Acceptance

Today brothers an sisters, we continue to study love. God is love, but as we have learned love is not the
only attribute of God. Today we turn our attention to a facet of love which is often not considered. It is
acceptance. Acceptance is self-tolerance. It is also the tolerance of the will of God.

First to the self. As we have learned, tolerance for loving, kindness, mercy, and compassion towards
others is necessary to love your fellows. It is also equally necessary in order to love yourself. For, if you
are not self-tolerant you can fall into the traps of negative thinking, encompassing judgment, criticism
and ego traps of self-obsessiveness.

You are the creation of God and the experiences and decisions of your free will and environment. All
the factors were created to foster soul evolution. You were not created in perfection, therefore you must learn to love your imperfections as well as your spirit victories.

Your imperfections will be the greatest source of learning you will experience. Many of your flaws will
take centuries and centuries of time as you know it to even understand, let alone transcend. How can you
experience the ultimate joy of perceiving the creator without the recognition of the validity and honor of the struggle for a godly character. These flaws must be perceived as blessings to humans, as markers on your path as ascendent children of time and space.

Self-tolerance is often a forgotten virtue. Without self-tolerance issues of morality rather than spirituality
take the fore, so to speak. You have been created in this fashion because it is the Father's wish for this
universe. It is therefore God's will that you be thus imperfect.

How do you understand the will of the Father? You cannot understand His will totally for He is the
creator and you are the creation. To understand His will for you, you should simplify:

1. you are created this way;
2. God creates good; 
3. because God has created you with love, who are you not to love this creation.

So, acceptance - self-tolerance - is necessary to evolve a truly spiritual human and not a judgmental human from which divisions must spring.

It is an error to approach imperfections with a vengeful heart or an arrogant intellect. Rather, weaknesses, imperfections, should be viewed lovingly as opportunities for soul growth, and should be viewed in long-term ways of their eventual outworking into more desirable or mature spiritual qualities. Every flaw has an evolution and can either be ignored, be rationalized into a good quality and therefore pursued into possible error, or can be seen as a lesson for soul growth tolerantly. If one views the final outcome to be not only the absence of that quality but the victorious spiritual shining of light which ensues from the struggle, that is the benefit that is permitted only to those who actively and lovingly desire to mold their characters into more evolved souls. 

Many religionists have made the error of thinking the moral struggle is between good versus evil within
the individual human. It is not. It is between acceptance of who you are today - knowing who you will
become with faith in God's will - and who you fool yourselves into believing you are. This is the
struggle of the spiritually dedicated mortal. So acceptance is necessary in order to perceive spiritual realities within your own evolving being, for without acceptance you will - rest assured, fool
yourselves, or judge yourselves too harshly, or misperceive your status.

There is no competition for first place in the spiritual race. There is only the motivation spurred on by a
thirst for God-knowingness that thrusts us forward to become better and better sons and daughters of our
eternal Father.

If God can love you unconditionally now, the way you are, why can you not love yourself? Think about
that in your daily meditations and prayers. For is it not an ungrateful act to not love what such a supreme
creator has made and loved so dedicatedly?

If you cannot forgive yourself, you cannot forgive others. If you cannot accept your humanity, you
cannot grant your brothers and sisters the same gift of this humanity. Self-acceptance, self-tolerance, is
necessary in order to:

1. be more open, and, 
2. to be able to bestow Divine love through your life and interactions with others. 

You cannot be loving in the world or to the Divine without also feeling love for the miracle of your beingness and uniqueness.

You are a part of the tapestry of time surging forward into eternity, the tapestry of imperfection
becoming perfect, the tapestry of the mortal creature becoming one with a creator. If you do not
celebrate and be humbled by such a gift, you will not fully participate in this wonderment.

Acceptance also encompasses the will of God which we talk much of when we pray “thy will be done,”
“It is my will to do thy will.” But do we really understand this? First, it is God's will that you exist or
you would not be here at all. So therefore, if your prayer is sincere to accept God's will, why not accept
yourself as you are today? This is God's will. Two, you pray to know God's will, but you cannot fully know God's will until you stand in the presence of the I AM. Until that day some amount of partiality is necessary in terms of understanding and acting. So, the idea of understanding God's will in totality is therefore unachievable.

