhausts, not the effort to achieve. You can do important work if you do not become self-important; you can do several things as easily as one if you leave your self out.
Somehow there is a way of self mastery where you are wise as serpents yet harmless as doves and that process for me has been a long road of disappointment and sorrow since I am always trusting at first before I have even gauged if trust is warranted. Street wisdom is not my strong suit. Long story short my naivete has stepped in the way of my forward progress due to the fact that I am once bitten twice shy.
I would suggest that your childlike and sincere impulse to trust in the goodness of others comes directly from your Thought Adjuster. This divine impulse comes from the experiential foundation of faith. What those who are wise in the ways of the world disdain and ridicule as naivete is, in truth, the seed of spiritual forward progress. “Happy are the pure in heart, for they shall see God.” Our brothers and sisters may not always prove worthy of the trust we place in them, but God is absolutely trustworthy. We may at times be bitten by evil when offering the good fruits of the spirit; this is an inescapable part of the spiritual struggle. Just consider how many times and in how many ways Jesus put his faith in those around him, only to be so often disappointed. But these experiences never caused him to waver in his determination to follow the path of faith.
Some might think it foolish to write such a guileless post on a public forum. I think it requires real spiritual courage, even if it pays little heed to the wisdom of the world. Job had the courage to open his heart to his friends about his troubles and received nothing but poor counsel and faulty advice from them, as well-intentioned as they might have been. But his spiritual courage eventually leads him to achieve a vision of God.
“Failure to receive help from man drives Job to God. Then ensues the great struggle in his heart between faith and doubt. Finally, the human sufferer begins to see the light of life; his tortured soul ascends to new heights of hope and courage; he may suffer on and even die, but his enlightened soul now utters that cry of triumph, ‘My Vindicator lives!'” (148:6.9)
Let not your heart be troubled, even if the good fight of faith is a true soul struggle.
From a different perspective the VA’s remedy designed to chase away the demons is always drugs that only induce the no brain vedgetative state that will steal your soul.
staying busy, developing and honing skills, learning to play piano, grandkids, doing volunteer work and the like to the point of exhaustion is a far more rewarding remedy. Follow up with prayer and sleep can happen. Then repeat.
i gave up on trying to identify spiritual growth.
In our world, it’s difficult not to be negative. Everything is no, no, no! Why the second we’re born, we’ve committed our first sin as the story goes. And it’s downhill from there.
When we are young, attending school, we’re taught much. As we grow physically, we take note of it. Likewise, as we learn what we’re taught in school, we also take note of how well we comprehend our lessons by various ways, tests and graduation. We get a sense of ourselves this way, how we’ve grown, what we can do, and use this knowledge from a place of strength and confidence to make the crucial decisions necessary to move further into adult life successfully, utilizing our training to build upon, and become more and more contributing in society, and at home with our family and friends.
All this is also true of our spiritual growth, education and graduation.
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