Benefits of receiving a gift.

April 12, 2012

God unites each of you permanently with one another. There is a special bond you all experience together, but you are also joined permanently with everyone else who has walked along your path and who will walk along your path. You are indeed united by God’s love with all with whom you are in contact. Certainly, you are united with all of creation, but the interactions you have with others ensure the reality that you are sharing your path for a reason. 

Families have many issues to deal with that create agony as well as ecstasy, but each family member is important in the development of another’s spiritual strength. You as friends, colleagues, share with one another much that is part of your own lives. You share what brings you pain, and you share what brings you joy. It is the sharing that becomes the glue, the bond, that brings you together now and for the entirety of your futures. 

You share by expressing what is in your heart. You don’t share for the purpose of self-promotion or self-benefit. You share in the spirit of offering a part of yourself that others may see and touch emotionally and with love. You share to create a kind of vulnerability, an openness in which you are able to receive the love that can be offered. Sharing is an act of love, particularly when you feel you can share whatever it is that reflects your needs. 

Sharing what is good in your life is, of course, certainly appropriate, but the kind of sharing we refer to is a sharing that invites the presence of another into your own life. If you are feeling pain, expressing that you are in pain is a way of inviting another to experience that with you, if for a brief moment. Sharing worries or concerns is a way of welcoming another into a healing relationship with you, a relationship that has, as part of its reality, a wish to lessen the burdens. 

The burdens of human life are not to be experienced alone. They may be felt as being experienced in such a way, but in reality, all can be shared. All can be ministered to. You offer your loving thoughts to those whom you know are in great need. Why is it that you are reluctant so often to express your own needs so that others may respond? Sharing your deepest concerns does not result in burdening another’s life. It can only result in something positive. It may be loving concern. It may be being present. It may be offering assistance of one kind or another. The response is unlimited in choice, but the response is there when others know of your own needs. 

Much of what you are engaged in with this group is about sharing. That engagement that you experience can be but a microcosm of what can be gained outside this group. You are aware of some of the needs of others within the gathering. You can see clearly the benefit of being equally aware of the needs of others with whom you come into contact. You are asked to be vulnerable, but you are also asked to be supportive, to be giving, to be compassionate, to be loving. You are asked to serve another, to serve an individual, a group, a community, a national interest. 

Human life is a life of service, ultimately service that engages the spiritual presence of another. Often you do not see or know of the needs that are being cried out for a response, but if you adjust your attention to what seem to be the needs of others, you’re halfway to the goal of being helpful. 

How is your help provided? For many, that help is offered simply by listening with a compassionate and loving ear. There are times when your serving another is achieved by something you say or something you do or by some way that you conduct your life that reflects your own spiritual awareness. But service to another is merely another way of encouraging you to become more loving. 

Life, human life, is not about getting. It must become all about giving. The great gift available as a human being is the gift to give, the gift to serve. When you look at human history, some of the most compelling personalities that you know of are those whose lives have been devoted to giving. You don’t long remember the lives of individuals that are dedicated primarily to accumulating, to getting. It is the giving that lasts because it is the giving that is a direct response to what it means to be loving. 

Love is a light. Its energy is to expand. The expansion of love is giving. We’re not talking about currency that you can purchase something with. We’re talking about a currency that can only benefit another. That is the currency, the true currency, of life. You give because it provides light. You give because it enhances. You give because it supports. You give because it gives meaning of life to another human being. That is what giving must incorporate. 

We speak so often about the importance of being loving to all others, and this is really a loving that is giving. Your goal in human life, therefore, is the goal of the gift of love, the gift of support. The sharing that you experience in this group and that you experience at times elsewhere essentially provides the environment that encourages the gift. When you receive a gift, you are strengthened, reinforced, you are shown meaning, and you learn something of love. That is the benefit; that is all that you accumulate. There is no other accumulation of any value than the recognition of love offered by someone else. 

We spoke recently of the issues of transition, the difficulties that some spirits experience. Those difficulties, the seeming inability to adapt, are really the results of a lack of receiving the gifts of others, for every human being has a choice of being vulnerable, of receiving love or blocking it. When light is present the light expands, but one can still close the shutters and block out a recognition of what is there. The light is still there. The light is not contained. The light merely resides. At some point the shutters may be opened and the light comes streaming in. 

We, your guides, are a part of that beam of light that illuminates your own pathways. At times you close the shutters. At times you close your eyes. But the light that we offer remains, and it continues to expand in your direction while all that is needed is to open the shutters, and the light is there. Your act of vulnerability is the act of opening the shutters. The light that comes in is the result of our efforts on your behalf, our commitment to your spiritual growth, and our commitment to your human recognition of what is permanent within. 

We are always with you. We are always present. Our hands are always extended. Our countenance is always one of love. All you need to do is to allow yourself to be open, to acknowledge in so many words “I need help.” You are sharing with your guides. You’re sharing with your own core, your soul, your spirit. You’re sharing what your needs really are. The light comes pouring in. 

God’s assistance in your life is always present. You don’t have to plead with God to illuminate your life or the lives of others, for God is not waiting for this pleading. God is already at the door. When you beseech God, when you beseech your guides to respond to the needs that you identify, you are really in fact asking for your own openness so that for which you pray may come forth. 

You never activate God through prayer. You activate your own receptivity to what is already present. When you pray to God for help, God does not spring into action and respond with full energy. That response is already there. The dwelling you call home is already bathed in light. All that it needed was to open the windows. That opening is part of the process of sharing, and when you share with one another, you are not pleading that another help you. When you are sharing you are opening those windows that allow the light to expand into your own darkness. 

It is therefore essential that you not withhold an expression of need. It is essential that you acknowledge your vulnerability, the need that you have to be illuminated, the need that your life has to overcome the darkness that you may experience. 

We, your guides, are with you constantly. God is with you constantly. Those whom you love are with you constantly. Being stoic and not admitting the needs you have merely serves as a set of shutters that prevents the light for which you pray from entering. If you pray for peace and understanding in your own life, don’t expect that that will come with no response on your part. If you pray for such peace and light, commit yourself to being open to that peace and light, and all that you pray for will be given to you according to your own individual needs. 

If you are filled with uncertainty or fear, allow yourself the opportunity to be fully available to the healing that can overcome that uncertainty, that fear. The healing may be recognized in very concrete ways, or it may come quietly in the night, but that healing, that response, is absolute. It is secure. It is the contract that exists between you and your guides and the Spirit Center referred to as God. There is nothing that will separate you completely from that light. There is nothing beyond what you can do that can prevent the light from entering your life. 

All that you pray for is available to you at all times. Be open! If you wish for the hand of God, then open your own hands to grasp God’s presence. A closed fist simply denies the presence of the open and loving hand. Release the fist, open the hands, open your heart, open the shutters, and share in the light that is eternally yours. 

You are blessed in the light. You are blessed in your efforts to be open, to be receptive. You are blessed in your efforts to share what resides within your path that it may be strengthened, given meaning through the presence of others and through the light that comes from us and from God. 

Be in the light! Be in the place on your paths that allows you, that encourages you, that enables you to share. 

Amen.