Simplify again. Acceptance of the mystery of God is part of worship. There is no momentous handing
down of tablets of stone for us. There is only common sense, filtered through the desire to do good, be
loving, see beauty, speak truth, and continue to learn. How simple it is - when one rises - to thank God
for this day, to get out of bed, to love those around you, to have a cheerful word, to take time out to lend
a hand to others, to service. You can rest assured that when you drive in traffic, that it is God's will that
you smile rather than be angry or yell. If you simplify, it is quite easy to do God's will. Would God
prefer you to be kind and loving towards your family or to be withholding and mean? Would God prefer
you to take time to listen to another's suffering or to busy yourself with tasks? As you go through your
day look at the simple things. It is God's will for you to work and earn your daily bread or is it God's will
that you steal?

These are simple things. There is not confusion. Is it God's will for you to try always to reflect the
inspiration of Jesus in your daily tasks? Yes. This is not something one should meditate on for years and
discuss in forums.

Your will enters with choices. You are tired, you would prefer not to listen to a friend, but you do
service because that is the higher value. That, then, is God's will, and your free will is to accept it. God
in His wisdom, throws into each life millions upon millions of opportunities for soul growth, millions upon millions of situations to choose higher values. Rather than question what is the will of God, what is the will of God for me, which gets you no where, accept all of the opportunities that come your way as gifts.

The people who ask for your love, and kindness, and attention, are opportunities for soul growth. The will of the Father is for you to choose always to do higher values. There is no mystery here, or great theological discussion. Some days you may choose better than other days, and that is where self-tolerance enters. But always be dedicated to doing the Will of the Father, which is to shed more spiritual light as you go through your life in very simple ways. When the book says “love acts,” that is what it means. You need not have a
grandiose, dramatic, epiphanal moment for love to act. Rather, love acts in the tiny insignificant moments of time which all add up. So, you must accept God's will. Life is but a days' work. Do it well.

Your work is of a spiritual nature, and it is not involved in the historical moments that will be remembered here on Earth. It is involved rather in the moments which are recorded on high. The actions which constitute your survival and soul evolution, the things which you so often forget to pay attention to, this constitutes a life of loving service. That should be your highest consecration to God. When you look back on your life weave a wonderful memory that all the tiny acts of love will make. What a shining soul for the rest of the world to see. For this is what creates you. Acceptance is something you may pray for: acceptance of who you are, acceptance of God's will, and - between the two in the act of daily living - the birth and growth of your soul, and the metamorphosis from a physical mortal being into a spiritual perfecter. This is what it is about. It is a slightly new way to look at truth.

We can reject God's will. Therein lies soul insanity. We can pretend there is no choice - as many mortals
do on this planet - or we can actively choose in our actions to do the will of the Father, knowing that we
will not always behave correctly, and we will forgive ourselves for the lapses because that is part of the
Divine plan.

This is not a world for perfection; it is a world of recognizing imperfection and doing the best we can with our imperfectness. So acceptance, self-tolerance of yourself, first in your imperfect state, acceptance of God's will that you are created this way and what awaits you is perfection, and acceptance that you will never totally understand God's will, are part of living a spiritually dedicated and conscious life.

My advice again, simplify, for it is in living faithfully as tadpoles that we become frogs. You are tadpoles now, as I am, and one cannot expect your life to be more than it is. We make tadpole decisions and we do the will of God by recognizing what we are.

And that, brothers and sisters, is the formal lesson for today. Do you have questions?

Question: Yes. We talked about self-acceptance, and there are a couple of things I think you said, prayer,
and recognition of who we are, and willingness to live as a tadpole each day. As I think of ways to
achieve self-acceptance I find that I have particular intolerance of my flaws. That, I see is sort of
arrogant in the face of God. On a daily basis when things come up, do you know any ways or methods to work on that, you know, one day at a time?

Answer: To think of yourself as a child, which is what we all are, to apply the same understanding patience as you would to a struggling toddler falling and learning to walk. To understand that you cannot skip this stage, and that you will fall and become bruised, and bruise yourself many times, but will rise again to continue walking the path, that the love should come for the miracle of the human spirit in rising again, that although you are flawed now, look to each day for the moment when you acted in a God-like fashion.

And every day there are those moments: a smile, a caress to a child, an illumination or feeling of unity with God, a comfort for a minute inside yourself, a peace bestowed by the Spirit of Truth, observing the beauty of nature, putting your feet up and relaxing from life's anxieties - are all God-like attributes which humans overlook, concentrating only on the moments when anger or fear or doubt got the better of you.

