July 7, 2011

• Every human being is guided by a multitude of spirits 

• Love is a portal to a vision of God 

• Uplift others so that their horizons may be expanded 

• You are what you do and not what you say 

God, who is your father, your mother, your creator, your entire reality, is with each of you as you gather together. God is also present when you are not so joined, but when you are dealing with your own daily challenges. The greatest challenge in your lives is to know in the center of your being, what you generally believe in, your faith and hope, that God is indeed an important strength and constant presence in your lives. 

When life is providing you with affirmation, it is easy in turn to affirm the belief that God is present, and yet in those periods in your life when you feel overcome by darkness, it is most difficult to recognize the presence of God. It is far too easy to feel lost, to feel rudderless, to feel void of any guidance. 

We know that feeling because we have also experienced life in human form, among other forms, and we relate very directly to the lives that you experience collectively and individually. Because of our having shared in the experience of human life, we are given this blessing of expressing our love for each of you through our service as your guides. You pray to God, and that is fully expected, and you acknowledge our presence at selected moments like this, but we serve God through our service to you. It is not by a sense of duty, but rather is fed and directed by our expression of love for you. 

Every human being is given guidance—that you know. You are not singled out to be guided in a special way in this group. Rather, you are part of this gathering because you happen to share points in common on your path of spiritual growth. Your paths intersect, as it were. It is part of your journey. It is not by obligation. It is not by special designation from God. All people have the same opportunity of being guided, and yet no two people receive guidance in exactly the same way. 

Our activities as your guides are designed in a way that is specifically appropriate for your individual needs. It is the need that directs the guidance. It is not so much an assignment. You do not technically select your guides, but you do make choices in your lives within a range that we know, and therefore we are enabled to assist you in those choices. Just as no two human lives are identical, no two guides are identical. We serve as your guides, but we are not alone. All human beings are served and comforted and guided by a multitude of spirits. It is never just one. 

When you experience your own frustrations and anxieties, it is at those times that you should open your hearts to your guides and acknowledge God’s presence. We mentioned that every life has some component that is in balance. That balance is actually an acknowledgment of God. There are countless ways that human beings acknowledge God, but when you identify that part of your life where you feel an inner peace, stop for a moment and recognize that that peace is God’s peace, and that that peace that you experience is your glimpse of the total loving support that you receive from God and from your guides. When you recognize a part of your life that is peaceful, that does not mean that is the only part that contains God, but it is your window, it is your portal that provides a recognition that indeed you are held in God’s hands. 

You’re not expected, of course, nor are you obliged to make such acknowledgments of God, but if you know as you experience a balance, be it only momentary, that you can see God in that, you will be given the strength to keep on—to keep on seeking, to keep on adjusting, to keep on growing. When you recognize that portal, you then know that you are always in the view of God. 

Love is a kind of portal to a vision of God. We ask you to be loving, knowing you will not be fully Love in human form. By being loving, you are, in fact, acknowledging the presence of God in the reality and presence of someone else. Being compassionate is seeing God in someone else. In exercising concern about the environment, you are seeing God in the world about you. You may not be consumed by thoughts of the environment on a daily basis, but the mere recognition of your own concerns is an acknowledgment. When you seek environmental peace, you acknowledge the potential for a balance to exist in your environment. You’re opening yourself to that potential. 

The act of prayer is an acknowledgment of potential. You may see it as an act of faith, but at its most basic level, you are affirming potential. You affirm something in the life of another person. You are acknowledging the potential that person owns in his or her life, and that is seeing God in that person. It is not necessary, therefore, to constantly ask yourself “where is God in my own life?” for the answer to that question is often clouded in fear, anxiety, worry, pain, sadness. But in those moments when you feel your life is cloaked in a kind of darkness, turn your eyes away from self and consider ways that you have seen God in someone else. 

We say you seek to be loving; ultimately you will be Love itself. We could say, “Seek to be as you perceive God,” but only in the future, as you view it, will you become God. 

