November 22, 1992

• God blesses people with the ability to give and receive love

God blesses the growth and development of each soul gathered here. You are all blessed in your daily lives, but it is your soul that receives the benefit of such blessings. You speak about blessings but do you really understand what is meant? Do you understand their function? Do you receive some blessings where others do not? What does it mean to be blessed by God?

Blessings are not a kind of spiritual largesse which is offered some people but not others. All human beings are blessed by God. That is a blanket statement of absolute truth, but its meaning is not always especially clear. The lives you experience are different from one another and are different from the lives of others across the globe. You are actually no more fortunate than others although you may feel that way, for what you observe would lead you to believe that somehow you are indeed more fortunate than another. Life and what life offers do not impact upon the lives of all in the same way. This, of course, you know. But for you who live comfortable lives, by your own recognition, your lives are not any richer or more blessed than those who suffer from war and famine and disease. Your lives are different—they're not better, they're only different.

How then can you say that the lives of those who must suffer immeasurably are blessed? You must recognize what is meant by being blessed. God does not play the role of rewarding favorites and withholding favors from others. When God blesses you, each of you, everyone on earth, God is providing each with the potential to love. It is the potential to love and to be loved which is the essence of being blessed by God. God does not offer blessings in the form of financial or physical security. That is not spiritual—that is temporal. God's blessings are spiritual blessings. Each soul experiences at some level a spiritual light and a spiritual response to God's light. It is a potential that all have. For some, life provides an easier environment to being loved and to loving, but that potential is nevertheless always present.

There is, as you know, a kind of randomness in life. That is not to say that life is full of mere coincidences. But because of the nature of life, things will happen and they will differ from individual to individual, and from region to region, from country to country. Those who suffer still experience passion, still recognize compassion, still seek being loved, and still wish to be loving. The blessings relate to the interactions between you and others, all of which enhance the development of each soul.

You may feel that you are lucky or fortunate to be living in an area that is not torn by war, but your souls have chosen to live in this type of condition because that is what was appropriate for them. At other times in other lives, your lives may be exchanged, your experiences may be swapped. It is not important to the ultimate objective of uniting with God whether one's current life is one of comfort or pain, for all souls experience through human life both comfort and pain. You do not grow with mere comfort. You do not grow only with pain. It is the hope of comfort which frequently brings one through the experiencing of pain, and it is the memory of pain which gives meaning to the comfort. They are both essential. Some lives experience both extremes in the same life. For others the extremes may be experienced in more than one life.

You are indeed blessed by God. You are indeed given the gift of being loving and the gift of being recipients of love. Both are controlled by choice. You can choose to be loving or you can choose to be selfish. You can choose to be open to receive the love of others; you can choose to wall yourselves in, isolating yourselves from all others. That is your choice. You can choose to receive God's blessings or to ignore them, but the potential is always there.

You have a responsibility to reach out and give others comfort. Whether you exercise this responsibility or ignore it is your choice. If you choose not to exercise it, you must still at some point in your spiritual development exercise it. Selfishness lives only for the moment. When the moment becomes less significant, there is no motivation for selfishness. The same may be said for greed, hatred, jealousy—all live for the moment. But they have no meaning when the moment loses its significance.

As you live your lives you must learn to divest yourselves from the restrictions imposed by time. For some, the moment is important as it is measured by time, and for them there is no moment when time ceases to be important, but there is only the continuum of development, of growth. When your eyes are set on growth and development, the moment is less significant and there is no motivation for selfishness. You are each vital, not because of what you do now, but because of who you are. Who you are is defined, not in a moment, but in a lifetime. You are more than what happens on a day to day basis. You are what you have experienced in the past, and you are how you will respond in the future.

You cannot judge another through observation of what one does or says or thinks at the moment. That person is no more valuable or less valuable on the basis of those considerations. An individual's life takes on importance by unfolding, not by being observed for a moment. You can look at your lives in the same way. They are in themselves of less importance than you wish them to be. Your lives are important because of the character they achieve through the living of that life.

If you can withdraw your attention to the importance of the moment and focus your consciousness on the continuity of which you are a part, you will be clearer in understanding the shape of your lives and what is really essential. When one prays for patience, one is really not asking to be patient at this moment, but is asking instead for the ability to be patient throughout that life.

Your lives are blessed. They are blessed by receiving and by giving love. In this way all people are equal. There is no one who does not have the need to love or to be loved. There may be actions which inhibit either, but the needs are still there, and it is through these acts of loving and being loved that your souls deepen and mature and strengthen, becoming closer to God.

When we say that we bless you with God's light, we are surrounding you with the presence of love. It is our prayer that all may be open to that love that surrounds them. Our prayers are for your continued broadening vision. Our prayers are for your increased ability to love and to be loved. We urge you to recognize the love that may be offered by others and to make an effort to reach out to others with your love. You are then participants in this blessing of God.

When you can love and be loved, there is no room for selfishness. There is no room for worry. There is no more need for impatience. There is truly a peace. We pray for your growth and the achievement of peace. We thank you for your prayers on our behalf for that is an act of love as it is when you pray for anyone.

God's light is your light. God’s warmth is yours. God’s love is your blessing. You are the recipients of all that God has to offer. Rejoice!

Amen.