April 17, 2001

• The dignity of life

• Experience cultivates compassion

• Acknowledging God’s presence in the past, and trusting God’s presence for the future

• The power of positive thinking

God speaks to each of your hearts, to your souls, to your very presence. You and those for whom you pray are going through journeys of various descriptions. Life is certainly a series of journeys taken. No journey is a failure, although many journeys lead in directions other than what was anticipated. Nevertheless, the journey is always worth being taken. When you or those for whom you pray face issues—the fear of the unknown, issues between people, concerns over world peace or issues that are very personal—these are each important journeys. They are roads meant to be traveled. Indeed, for each of you, the roads that you are on are precisely the roads that are most beneficial for you.

Human beings are not defeated by trips, they are not defeated by journeys. Human beings are not meant to be defeated by circumstances. There is a great dignity to effort and stability. There is a dignity to perseverance. There is a dignity to knowing when to push forward and when to withdraw and listen. There is as much dignity belonging to another’s viewpoint prevailing as there is to your own. There is a dignity to criticism. There is a dignity to fear. There is a dignity to self-doubt. There is a dignity to worry about another person. There is a dignity to giving as well as receiving. There is a dignity to strength and weakness, to joy and sadness, to confidence and self-doubt. All of these are paths that belong to God’s creation.

You are all created by God, and therefore all that you do belongs to that creation. It also follows that all that others do and express and fear are part of that grand creation. Your lives are strengthened and given character through the journeys that you take—journeys of the mind, the spirit, the body. All journeys have a place in life. The journeys you take differ from one person to another only in character but never in substance.

Your awareness of the sufferings of others is only as keen as your personal experience with such suffering. When there is fear, your response with compassion is fueled by your having experienced fear yourselves, whether it is fear for physical safety, for emotional balance, for national priorities. You cannot respond in a godly and godlike manner without experiencing at some level that which calls for your response. The paths that you follow in your journeys through life provide the resource for a response that is directed by your awareness of God. No one travels the roads of life without experiencing at some level or other the same kinds of emotions personally that one observes externally. When you see hunger, in order to know the pain of hunger, you must know what it means to be hungry. To appreciate the beauty of joy, you must have experienced joy. To understand the expressions of one who has fear about the ending of physical life, one must have experienced at some level a similar fear.

It is essential to your lives that you enter each pathway, that you embark on each journey, with the full confidence of God’s presence. But God’s presence does not mean that all goes as you would wish. God’s presence means you’re empowered, you’re strengthened, you’re supported as you proceed along your chosen path. That support can provide stability. That presence of God can provide a perspective that ensures your vision ahead is one that is illuminated by your spiritual strength, your commitment to seeking God in everything that confronts you. With that kind of vision, it is impossible to fail. It could be your objectives are not coincidental to God’s wishes, but with vision, with the illumination of a spiritual awareness, you will always find that the end of the path brings you to a point that is absolutely important for each of you. The only way to get to that point is through the path on which you travel.

Many times one’s sense of faith looks back. You can say, “Yes, that was the hand of God. Yes, that was God’s presence directing my life in that event, in that occurrence, in that experience,” and you can feel strengthened by that. But it is much more difficult to look ahead when you cannot see the result and have the same conviction that the hand of God is present and is guiding you, is leading you forward, perhaps in a different direction than you seek. But that presence cannot be denied. Such an experience is far more difficult than looking back. But the reality of what lies ahead in terms of God’s presence is no less true than the events that you look back upon as indicative of divine guidance. The reality is the same. It is your view of the future that is clouded.

Humankind is too often absorbed by worries of the future, and is too often willing to only look back without acknowledging that the presence that lies behind is the same as the presence that awaits ahead. God is no less present in the future than in the past. If you look to the past as evidence of God’s presence and such a view gives you faith for the future, then such looking backward is indeed helpful. But if in looking backward you are blind to your faith in what lies ahead, then your faith is not all- encompassing, then you are not truly encompassing God’s presence in the totality of your life.

You are all committed to the reality that God did not stop speaking to humans when the Bible was completed. You all believe that God continues to speak, continues to guide, continues to be present, continues to be felt, continues to inspire. But accepting that, you must also see that continuity in your own lives and in the events that shape the world in the future.

Looking ahead and seeing God above the confusion of uncertainty is the ultimate act of faith. Faith is believing what you cannot see. It is not acknowledging what you see from the past. Faith looks forward. Faith may take the past as evidence of hope for the future. But faith, as you exercise it, must always look ahead, down the road, allowing the illumination of God to help provide the way. It is the most difficult challenge each of you has, believing in what you cannot see, being confident in what you do not know, being committed to a task whose completion you cannot envision. But acting with that exercise of faith provides incredible meaning to the present.

As we have said before, the past, the present, and the future are all part of the same. Without looking ahead with faith, the present can loom up as a threatening reality and cloud your vision of God in your lives here, now, at this moment. Worry and concern about the future hinder your ability to live in the present, for you can become consumed by worry. The present loses its significance and your energies are focused on anxieties that you feel you have no control over.

In fact, you do have control over the future. You have control not about the event of the future; you have control over your response. Your response can be positive. It can be a kind of growth—strength, reaffirmation, redirection, inspiration. Or your response can be passive, victimized. It can be filled with despair and disillusionment. It is you who have control. All events in your lives can be positive if you view positive to mean opportunity for growth, for spiritual deepening, for blossoming of your spiritual energy. There is no other option than growth, positive growth.

There is indeed some truth to the power of positive thinking. That does not mean that you see the world other than it is, but rather that you take what the world is and build something positive with it. You can change the world. You change your world. You change the world as you live it. You change your life as you live it. You change the lives of others as you live your own life. That is positive, that is the strength that you draw from your journeys. It is the spiritual growth that takes place through meeting challenges in a positive manner.

It is so important for you not to feel defeated at some level when outcomes do not materialize as you would wish them to. Perhaps you are wishing for something that is ultimately not the most beneficial. What a grace it is not to get what you wish for, but to be the beneficiaries of what is really best—best for you, best for others. That is a grace that you all receive, that each of you shares. Your understanding of God, your understanding of the presence of your guides, provide a means of receiving that grace.

You are never alone. You are never away from God’s illumination. You are never away from the capacity to view what lies ahead. You are never left without an ability to turn all that you know of in your life’s experiences into a positive force, a positive energy. Build on those positives. They are what give life its perspective and its anchor. It’s what provides you with stability. It’s what provides others for whom you pray with peace.

There is always something positive that can be drawn from every event. Even the most horrific that you can think of has within it the seeds of positive benefit. There is something to be gained from every experience. There is something to be gained from the greatest agony, suffering. There is something to be gained from injustice on both sides. It does not defend the unjust act, for that is manmade. But God’s grace provides an opportunity for pulling oneself out of the injustice and somehow becoming stronger. How that is accomplished, the direction that it takes, the character that it assumes will differ from event to event and person to person. But regardless of the events, there is benefit to be gained.

Welcome those journeys that you take. Some are long, some are short. Some are filled with joy that can be reaffirming. Some are filled with sadness that requires affirmation in some quarter. But all journeys have their purpose. You are blessed by your capacity to draw strength from your journeys. Welcome them, long or short, pleasant or challenging, and live in the faith that God is a part of your experiencing of the journey, and that just as you can see God’s presence in your past, you can be absolutely assured of that presence in the unseen future of your lives.

We, your guides, bless each of you with greater vision. We are committed to your growth in faith and to your lives that are strengthened and reaffirmed and given dignity through that growing faith.

Amen.