2002-04-07-Confidence

Session

Opening

Elyon (Jonathan TR): Dear friends, this is Elyon. Again I welcome you to the classroom. This time of exchange is one that I look forward to. It is my moment to interact with my fellow human beings. I cherish witnessing your expressions both of delight over your weekly activities, how they integrate with your ideals, and your troubles and how you wrestle for meaning and apply your insights for improvement. That brings me to a topic, and that is "confidence". I would like to discuss its meaning.

Lesson

Confidence

A certain element to confidence is a sense of stability, fidelity, trustworthiness, as would be the case if you step upon a bridge you are confident it will sustain your weight and carry you across. Naturally confidence is gained through experience by having exerted in an unfamiliar arena and witnessed for yourself success, to have witnessed attainment where beforehand you were uncertain if you would be in any way capable of accomplishing the goal. But there is another aspect to confidence besides an experiential exposure and the trust in yourself that results, and that is the ability to seek counsel, to receive wisdom in the advice of fellows, to receive coaching and encouragement. This confidence is the precursing confidence to successful attainment rather than the confidence that follows after the experience of success. It does no one well to struggle through uncertainty, to apply oneself in a manner wherein one is unfamiliar both in skill and in knowledge, by oneself.

Support, counsel, is vital to bringing that sense of fulfillment, worth, and ability when your goal is attained and the task is over. To approach uncertainty without confidence indicates, or should, to you that you have some preparatory work ahead of that which you seek to do that is bringing this uncertainty. It is not the time for a false confidence, a blinded pursuit, an aggressive push without the use of wisdom or insight. It is not a weakness to present to another your frailties, for they are not false but rather are markers of areas of need that can be filled with the help of another, can be addressed in preparation that you may work around the lack if you are not situated to replace that lack with the required mechanism to accomplish your task. Urantia has been left with a legacy of self-assertiveness that, while the trait is beneficial in the grander perspective of the ascension to Paradise as it was instilled upon this world, has caused much strife and hurt at the expense of others.

Teamwork

It is important in the times in which you live now to modulate the drive to excel with a connected and interconnected reliance upon counsel and a broad stance through cooperation with others. You have been told of the value of teamwork. Teamwork in itself is not the effect of merely the whole, the team, but rather the excellence of each individual in coordination. So, you are not to lose self identity in belonging to the team, but rather as a team you are each encouraged to rise to your highest potential. When a ball player enters the field and knows his team players trust him, he has confidence, though at any moment standing at the plate he may not have the confidence that he will hit that ball. Having placed a homerun he now has the accomplishment of experience and knows, even though he may fail many more times at bat, he can hit a homerun.

Faith plays a great role in your sense of being capable, and fraternity also is a large factor in supporting your faith. Lastly, always remember the Father who has such confidence in you that you have been blessed with His divine presence surrendered to your sovereign will, dedicated to your welfare, allowing you to choose your life course, ever ready to adjust you as you accept the adjustment. Your divine presence within is a guide, but this guide will not pull you along. This guide waits for you to choose and then shows you how to proceed. That is a great confidence that the Father holds for each of you, trusting that you are capable of finding your way to Him on Paradise. I wish now to hear from you, if you have a thought to contribute.

Dialogue

Experience

Jonathan: We were talking about a transmission that seemed to indicate that our life here is important and is our time for experiential life and that the mansion worlds will not be. Does that imply that the mansion worlds are not an experiential undertaking? We know that all of the realm of the Supreme is experiential. Can that session be clarified?

Elyon: I would first, to bring clarification, use the Master's life as an example of a larger spectrum of time, your earth life and your morontia life. When Michael took it upon himself to undertake his seventh bestowal, he left behind much of his prior powers and knowledge to be born as an infant. Subsequently he grew and gathered knowledge as each of you have in your growing up. He did not have within him a preset unfoldment. It was the Father's plan for all Creator Sons to find for themselves what life as an evolutionary creature is like and to discover that they are Creator Sons rising from a state of not knowing. When Jesus matured in his spiritual understanding and realized he was Michael, a new perspective guided his life from that point on. Now he made his decisions from a universe perspective. Where he chose to go, who he chose to associate with, all factored into the larger view. He still underwent the mistakes that are inevitable in the human life, attempting one accomplishment, succeeding at one time, failing at another. That was experiential. However, it was within a context of enlightenment.

Today in this life you live, you live in the pattern of Michael's human life as Jesus, discovering who you are, exploring. It is perhaps appropriate to define these two phases this way: The first phase is explorational experience. The second phase is enlightened experience. On the mansion worlds you will have the benefit of an enlightenment, your own sense of survival and a culture that is built upon God consciousness. So, the value and emphasis upon this life prior to your attainment of the mansion worlds is as important as it was for Michael to be born as an infant and to grow up as a child to become an adult, all in a very human sense. He could have done as Machiventa and bestowed himself fully aware of his origin and purpose. But this is not the intent of a bestowal mission. You could have been born with all those traits you now perceive as the character traits of those on worlds settled in Light and Life. But that is not the plan for evolutionary creatures; it is the result, the goal, of evolutionary life. When we look at the unfoldment of Michael's plan for Nebadon we discover that the architectural worlds were the first construction project. Those worlds which are reflective of the higher realms of Havona were first established. When that was done, the greater task of evolutionary growth followed, and this has been the preoccupation of all Nebadon ever since. That is how important it is to have creatures like you realizing your origin and attaining your destiny.

Closing

I thank you for hearing my words today. I will take my leave. May your souls be energized, your minds clear, and your hearts uplifted.