June 18, 1992

• God’s presence in the crossroads of life

God, who is the central spiritual being of all creation, is with each of you at this time and always. Your individual guides are also collected together spiritually. We often refer to the gathering of your guides, but you must realize that it is not a physical gathering but a spiritual gathering. Just as when two people who are physically separated by a distance can feel close in thought, we can be close through the spiritual joining together by prayer.

Yes, we too pray to God. Prayer is the great channel linking all of spiritual creation. Prayer does not stop with physical lives, but at each stage of our spiritual development we are given the gift of prayer. It is a gift which allows us to cross the boundaries of the spiritual planes, to teach, to learn, to offer comfort, to be comforted, to offer peace, and to receive peace. It is prayer that unites all together.

Each of you is currently at a major crossroad in your individual development spiritually. This crossroad is important for you to recognize, but it is more important that you recognize God's presence at that crossroad. For some of you, the crossroad involves you personally; for others, it involves a member of the family or a close association. But it is not by accident that you are joined together as a group at this point. It is by design. Each of you is brought as a result of your openness to being led to a place.

The crossroads that you are witnessing are of course important, but they are not ultimate issues which will radically change your lives. They have an impact on your lives at this stage, but you will look back upon them as important opportunities from which each of you gained significantly.

One person’s concerns about her approaching trip are understandable and entirely appropriate. She has naturally fears of negative results as well as hopes for positive results. For her as for all of you, it is important not to overburden yourselves with a sense of expectation, a sense of predetermined results that you hope will be achieved. She can best approach her trip with an open mind, recognizing that she is well-prepared. She can be confident that she is able to draw upon her own spiritual development.

It is important for her not to feel a sense of responsibility for all that takes place during her visit. She cannot control the reactions of another—the responses, the feelings. She can only be accountable for the results which have direct bearing on her. Going into such an experience through suspended expectations, she will be open to the hand of God leading her.

By overlaying specific desires and fears, she in a sense is formulating a kind of cloud which dims the light of God from illuminating the path which is best for her. It requires an exercise of faith on her part, not just the faith that she will do and say the right things or that another may do the same, but rather a faith that she can be open to God's presence throughout the visit and allow herself to be illuminated by it. When she returns, she will feel more comfortable in her recognition of God's presence.

That is not to say that all will go according to her current hopes, for that is not so important. What is important in her crossroad is her sharper vision of being guided. That vision will strengthen her faith for the future and provide her with a greater sense of confidence and security as she meets what the future holds for her. These suggestions for her apply to each of you.

Another person’s concerns are well-founded and understandable, but she too must free herself from establishing a set of expectations for her son, and what's also essential is that she provides an atmosphere by which she can unburden her son from his own expectations. It is natural for humans to visualize what they wish to happen, for you all have hopes and dreams. These wishes provide you with a kind of foundation or point of gravity, if you wish. But expectations have a negative side which outweigh these positives, for expectations often prevent you from seeing other possibilities. Because you have arranged a mindset in one direction, you lose a perception of what else might also be desirable.

We are not saying that you should not have goals, for goals are important in life. But when you are dealing with unknowns—what will happen with a trip, what decisions will be the right decisions, how people will develop on their own, the rightness or wrongness of decisions involving personal relationships—when you have such expectations, you prevent yourselves from allowing God's guidance to work its full measure.

As these crossroads are approached, be as the traveler who looks in all directions before moving through. Do not look for one result, but try to see the merit from various possibilities. Be willing to allow yourself the luxury of being guided, of being moved in a particular direction. Allow yourself the luxury of letting others be moved in appropriate directions.

There is no real timetable which delineates whether or not a right decision has been made or a proper result has been achieved. When something is right, when something is beneficial, it is right or beneficial in its own time. If your concerns are about relationships with others, time is not a factor. Illuminated by God, the relationship will become what the relationship is meant to become. It is when we are impatient that we rush the time, we force the hand, and the relationships, the events that we await are not given the opportunity to resolve as they must resolve.

The mother’s concerns about the future for her son has with it an element of time, understandably. But using that time as a means of pushing forward in one direction or another does not allow the full exercise of faith. It is best for the mother and father to talk with their child about their concerns, their worries, and also their faith in what the future will ultimately bring, and it is essential for them to provide an environment for their child to express those same qualities.

Crossroads are essential for your development. They are essential for the growth of your souls. They provide an opportunity for you to look out and see the hand of God beckoning you. Such vision requires you to be open, not cluttered by worries, but open to possibilities. It is much easier to say than it is to put into practice. That's where the challenge to all of you comes, for you’re being asked to exercise faith, to resolve questions and dilemmas for which you see no clear resolution.

How often you go through life for periods of time without the need to exercise faith. You may recognize the importance of having faith, and you may encourage others as they approach issues requiring the exercise of faith, but it is actually much less often that you are required to make that leap, supported by your understanding and rewarded by the growth of your souls.

God is a part of each of those decisions that you need to make. God was with you as you got to this point in your lives, and God will remain of course with you beyond the intersection, but you must allow yourselves to be completely open to recognize God’s hand in the present without such worry about what the future may hold. Tomorrow will come, as you know, regardless of what happens today, but how you receive tomorrow is greatly dependent upon how you receive today.

So be concerned about where you are now in your faith. Be concerned about what you see in your spiritual life now, and you will then be given the strength and the wisdom to meet what tomorrow brings. It's an easy lesson to describe, and it's infinitely more difficult to put into practice. But each of you has much reason to rejoice for having been given these opportunities to address the faith you've been given and to nurture the souls that are a part of your lives constantly. Life is to be lived, it is to be dealt with through faith and with love and the constant recognition of God's presence at all times.

We bless you in God’s presence and through God faith and our faith, through God’s love and our love.

Amen.