Prayer and action.
June 2, 1996
God joins God’s light with the lights that each of you issues outward in your many activities. You are really a part of the totality of God’s light. There is nothing that actually separates what you radiate outward from what God produces in love and light. Each of you is as much a part of God’s light as the drop of water in the ocean. You are all important to enabling God to directly contribute to the development of human life.
It is too often thought that God’s impact is purely spiritual, but you must remember that it is from God that you have been given the opportunity for human life, and for that reason God’s presence in your human activities is as important and gives as great significance as God’s impact upon your spiritual lives. Your spiritual selves, of course as you know, are what remain forever. The soul is what is permanent. Permanency of spirit does not mean that all that is not the spirit is unimportant, for it is human life that enhances and gives meaning to the spiritual element that you all seek. It is really a mutual relationship, for the spirit enhances the physical, but the physical houses and enhances the spiritual. Both are needed. Your human lives are given meaning and direction through your connection to the spirit, but your spirit gains, it grows, it broadens, it becomes expressed through the actions of the physical. Because your physical lives are so vital to your spiritual growth, God’s presence is essential for physical human life.
It is a mistake to design one’s living according to purely spiritual objectives, for one loses a sense of balance that is necessary to be a part of human experience. Those who draw away from the physical experience and focus on spirituality to the exclusion of all else, while growing in the spirit, are separated from much that is really essential for the spirit.
When you feel close to God, that sense of proximity, that sense of God’s warmth can be experienced both physically and spiritually. You may not see God, but you can feel God. You can feel God’s presence. You can feel the kind of joy that was described in our last meeting with you. You can feel that happiness, the peace. That is not strictly a spiritual experience. It is very much a physical, human experience. You relate to others in a physical way just as you relate to them prayerfully in a spiritual sense, but your interactions with others are direct, visible, tangible expressions of your souls. When you feel compassion, such an emotion is expressed. It isn’t merely felt at some safe distance, for compassion leads to action—that is physical action, not merely prayer.
We do not wish to diminish the importance of your spiritual connection to God, but rather to emphasize the importance of the physical connection with God. You reach out to others in need. You make sacrifices of time and effort and energy and money for the benefit of others. That is a very human expression of a spiritual presence. The person who lives within the reflected light of God is one who is active doing and not just intending. It is one committed to action and not exclusively to prayer. Prayer without action places responsibility on another, but action without prayer is irresponsible behavior. Both are important, and we urge you to recognize the necessity of the expression and not merely the intention.
Life is to be expressed, life is to be directed outward. That’s why you experience this human form of living. It is only by such expression that your souls are capable of growing in very special and significant ways. In the end it is not to anyone’s benefit to completely withdraw from the human experience to focus on the spiritual one.
Much of your conversation this evening centered around international understanding. That is a physical human expression. It is nothing that can be experienced merely through prayer. If you pray for understanding of another culture, if you pray for peace in another culture, you certainly do bring benefit to that for which you pray. But of equal importance is the benefit that is derived by your experiencing that culture, your meeting with others, your sharing of beliefs, your sharing of ideas, your willingness to learn from another. All of these contribute to achieving that for which you do pray. Your actions, therefore, are a means of enabling your prayers to take flight and to bring grace and light to others.
International understanding provides also the means of recognizing all that binds you together. It shows you how you are alike, for without such commitment, you can be dominated by your perception of how you are different. The differences are unimportant; the likenesses are essential. By focusing on the common experiences of all people, you are producing results far beyond what you imagine are possible, just through the medium of prayer.
Of course prayer is important, for prayer does bring benefit to those for whom you pray. But even more importantly, prayer provides each of you with the strength to be God’s hand in the world. It is you who benefit as much as another when you are engaged in prayer. That benefit is fully realized when your goals that you seek through prayer form the direction of your personal efforts. Then the objective and the means are indeed one, and it is that unity which is a direct reflection of God’s light. That is really how you become the hand of God. It is with intention and it is by pursuing the objectives actively that you bring to fulfillment that for which you pray. Prayer is a way of bringing responsibility back to yourselves and not passing it along to someone else, not just leaving it to God to do something.
God is always present, but it is not so much God who changes what must be changed. It is you working with God who change the world. When you seek peace, find ways of doing what you are able to do to bring about a condition conducive to peace. Praying for peace and leaving it to another is not effective. If you pray for peace, you are aware of the benefits of peace. You recognize the reasons for peace. You recognize the growth that can take place through peace. Recognizing all of those, it is not a large step to move to action from the initial position of recognition.
We love you and we support your efforts to spread peace in your community and around the world, but we are here to enable you to bring your wishes into action. We are not your servants or handmaidens. We are here to empower you, and it is our strong belief that all that you do through prayer will bring about that which you seek.
Recognize all that unites you, individually and between cultures. Affirm that unity, for that is the strength of reality, that is the strength of God’s creation. Unity reigns above all else. Differences are really insignificant and only superficial. When you pray for peace, pray for the strength to bring your wishes for peace to fulfillment, for you can indeed, each of you, make a difference. That difference is achieved through love—its recognition and expression.
We say that we love you. That statement is not just a condition. It describes what we do. These opportunities for reflection of God through communion with your guides provide us the opportunity of putting our love into action so that when we affirm our love for you, such a statement is not empty. It reflects our actions, it reflects our commitment to you, it reflects the commitment of all guides to all of humanity. We do work as a team, you might say. There are no starters or bench players. All are important. All need to be in the game. All need to be committed to an outcome that affirms the value of God’s creations.
Recognize those moments when you are at peace with yourselves and with others. Cherish them and remember them when you are challenged by worry and anxiety, pain or grief. Remember the beauty of that peace that you have felt, and be confident that you can again enter that place where you can feel in complete union with God.
Our love is for your growth. Our love is for your development. Our prayers are for your expression of who you really are in the world. Affirm one another. Believe in the importance of all that is created. Have faith in God’s presence, and be confident that your light is a part of the totality of God’s brilliance in the world. Our blessings of growth are your blessings of growth. Our sense of peace can be yours as well. Rejoice that you are in the light and that you are the light!
Amen.