August 13, 2026 

• Seeking and recognizing the Presence of God 

You are indeed blessed by the Presence of Spirit. That Presence is manifested in many different ways. When you wish to feel God’s Presence in a more immediate way, it is for you to become aware of that Presence with a capital P wherever you find it. 

Throughout the history of human beings, as they became more aware of the specialness of their surroundings, those early humans took great care in finding ways of ascribing something greater than themselves as being part of what existed around them. These explanations were simple and clear. They saw the Presence of something greater in all that surrounded them, whether animate or not. As they experienced life with its losses and challenges, they sought ways of understanding the root causes from those modest beginnings where a set of shared beliefs evolved according to their own perceptions. While you might not characterize those beliefs as an organized religion, they were nevertheless an effort to understand more carefully who they were and even more importantly, why they were. 

As your view moves forward to a more contemporary timeframe, you are aware of the differences of religious practices and beliefs. But what motivates those beliefs is in large measure related to those earlier efforts to understand that there is something, some power, some influence, a Presence, an energy that exists on a different level from what is experienced in human life. 

Much of what you observe presently in terms of conflict between people, nations, and religious practices are rooted in the desire for a sense of meaning and identity. Human beings exist always with a search for identity, a truer sense of who, what, and why you are. The answers to these questions can frequently find explanations, but those explanations are far from complete. In the search as you seek your own understanding of life, it is important to bring that light that you seek into your own awareness through whatever experiences you may have. You are in a sense seeking God’s Presence through everything you observe and experience. 

In essence then, your quest for understanding is not unlike the quest of early humans. That quest, that search for meaning, is common to the human experience. How those questions, those seekings, are given life differ widely. For some, it is experiential only. For others, it is through a conscious seeking, not just letting the experience of life dictate all. 

For you to understand what it is you are truly seeking, your guides are part of that process, and you are urged not to gaze into the clouds but to turn your heart vision toward others, for it is through that expanding vision that you become more aware of the Presence of Spirit. For some, that Presence is in the understanding of the natural world. For others, that Presence is experienced by serving other human beings. There are those who seek God through artistic expression. There are countless ways that one can grow to see the Presence of Spirit, but in order to see this growth, you must allow yourself to be open to it. 

In the challenges you face, whether personal or professional, whether they impact matters of the mind or the body, there is a clarity that can be achieved. No view of that spiritual Presence is 20/20. You do not have to be overwhelmed by evidence of the Presence of God in order to be convinced that there is a God. All it may take is one instant where you feel in an intangible way that you are being led, that you are being guided, that you are being met by someone, any of which can be seen as God’s Presence. 

All people have the capacity to know beyond a doubt that there is a special lifeforce beyond themselves. If you become aware at some moment that something could only happen if you were guided to it, that moment can be the affirmation that God is in your life. Even if such an affirmation is only brief in time, the memory of it is enough to affirm to you a spiritual Presence. You do not need to see God every day. If you have seen God once in this way, you know of that Presence, and when you feel a great need for an understanding of all that may surround you, that affirmation is present without the need for reaffirmation and reaffirmation and reaffirmation. 

We urge all people to think back upon their lives and find a moment, however brief, that they could clearly say, “God was present.” When you carry that memory, that recognition, that affirmation with you in your life, you will always be strengthened by it, even when surrounded by chaos or challenges beyond your ability to control them. From our perspective, it is easy for us to say, “God is with you,” but it is very different for you to say with conviction, “God is with me. God is with us.” 

In the practice of many religions, such statements are made in one form or another, and for many who repeat those statements, it is a statement of hope, not a statement of recognition. But stating that hope, feeling that hope, wanting to find something to affirm God’s Presence, all of that serves to open that heart vision, open your willingness to be led, to see the Light if but for a moment. It is never easy to insist to others that God is present, that there is a larger sense of life than just you. 

So often we speak of the need for a wider heart vision, but what we are encouraging you to do is to open your receptivity to allow for a conscious awareness of this greater life energy wherever it may be. You may find that Presence becoming an affirmation by being with another, by experiencing something in your life that cannot be explained away in simple terms. It may be through the beauty of nature, the warmth of someone reaching out in a truly loving way to you or to another. It may be something you see, it may be something you feel, and it is important to open that vision of Presence, for the Light is always present. But it is you, individually and collectively, who need to experience that Light, to experience that warmth, to experience that love. 

Human life that is considered well-lived is a life filled with observation, filled with seeking, filled with a desire to witness, to experience that greater life-form. Yes, the practice of religions saying in effect, “God is with us,” is as much a statement of hope as it is an affirmation of what has been taken into the deepest part of who you are. But that statement of hope is also an encouragement, an encouragement to live your life through a seeking, through a hoping. When what you seek appears in one form or another, your life is changed forever, for you are then living with an affirmation of what you know far beyond the life of hope. 

We don’t diminish the importance of hope, for hope opens the vision, but the vision must be practiced. It must be a conscious commitment to look for God wherever that Presence may be. 

Your journey of seeking is a continuation of similar journeys beginning with early humans, and that seeking that you experience belongs to a continuum of seeking long into the future. It is in the process of seeking that begins with being loving and ultimately achieves the condition of being love. You become love because you seek, but you become loving through those glimpses, those moments when you experience that greater Presence, when you experience God, for that experience becomes the well from which being loving is the natural outgrowth, is the consequence of that vision, that experience. 

Seek God everywhere. 

Seek God in yourself. 

Seek God in others. 

Seek God wherever you find beauty. 

Seek God whenever you experience conflict. 

Seek God when you are joyous. 

Seek God when you are filled with sadness. 

Always seek God. 

You are blessed in your search. You are blessed in your commitment to understand more of that sacred Presence. You are surrounded by the Presence always. 

Amen.