November 7, 1981
God, the Creator and Light and Love, surrounds you.
We sense in your gathering this evening your concerns for knowing the truth. Each of you has a great desire to gain a more accurate understanding both of God and your responsibilities in your human lives. The purposes of these communions, these opportunities of reflecting God’s word to each of you, are not to focus your attention on one area and to neglect another. It is vital to the welfare of each that you understand God in your lives, but it is not God’s intention that you retreat into the lifestyle of an ascetic who is concerned about God but not about worldly matters. The function of God in your lives is made valuable, is given meaning, as it is applied in your lives, as it is demonstrated in your transactions with others.
Each of you has a great responsibility toward others. You cannot disregard another’s suffering. You cannot condemn another’s viewpoint, and you cannot ever feel a sense of self-righteousness, for your progress through life can best be measured by the progress of others. We have said so often that your spiritual growth is inexorably intertwined with the spiritual progress of others. That relationship is also viewed through the perspective of human life.
The value of your human life can only be measured in its progress through the growth and development and betterment of the human lives of those around you. It is not God’s design that you should become insensitive to the sufferings and feelings of others. Your response to others is crucial. Your responsibility is indeed defined as your ability to respond. You respond to others with prayer, but you also know that it is your actions which speak the loudest. It is what you do which should reflect what you are. All that you are governs all that you do.
The soul has many facets to its expression. It gives to another through prayer, but it can give to another in a very visible manner, too, through an outward expression of love and concern, sympathy, tolerance, compassion. All of these responses emanate first from the soul.
Our desires for you are many. We want you to grow. We want you to learn to know God. We want you to commit yourselves to a centering in God. We want to help you, and that is why we are your guides. But all that we teach, all that we reflect from God, is meaningless unless it directly affects how you deal with your life—people and events.
Your life in its essence is an act of faith. Your relationships with others or your responses to events are cast in the strength of your faith. When your faith is strong, your response is sure. It is free from turmoil. Strife is eliminated. Doubt ceases to take hold of your lives, but that faith grows slowly. It is our desire in helping each of you that your faith will be strengthened. The growth of your spiritual selves during your human life is directly coupled with the specific information which God imparts to you through us. Together you are given the insight to eventually commit your spiritual selves to a permanent path leading unfailingly to God. That decision of which you are aware, therefore, is aided both by our communicating to you and your response to others.
The bond which joins our communications, God’s presence in your lives, to your response is faith. Without faith there is no direct response to God and God’s direction. Therefore, in the end, in the final analysis, life is the exercise of faith. Your perceptions of God differ, and when you feel strong in your faith, your responses to those perceptions will differ. These differences in themselves are not important, for they are still generated by faith relating to your individual perceptions of God. The responses of no two people will be alike, for their perceptions will always be different, but they will be equal in God’s eyes because they are the result of faith. Faith perhaps could be likened to a highly polished lens. Two individuals will perceive the world beyond in different shapes and with different perspectives. Because of that difference, their response to the world will be different, but it is the faith, it is the lens, which individualizes the world’s view to the particular characteristics of the individual.
We recognize the tension which has been experienced this evening, but the tension itself is not important. It is also not important to compare perceptions. What is important is that each of you is interpreting your response to the world through the nature of your own faith, and therefore those responses are very natural. As your faith develops and alters and grows and changes in character, your responses will change. That makes these responses no more or less valid. It only indicates that you are responding to the world through your perception of God, and that is what God would have you do. There is no one way to meet the world and it is well that this is so, for the needs of the world are many and no one response can meet those needs.
It has been said that you are the hands of God, but you must remember that each finger on the hand has a different ability and a different function, a different purpose and a differing way of reacting to what it touches. The thumb is no more or less important than another finger, but the hand is only a complete hand when its various parts are functioning according to their design. The hand of God is only complete when each of you responds to the world honestly according to your own God-centered, faith-connected abilities. That is why life is an act of faith.
Faith, therefore, is more than just blind courage or blind recognition and acceptance. The profession of faith does not imply the belief that whatever will be, will be. Faith implies the connecting force which joins a knowledge of God, from whatever perspective, to the feeling of the need to act. That is the true use of faith. When you pray to God for faith, you may pray for courage perhaps, but in asking for courage you are actually asking more. You are asking for perception. You are asking for direction—direction towards action. When you are reacting with others, keep in mind that all who express themselves are reflecting their perceptions, and while there will always be different understandings of the meaning of God in life, all are groping, all are attempting in their own ways to bring God into a meaningful focus in their lives.
We are glad that this evening brought out differences in the perceptions of God and in the perceptions of life. It is too easy to be lulled into the belief that everyone holds the same basic perceptions and to be comforted by the sameness. It is not important that your perceptions be the same, and it is not God’s purposes that they be united. A hand which is all thumbs cannot be as effective. A world with virtually the same perceptions lacks flexibility, lacks breadth, lacks the ability to stretch and accommodate. The differences in opinions of which you are aware are common throughout life, and they should be welcomed as an expression of your sense of perception—your perception of God and the world. You must all recognize that the breadth of those perceptions is essential. Accept them. Accept your own perceptions. Accept the validity of the perceptions of others.
No one idea of God is of superior value, for in reality God is what you perceive the Divine to be when you direct yourselves toward God’s awareness through prayer. If you perceive God as a provider, God is that. If you feel God to be a comforter, God is that. If you believe God to be one of power, God is that, too. A governor of the universe—God is that. A great light—God is that. A uniter of humankind—God is that. An enormous spiritual presence—God is that, too. A challenger to action—God is that.
The list is endless, but those who truly seek God honestly, reverently, with a desire to personally know a part of God will then be given an interpretation of God that has meaning for that person, and that interpretation will be every bit as valid as another. The application of that interpretation will be as varied as the views of God. Those responses to God, through the world, based on faith, taken together, is God working in the world. So you are all a vital part.
Respect one another. Respect yourselves. Be willing to listen to another and listen to God as God speaks to each of you personally.
God is with you. God is with each of you. God is with you as a group. God is with all humanity. Rejoice in God’s presence!
Amen.