Receiving and giving strength and inspiration.

June 17, 2024

The God to whom you reach out with open arms is a God of compassion, a God of listening, a God of complete presence. This embracing presence serves to help open your hearts to what is truly meant when you fully understand you are being led by God’s light. 

We speak often about this condition of being led by that light, but being so led requires vulnerability that we refer to so frequently. We would like to bring your attention at this time to learning about that vulnerability which is so important. 

You are correct in recognizing that in your society the meaning of vulnerability implies weakness. It implies an ability not to control what is happening to your life. We would like to turn that concept upside down. It is true that vulnerability can be interpreted as weakness, but consider what it means to personally choose an appropriate position in life that others may feel is weak. The more profound truth is that acknowledging your own needs can be most appropriately considered an act that demands great personal strength. We are not equating vulnerability with selfish intent but rather a clear acknowledgment that what is needed at the moment is beyond one’s current ability to provide. You are not weak when you receive help from another. 

This vulnerability we speak of is, of course, an openness, but there is a deeper level to being vulnerable, and that is one of honesty toward oneself. Issues of pride often get in the way of being honest with oneself. You must strip away pride. You must strip away a belief that you are correct regardless of evidence to the contrary. 

This honesty that is necessary for vulnerability is also a matter of intention of which we have spoken. It becomes your intention to see yourself with clarity, accepting what it is you see in yourself. If you are consumed by fear of the unknown, for example, that is an important realization because that fear can find its expression in anger you may feel. It is of little use to simply acknowledge that you are frequently angry. It is more helpful to dig more deeply and honestly explore not who you are but why you are, because it is in understanding honestly the “why” that you become more clear in answering truly the “who” you are. Knowing who you are, stripped of artifice, gives you a greater understanding of what your needs really are. 

Being vulnerable, therefore, one must first dig more deeply and be honest in your clear pursuit to understand your own essence in a more profound manner. No human being will fully understand all of the energies that are at play, but in the effort to more clearly perceive where you are coming from, you are then clearer in your vision of what it is you truly seek, and it is in that seeking that you are exercising your vulnerability. 

So many human beings go through life denying efforts to dig beneath the surface asking the question “why?” As a result, what they claim to be their needs can feel rather superficial, and that superficial asking could be received by others as a lack of intention in one or another aspect of their lives. It is from that apparent lack of intention that such perceptions of weakness can arise. 

If someone you encounter expresses in one way or another a vulnerability, and in that expression, you sense the depth from which those needs arise, it is impossible to be critical and to state such vulnerability is merely weakness. You don’t know what others have been through that brings them to where they are. Individuals may not have done the honest search to clearly understand where they are. 

When your relationships with others reveal your ability to be vulnerable, the expression of those needs becomes infinitely more powerful because that expression is the consequence of personal honesty. So, the first step of becoming vulnerable in your relationship with others, in your relationship with God, is the commitment, the intention, to be honest in understanding more about not just who you are but why. In becoming more vulnerable and accepting the true needs that you may have, the natural consequence of such an honest journey is to become more accepting, more open to the needs that are expressed by others. It is through that openness that any sense of judgment is corralled, and you begin to look upon another with a loving heart vision void of any attempts to belittle, to criticize. 

Being vulnerable, being honest with yourself, enables you to reach out with open arms to God’s loving presence that is constant. You are not loved because you deserve to be loved. You are loved because you are, and all that you are is the culmination of all that you perceive through honesty and openness. Such vulnerability takes courage. It asks you to look at yourself with no pretense, with no judgments, simply to be open to ask yourself the “whys” of your life. Much strength is required. It is a pursuit that is not simply a path that you travel to its completion then knowing all you need to know. Revealing yourself to yourself is a lifelong effort, but as you proceed through that effort, you begin to learn what it is you truly need, not what your society prescribes. 

Each individual is different. Each individual has very distinct needs. Being open to that variety of needs is essential before you can fully be present to another at a time when you wish to be a hand of God. Being vulnerable is being strong. It is being fully nonjudgmental of self. You recognize that essential approach to self, and knowing that it is valid and leads to a clear and open, loving vision, you then are in a position to offer that same approach to others in your life. 

To give, you must have received. To truly hear what another says, you must have been true to what you know of yourself. It is in that honesty, in that true knowledge, that you feel most connected to others. You may not cry out to God with anguish that you have discovered something of why you are, but the openness to God can perhaps be explained as a more willing and honest openness to all others. 

Just as you are a part of God, so are all others, and reaching out with open arms to God might be expressed as reaching out with open arms to embrace another, someone in need, someone whose candle does await being lit. Just as you may couch your truest needs so that even you don’t recognize it, such efforts to conceal belong to all people, but penetrating your own concealments strengthens your perception from what is being said by others to what is being meant by others. 

Relationships between people come down in the most basic way simply to what it means to listen. Your capacity to listen is given strength through your efforts with honesty to understand yourself, for you will never understand others to the same level that you may understand yourself. So many people resist a true understanding of self. Some are fearful of what they may find. Some might believe it is an empty pursuit. Since one cannot know oneself fully, why bother to know oneself even partially? That concealment becomes the barrier in any efforts to reach out and meaningfully embrace another with God’s light. 

You are given your life in part for the purpose of understanding self. That is not a selfish act that is centered upon the importance of self but rather the acknowledgment of the need for true honesty as a way of filling the soul with love. One may find in such pursuit grounds for self-judgment, for guilt, for a sense of uselessness. Some may choose to look out and hope to see God’s light coming in. That light does not come through the clouds. It comes through those closest to you just as God’s light comes through you to others. It is not a magic vision coming from the heavens above. 

If you wish to be inspired and strengthened by God presence, then be willing to be inspired and strengthened by the presence of others. It is in that way that you inspire and strengthen and give light to another. It is because of who you are as understood by the why you are. You become the inspiration, the strength-giver because you feel more closely connected to your soul essence, and in that connectedness, you are empowered to give strength and light to another. It is only through that vulnerability that you ultimately can serve as the hands, eyes, and heart of God. 

Be open to the hands, the heart, the vision, and the presence of God as expressed by others. You will only fully be aware of that sacred expression when you are vulnerable enough with yourself to be open to that God presence. Your life is a journey of growth, and that growth cannot be measured through the standard yardsticks of strength. That growth is measured through understanding of self, of being willing to ask what it is you truly need, what lies at the surface, and what lies at the foundation of your life. 

You are blessed when you look inward and truly know yourself, recognizing that it is in that fundamental level of human need that you share that same fundamental level with all. The specific characteristics of two lives are never identical, but at the most fundamental level, the needs of spirit are the needs of all spirits. The needs that nurture your soul are the same needs that nurture the souls of all. 

You all stand on a common ground, and when you fully recognize that, you will see God’s light everywhere, and you will know without a doubt what that total embrace of God’s loving spirit truly means for all.

You are blessed in that loving light whether you see it in yourself by being vulnerable or not, whether you see it in the lives of others or not. The blessings of that loving presence belong to all. 

Amen.