Faith pulls you through when you have not acted in the highest fashion: faith in God's acceptance and
love for you, which you should mirror to yourself; faith in the fact that flaws are bestowed in order for
you to grow past and from; that there would be no growth without this struggle, and that if it were easy
and your flaws could disappear it would not be God's plan. Stretching your time sense to a more eternal
one will help you to develop acceptance. A sense of humor also eases the times when you grow critical
or impatient with what you see as regression.

Question: When you talk of faults and flaws in human terms, I guess that's just a point of view. It might be
other person's likes or dislikes would differ; a fault from another person might be a virtue to another
person. But I guess from a cosmic point of view, from the Father's, the main faults that we should be
concerned about are evil, iniquity and sin. Should we be tolerant of our own sin just as we are tolerant of
our own error?

Answer: We should forgive ourselves for sins if we feel we have committed them. Remember, it is not for
us to judge even ourselves, but merely to evaluate. If you feel you have committed a sin which is fairly
extreme - most people fall into error - you must pray to forgive yourself as you ask for the forgiveness of
the Father. But you must also ask for growth to learn from these sins and to resist them, to resist taking
those actions. Flaws are not errors or sins or evil, but can lead one into errors. Flaws are anger, fear,
faithlessness, lack of love - which are all relative - those are examples of spiritual flaws rather than the
actions.

It is the inner soul-scape, so to speak, that leads one into actions that would constitute error, sin, and evil. It first starts within the human, the conflicts, the trouble. It would help to read the analysis of Judas as he fell into grave error and sin. First started in his personality flaw of isolation, and then his inner conflict as his wrong thinking took hold, and then finally the action. Does that answer?

Question: Yes. So basically the flaws, once we learn how to deal with our flaws, then we will not enter into
evil or sin?

Answer: Probably not.

Question: But to do that, one has to be tolerant and resistive.

Answer: That is correct.

Abraham: We are each in a state of becoming, and how blessed are we that we have one another to share and expand concepts and ideas. One who is teachable is open to his fellows ideas. He may not agree with the ideas, but he can accept the fact that his fellows are his brothers and sisters in the family of God.

As you progress spiritually you find it your ultimate joy each day to dedicate yourself to the doing of Father's will. What a relief from daily pressure to hold up the day and offer it to Father. It will not always be a
struggle but a welcome release from pressures and a clearing of the mind and cleansing of intentions.

Being born of the Spirit makes you a new creature who strives to live according to will of God. You may fall short at times, but certainly you find you cannot return to the old ways. In this commitment there is acceptance of sonship with God. You are not so much losing anything but becoming a new creature and gaining endless possibilities.

Always remember the divine law of acceptance. It is quite easy to defer from Father's way to our own, to find our own understanding to be confining and limited — to where if we are aligning with the universal
law of acceptance we are in the ever flowing current of divine information. Your understanding, your everyday realities are expanded. So you do not find that this universal law comes with a cost, but certainly do you put self-mastery into practice.

In this area of acceptance I would like to elaborate a bit more on a personal level. We can accept the divine path and Father's perfect plan. We can accept our fellows for their unique personalities. We can accept our
present position in life, but so much of this is increasingly more difficult when one is without some degree of self-acceptance.

Father did not coordinate the mortal life so that you would be self-satisfied continually. He designed the overall pattern so that we may always strive and work towards Him. I speak not of self-satisfaction, but
self-acceptance. So many regret the past and harbor guilt and are self-loathing. So many cannot accept the fact that they have been but learning children in an ever expanding experiential universe.

There is practically zero tolerance when it comes to our own flaws or shortcomings. With the law of acceptance we can believe even in our mistakes Father has revealed to us the meanings and values, and has never punished us for our misunderstanding like we have punished ourselves. Many mortals continually focus on their negative character aspects while overlooking the personal strides made in their efforts.

As a small child learning to ride a bike a father would run alongside the child helping to steer the bike, and at an appropriate time when the child is ready, the father would release the bike and allow the child to go it
alone. Does the father know of the possibilities of the child's wrecking and falling — possibly becoming injured? Yes. Can the father continue to run alongside the child? No. Can the father give instructions and encouragement? Of course. Should the child wreck and appear to fail, would the father punish the child? Of course not. The father continues to guide and help the child to develop their own abilities, comforts the child when failure seem apparent, encourages the child to continue in their efforts.

