COMING OF AGE

 COMING OF AGE

 

Around the Year with Emmet Fox

 

April 23

 

As you grow in spiritual power and understanding

you will find that many outer regulations

will become unnecessary;

but this will be because

you have really risen above them.

This point in your development,

where your understanding of Truth

enables you to dispense

with certain outer props and regulations,

is the spiritual coming of age.

However, this spiritual coming of age

cannot be hurried or forced,

but must appear when the consciousness is ready,

exactly as the flowering of a bulb

can only be the result of natural growth.

You have to demonstrate where you are.

To seek to demonstrate beyond your understanding

is not spiritual.

Fix your attention upon spiritual things,

and without consciously trying to make haste

you will be amazed to discover

the pace at which your soul has hastened.

To take a simple example:

Suppose that in a street accident you find

that a man has severed an artery

and the blood is spurting out.

The normal course is

that unless this bleeding is stopped

the victim will die.

Now, what is the spiritual attitude

to take in such a case?

Claim the ability of God to heal.

If your faith is strong enough

the severed artery will immediately be healed.

But if your faith fails,

you must take the usual steps to save the man's life

by immediately improvising a tourniquet,

or whatever the proper procedure may be,

still claiming divine aid.