This article describes one of many techniques developed by Adventures in Spiritual Living to encourage and support personal spiritual experience. It can be used by individuals or enjoyed as a group activity and sharing.
Description
When an experience occurs in your life that is good, real and character building, your divine inner spirit creates a spiritual representation, a special memory of it in your soul. This is what a spiritual counterpart is. Spiritual counterparts preserve the valuable truths you have acquired by experience so that they are available to you in this life and beyond. Spiritual counterparts can arise from surprising sources.
Spiritual counterparts are the real motive, the final aim, the eternal purpose of all your struggles in life. They really matter. They are what you have chosen to value. They determine who you are when you wake up in your afterlife.
Giving Thanks for Problems
As a young person, I remember hearing our pastor say that we should give thanks when we have problems. I never understood it. Why would I want to give thanks for problems? What was the purpose of thanking God that my parents were divorced, that I had the stepfather from hell, or that I completely forgot my lines in a play during an interschool competition. Why should I be glad about any of those horrible situations, …not to mention all the other problems I faced in life?
I now understand it is not that we should be glad to have problems but rather it is the opportunities that our problems give us to make decisions for ourselves about what is real and important and meaningful to us. The opportunity is what we should be thankful for. And so, I have come to realize that problems really are blessings.
I admit that sometimes it’s hard to remember this in the middle of a crisis, but I am at the point now that I do at least sometimes realize it after the crisis has passed. Over the years, many of my opportunities (or ‘blessings’) have occurred at work. I’ll share some stories of events I believe gave birth to some spiritual counterparts in my soul.
Praying for an Enemy
I was so excited when an oil pipeline company offered me a position. My salary was increased by 50%, the building where I would work, was one of the nicest buildings in Houston. The opportunities for professional growth seemed limitless. But my bubble burst on the very first day on the job.
While in the restroom, I overheard a conversation between my department manager and another manager. Neither of them knew anyone else was in the restroom. What my manager said was awful, but it only got worse from there. She was the most evil person I had ever worked for and I was miserable. Transferring out of her department was almost impossible because she always blocked it.
I knew I was supposed to pray for my enemies, but I found myself unable to pray for her. My mental prayer room was special and sacred to me. I did not want to bring her into it. She was so evil that I felt she would foul my precious space I shared with God. I admit I was ashamed of how I felt.
Seeing as God Sees
I asked God for his help so I could see her the way God saw her. What I saw was not an evil person, but a child of God who was behaving badly. I realized we were both children of God. I did not like the things that she did, but I could love her because she was a child of God. And to my amazement, as soon as I was able to sincerely pray for her, I was immediately able to transfer to another department (which is a miracle story of its own).
The miracle transfer was a faith building event for me that has augmented my trust that God looks after me even when I am learning by experience to apply my spiritual values like praying for everyone, even those who are doing evil. Because of the swiftness in the way I transferred to another department, I also had one of those insights I call an “ah-ha” moment. The big lesson I learned — the spiritual counterpart to my year of grief — was that I really should pray for and love my enemy. I also learned God will use really stressful circumstances to engage us in really significant decisions. The lesson made a big impact on me. Now when I have problems with someone, I know the proper response is to pray forgivingly and generously for that person.
A few years later the oil company where I worked, like so many companies at the time, began to have business difficulties. People were laid off and then the unthinkable happened – the company was purchased by another pipeline company. During this uncertain time everyone was absorbed in panic about their future. Morale was so bad and people were so stressed, depressed, and scared. I admit I was experiencing these feelings myself, so I talked to my heavenly parent about it.
During these talks with God, I realized I was not my job. The really important things in my life were okay. I had a family who loved me and I had a good relationship with God. Those things were not going to change if I lost my job. These were all insights worthy of counterparting so my soul could give them back when I could use them.
These insights gave me such a sense of relief and showed me how I could reach beyond myself and help others with their anxiety. The satisfaction of helping others cope enabled me to go to work with a good attitude and have a smile for everyone during a time when no one else smiled. And I am convinced it is because of my good attitude during this time that I did not lose my job. My department was reduced from about 100 employees to 20.
This time my recognition moment happened much earlier, and I realized the spiritual counterpart to the events during the crisis. I realized the really important things in my life were my relationship with my family and my relationship with God. Everything else was secondary and as long as the important things were okay I would always be okay. That is a spiritually important and eternally valuable memory.
It’s great when we can recognize the blessing as it is occurring, but I think it is also valuable to be able to reflect on times past and recognize the spiritual truths resulting from problems past. Perhaps we did not see the meaning at the time, but to recognize it now is still of value.
As an example, my husband and I both came from broken homes and we both experienced bad step-parents. Because we grew up in a difficult environment, we knew the importance of a happy family and vowed we would do whatever it took to make our marriage work. Perhaps if we had come from normal homes, we would not value our marriage relationship the way we do. We know how lucky we are and we are eternally grateful to God for bringing us together. Treasuring loving relationships is the meaningful insight and is worthy of spiritual counterparting. I want to have that understanding from now on.
Even the horrible experience of forgetting my lines in a play during interschool competition allowed me to learn. I learned that even if I do totally embarrass myself, I haven’t done permanent damage. My true friends will still love me. So, I try to remember not to take myself too seriously. That is another insight worth preserving forever.
In my forties I had a great desire to learn to live my life in cooperation with God. I worked hard to learn how to invite God into my life as an active partner. But my understanding then was that God was an external and often remote person. That was how I thought even though I knew as a fact that I had a fragment of God indwelling me. This imbalance between knowing a fact and really understanding the significance of the fact set me up for another ah-ha experience.
I know God will not take away my struggles. For good spiritual reasons, he will not eliminate the hardships of my life, but he will calm and comfort me while I deal with them. He always goes through my trials with me. Here is the ah-ha. I used to think of going to a distracted God somewhere far off for help and comfort. But we have an actual fragment of God indwelling each of us. That fragment is our divine inner spirit. And this divine indweller waits patiently while we fight our battle of life.
There is no distance between us, no need to locate God and get his attention before I can visit and commune. What a comfort it is when I allow the inner spirit to show me the blessing–the real motive, the final aim and the eternal purpose–of my uphill struggles with everyday problems. The existence and the pleasure of this relationship is worth remembering and relying on forever.
There you have it, the significance of spiritual counterparting carried on by your inner spirit. Your part in all of this is to understand the importance to you of your experiences and to appreciate the spiritual meanings involved and reflect on them often. Each time you recall and reprocess the beneficial experience, it reinforces the spiritual counterpart and prepares you for the next counterparting experience. The more you look for meaning, the more you find and the more gets counterparted.
Your inner spirit will love this. It is central to her purpose for being within your soul.