Father knows you will fall and He stands ready to comfort, guide and encourage. He is not there to punish or ridicule you when you seem to fail. Why would you punish yourself? Can you not accept the fact that you were, are now and will be a learning child of God? You cannot go from infant to adult without the experience in-between. You must accept yourself as a learning child. To self-punish or think that God would bestow upon you bad karma is to block meanings and values in experience.

Everyday negative self-talk is energy depleting; it is spiritual stunting, soulfully abusive. To be so ego-bound that you cannot accept that you have made mistakes is a waste of experiential time that could have been used to discover new meanings and values. There has to be a point in mortal life where you have passed all external aspects of the total person and have a true acceptance of the growing soul that you really are.

Father loves you beyond your own ability to comprehend and accepts you in your becoming. Do not make that mistake of self-bantering and close off new spiritual possibilities and soul growth. Do not be weighed down by the fact that you still have so much to learn, rather be uplifted by the fact that the learning is an adventure that carries you to possibilities far beyond the mortal life.

This week be watchful of self-punishment. Ponder the difference between self-satisfaction and self-acceptance. How would you gain confidence through self-acceptance? What new possibilities might come from this?

Abraham: I realize events in daily living might lead you to believe that life works against you, but you that carry a deep and abiding faith know the reason for such occurrences and don't usually feel a mortal desperation or anxiety.

In a fast paced world such as this we are always overlooking the small blessings. Many mortals tend to look for grand occurrences that say God is at work, and in the process become discouraged when their expectations are not met. There are conditionings of the mind that seem to help you keep up with mortal living.

Societal stimulants and ever-striving to just survive, take the focus off of the small blessings. Just in noticing small blessings is your focus set on Father. In this focus are you better able to handle situations that cause inner-turmoil. In noticing the small blessings you learn to recognize Father's fingerprints.

We have been discussing the universal law of acceptance and the doing of Father's will. We have also covered self-acceptance. I would speak a little on acceptance of your fellows.

I feel such comfort each week when we meet. You welcome me as I am. You know my personality and you welcome it. I feel at ease to speak my mind without fear of ridicule or rejection. You accept me as your brother, friend, teacher and fellow sojourner. You may not always agree with what I say but that has no bearing on my level of comfort because I know you love and accept me as I am, as I also do you.

We meet various individuals daily and as we learn about them we can draw closer to them. Some personalities we clash with and have not commonalities. We may even dislike their character. As we travel the world we will meet various individuals who will be different from us. We are in understanding that each one is no doubt a child of God and also on their own path to Father.

I think by now, we are understanding we cannot force our own way on others or lead them in a way that we see fit. We can express our opinion, we can encourage — but really, at no time should we attempt to change another. We are all Father's children. Not one is with more status than another. You can have acceptance of that and have love for your fellows without the difference in personalities creating conflicts; although conflicts are not really that bad because they can create growth from new understanding. 

Some individuals you know are perhaps not so loveable, but certainly we can accept the fact that they are growing individuals on their own path and will learn according to their own ability. I truly believe that most people have the best of intentions and try to do what is right in their eyes.

The "holy wars" in the Middle East are groups of individuals who are attempting to force their beliefs onto others. You see, each group has the best of intentions and believe they are only doing what is right. Perhaps they are blinded by the fact that every child of God has the same intentions. They are only attempting to do what they believe is right.

There are so many divisions in religion, government, and even families because there is no acceptance of diversity. "If they are not with us they must be against us", is a familiar saying. Why cannot individuals allow for others to grow in their own time? You cannot force growth or fit a quart into a pint. You can, however, learn to have acceptance — that everyone is a child of God. They need not look to you as their savior, but how beautiful it would be for them to know you uphold them in their differences. How can anyone look down upon a brother's blindness when they themselves are also blind?

We can be more accepting of our fellows through learning patience and allowing for unfolding. We need not agree with our fellows but we can respect their right to learn and grow in their own time.

As a side note, there are new concepts born every day — new ideas to ponder. It would seem as if everyone has the answer. I would remind you that you have your own Indwelling Father Fragment, and the Spirit of Truth (the Comforter) that helps you discern truth. In trying to apply the law of acceptance in your lives, know this does not apply to new concepts or fads. You need not accept every idea that happens to cross your path.

I mean to say, that the world's growth is moving so rapidly that we must be clear-minded enough to discern truth from falsehood. You can contemplate new ideas; you can pray and do stillness, but certainly you are equipped to judge for yourself which ideas you will hold true and those you would let go. In this day and age new things will come and go. I suggest, be open-minded but cautious in accepting all you see.