3. WHAT ARE THE LEVELS OF TEACHING?
1 The teachers of God have no set teaching level. Each teaching-learning situation involves a different relationship at the beginning, although the ultimate goal is always the same; to make of the relationship a holy relationship, in which both can look upon the Son of God as sinless. There is no one from whom a teacher of God cannot learn, so there is no one whom he cannot teach. However, from a practical point of view he cannot meet everyone, nor can everyone find him. Therefore, the plan includes very specific contacts to be made for each teacher of God. There are no accidents in salvation. Those who are to meet will meet, because together they have the potential for a holy relationship. They are ready for each other.
Every sentence in this paragraph tells me something I am happy to know. Relationships have different forms but all have the same goal. Through the teaching-learning process they have the potential to become holy relationships in which they look on each other and see only innocence. While this can happen with any two, there are very specific contacts for all of us and they will show up in our lives.
In light of this information I look at the relationships in my life and see them in an entirely different light. My relationship with my boss has seemed to be complex. I work for my younger brother and over the past 16 years of this relationship, there has been a lot of adjustments as we learned to separate our relationship as siblings from our relationship as boss and employee.
There was sometimes a lot of contention as I often projected my frustrations onto him, and probably he did the same to me. There was a time during those years when I wondered if our personal relationship would survive our work relationship. But there are no mistakes in salvation, so our coming together was for this purpose, and in every union there is always the potential for a holy relationship.
Slowly, over the years a lot of this has been healed and I now I laugh because I have no reason to see our relationship as separate in any way. He is my brother in every sense of the word, and now I see that the relationship was always only for the purpose of healing. Our relative positions, the work situation, all of it was just the backdrop of this healing. It is simply one more link in the chain of Atonement.
Each of my marriages was exactly the same although at the time I was struggling in the relationships I failed to realize this. I saw each of them as my hope of having my needs met. From this myopic standpoint I set about trying to achieve this goal, and failing to do so, moved on to the next possibility.
How different the relationships would have seemed if I had entered them in recognition of their only true purpose, which was to allow the special relationship to be transformed into a holy relationship. How different the outcome if I had known and accepted that we were always meant to be together for this purpose and the relationship had the potential to succeed regardless of how it seemed in the moment.
As I was reading this paragraph, a difficult relationship came into my mind. For the first time, every objection I have to the relationship and the person simply faded away. My heartfelt prayer was for the healing of this relationship. This teaching-learning situation no longer seemed to be about personalities and needs. All those things that had seemed so important just a moment ago no longer matter to me. This opportunity has been given to us that we might bless the world with its healing, and in light of that holy purpose all the petty grievances are seen as the nothing they are. Holy Spirit, thank you for this knowing. I will protect it with my willingness.
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