There are many whose lives are governed by self-pity, are governed by fear, fear of some kind of loss. All of those feelings are directed inward in a very limiting fashion, and ultimately serve to reduce temporarily your vision of God in your own life. It is for this reason that we urge you in times of discouragement or fear or alienation to consider how God is reflected in others. What this does is not only affirm another, but it also strengthens your understanding that even when you find it difficult to see God, God is still there with you. 

You’re asked to be loving because you’re being asked to see God in your neighbor, whether that is a neighbor in a physical sense or a personal sense. Love is recognizing God’s presence. There are many definitions of love—physical love, emotional love, spiritual love. All forms of love are an affirmation of God, and all true expressions of love are directed outward, not inward, for love is the bright light that expands. It is not a light which is directed solely to self. 

Living, as we said earlier, is not about duty. Living is about vision. Living is seeing another, loving another, seeing God, seeing the evidence of God’s presence in another. You don’t have to see God in a visual sense. Seeing God means recognizing God’s presence. That presence may come to you in quiet, in silence, but that presence may also come to you in a great rush and with high intensity. Recognizing God in another is a strong component of what it means to be truly alive. 

You encounter strangers, but in such encounters, recognizing they share the same spark of God that you do means that when you respond to them, you are responding to God, and since all is really one, in responding to God by way of another, you are responding to your own spiritual center. 

Life is directed outward. It is not to deny that each of you has specific needs for which you pray. Those needs are important. Those needs sustain you. Those needs can strengthen you, but their purpose is to uplift you so that you then can see a vision of life beyond your own. You can reach out, and you can be giving and compassionate. 

Being uplifted is not unlike standing at the window of a high tower. You see much more of what surrounds you than if you are sitting down on the ground. When you are uplifting to another, you are providing another with an even wider context of what it means to be alive. In encouraging you to be more compassionate, to be more loving, we are encouraging you to uplift so that the horizons of another are expanded and enriched. 

You are what you do and not what you say. Your actions are a reflection of your beliefs. Your actions are a reflection of your sense of what is important and what is of lesser importance. Your actions provide a perspective of priorities. When those actions are sustaining and giving and loving, it demonstrates that such activities are important to who you are. 

If you wish to reflect God, then be a reflection. Don’t merely talk about it. If you wish to be an advocate for peace, then become an expression of peace, and not one who merely talks about it. Being compassionate is not putting the sense of responsibility on another. It is accepting your own actions as being loving and supportive beyond who you are. 

Therefore, seek to become what you seek to experience. If you seek to experience compassion, be compassionate. If you seek the experience of love, be loving. If you seek the experience of peace, be peaceful. If you seek joy in the world, be joyful. Commit yourself to becoming what it is you seek, and in your seeking, find evidence as demonstrated by others and not yourself, for if you see yourself as the generator of what it is you seek, then what you do is self-serving, then what you do elevates yourself, then what you are doing is affirming yourself. God does not ask you to affirm yourself but to affirm all life around you. If you see the light in others, then that light will penetrate who you are, and you will become the light that you see. 

Look around you. Find the light in others. Find the affirmation of God’s presence in others, and you will be strengthened in your conviction of God’s presence in your own life. When you pray to see God’s presence in your life, recognize that that is the result of your seeing God’s presence in the life of another. You become a light to others, just as others become a light for you. It is not for you to illuminate your own life and others to illuminate their own lives, for your life will be illuminated as your vision is opened to all that is around you. 

We pray for your vision. We pray for your openness to see the evidence of God in even one other person. That recognition will illuminate your own acknowledgment of God within you. The vision for you is a vision of light, and our prayers are for that vision to expand that you may see light, not just near you but far away—light that bathes the countryside in warmth and love. Seek that light, and that light will become yours. 

You are blessed in the presence of God’s light, and may God’s light be your light. 

Amen.