Respond to a stranger, God.

May 29, 1983

God’s light is very much in evidence in this group. All of you are aware of the potential for reflecting God’s love. Each of you is given a direct and immediate opportunity to reach out to another within your group. When one is in need of help, it is no different from when many are in need. The need is there. The opportunity for response through supporting love is there. 

You have the opportunity of exercising all that God has offered in a means chosen by you and given evidence in your midst. All that we are empowered to transmit to you through these messages is given meaning through what you do to others. It is not mere theory that we offer, for God is not interested in theory. God’s involvement is in love, and love is only love when it is offered, when it is active, when it is communicated, when it is the governing principle of life. 

All that you have been given is, in the end, to be applied. Some of God’s teachings are oriented toward you as an individual. Other teachings are directed towards those around you, but the relationship between both kinds of teachings is one of unified action. It is love. 

So many in your world are starved for love. You think of the deprivation of food, but how often do you actively consider the deprivation of love? You are quick to contribute food for those who are hungry, but how quickly are you motivated to provide love to those who feel without? The lack of physical nourishment cannot be compared in any way to the severity of a lack of spiritual nourishment. Both are necessary for effective human lives. You cannot function without proper food. Such functioning may be merely physical, a kind of existence without perspective, but nevertheless a functioning. But when you proceed through your human lives and are spiritually starved, your lives lack perception, and such a life ultimately loses meaning. Therefore, it is the spiritual nourishment which provides each of you with a sense of purpose to living. 

There are many who work for long hours each day and yet know not why they work. They know not why they live. It is a popular response to say that one lives to work or one works to live, but both responses are inadequate. Yet many in your world exist strictly with one or the other bias. We say to you that you do not live to work and you do not work to live. You live to love. To love, you must live, for life gives meaning to love, and love provides meaning to life. 

How many do you know who would respond to the question of “Why life?” in such a manner? There are so many to whom this response would never occur. For those, life is being spiritually starved. 

Often in the past we have spoken about priorities. Do you choose merely to live or merely to work? Or do you choose to love? When you arise in the morning, say to yourself, “I choose to love today,” and then see how different your life becomes, for in fact you must constantly choose to love or to just live or merely work. For those who subconsciously choose to dedicate their day to work, there is little room for love. When love is pushed aside, the day in retrospect really has no purpose. 

Your goal, therefore, is to love each day. How do you do that? How do you choose to love when you must eat, make a living, provide for yourself or others? What does it mean, then, to dedicate a day to love? It means, above all else, being a listener, listening to what is inside you, listening to an inner impulse. It means listening to what another has to say. It means taking the time to listen. 

If you are so busy in an activity that you cannot take time to listen within or without, your life has no love to give. Being a good listener is not merely a platitude—It is a way of life. It is the only way to live, for in listening within, you know God and in listening without, you may see God. When another comes to you in need, you do not just listen to what is said, but you listen to what is felt. You listen to what is implied. You listen to what is really needed. 

You are listening, then, to an action of God working through another, and you are being called by God. Without listening, you cannot respond to God as God calls to you through another. You know God works through people. God responds through people but also calls out through people. When you listen to the call of another, you are listening to the call of God. 

The reason we emphasize this is that you must be guided through life by the conviction that your calling is to serve God, serving through others. There are those who claim to be serving God directly, and yet they close the door to their neighbor. They are not serving God; they are serving themselves. The Biblical reference to the serving of the lowest as being a serving of God is so concise and accurate, and yet so often glossed over and ignored. Each of you is the recipient of untold numbers of blessings. Each of you has benefited greatly by the presence of God in your lives. How easy it is to forget, to not see, to just not listen to what God offers! 

Your lives must be dedicated to love, and that love can only be given growth through listening. 

Respond to a friend, and you are responding to God. 

Respond to a stranger, and it is God whom you meet. 

Respond to your inner impulses, and it is God whom you hear. 

We bless you, each of you, with the knowledge and the absolute conviction that God is with each of you, that God is a part of your life now and for all eternity. 

Amen.