September 5, 1982
God, your light, your teacher, and strength-giver, is with you at this time as at all times, but such gatherings as these are special because they serve to focus your spiritual awareness on God, and they allow your guides the blessing of being united with one another as you are joined. It is a period of great joy for us that we may exercise our responsibility of giving true life to your earthly lives. We serve as an extension to your conscious awareness. We serve as a means of growth for you, providing a kind of potential toward which each may respond as each is able.
Your time apart from one another has been important in your lives, for each of you has had to cope with new responsibilities and new responses to changing concerns. It is like breathing. You breathe in and receive the nourishment of the air around you. That nourishment is transmitted throughout your body. There follows a period of exhalation which provides the potential within your system for the taking in of more nourishment. And so it is with spiritual growth. For so long you are taking in more information, more instruction, more inspiration and clarification, but there comes a time when your spiritual system must have an opportunity to digest and thoroughly absorb much of what you have taken in.
It is just such an experience which is a part of this period in your lives which you have just completed. You have each had an opportunity to reflect in some manner on the presence of God within your life. It is not merely an academic question: Does God mean more to me now than God did at this time last year? It is a feeling of direction in one’s life—not necessarily one of answers, but an understanding that somehow God really is at work here. Moreover, it is an acceptance of God’s presence through an application of such knowledge to life.
The plant continues to grow after the sun sets because of the nourishment provided through sunlight and minerals within the soil’s compound. That growth does not stop. Each of you continues to grow during periods when you are not within this group. That you already know, but one can only sense such growth and the certainty of that growth when one realizes God’s presence independent from these meetings. And so it is we can say each of you has grown considerably. You may not have the answers to all that concerns you, but you are growing in your faith that resolutions to concerns and worries are available and will be forthcoming.
James’ experience in trying to explain these communications are typical of the frustrations which you may experience in trying to explain a spiritual reality to one who measures reality through logic. The concern was not so much whether one can be open to spiritual guides, but rather when opening oneself, does one not also become subject to evil forces. It is a difficult response but one which is totally understandable. The spirit world is full of positive and negative forces. When one is open, technically one is open to whatever is out there. You can be assured of being tuned in, as it were, to God only through your prayerful approach to this miracle.
When you speak to others about your experience of being open to God’s guidance through spirit guides, you must accept the fact that they may well see in such process the seeds of evil influence. Much has been written and publicized about the presence of evil in life. It is the evil which attracts attention so much more readily than the good. But the presence of evil as a spiritual force does not deny the concurrent presence of God, for God is always present regardless of the presence or absence of evil influences.
There are many among you who will never readily accept God’s use of spirit guides as a way of influencing human life toward a greater understanding of God. It is beyond logic. It is not unlike the opportunities available for inviting evil influences and, therefore, a certain resistance will be a part of the response of many.
When we, your guides, speak to you as individuals, we speak according to your capacity to understand. We speak in a manner which has direct bearing on your life, your needs, your growth. What is considered of great significance to you may not be shared with the same enthusiasm by another. That contrast of receptivity, nevertheless, does not belie the truth as given to you.
There are many languages in the world, and each language addresses a given group of people. Truth may be expressed in numerous languages. By the same consideration, God’s truth may be revealed in a myriad of ways. It is not important that another find great inspiration in all that moves you.
What is important is that God moves all by whatever means is appropriate. For some it is a total reliance upon Jesus Christ. Such reliance adheres to the belief that only through him can one know God. For many that is true. For them to know Jesus is to know God. There is nothing wrong with such belief. It is not incorrect. It is not a fallacious idea stemming from the human mind. But similarly, you may be assured that there are other ways of knowing God which are equally valid, and because there are many ways, there is no one way which is good for all.
The religions of the world each have their perspective of God. Each has its concept of how to reach God and how to know God. Those perspectives are correct. There is not one which is more correct than another as long as the ultimate purpose is a greater understanding of God. For those who feel the only way to know God is through Jesus, that is the way for them. Any other way would be inappropriate. Therefore, you cannot debate the importance of Jesus or any other in the ultimate knowledge of God, for such debate has no meaning. What is important for one person is essential for that person and correct for that person. Another way is inappropriate at a given time.
Each of you has developed perceptions of God and perceptions of the means toward God which are different from your current perceptions. That is not to say that those earlier beliefs were not right. Indeed, they were wholly right. They were completely appropriate and necessary just as your current perceptions of God are correct. Your understanding of God’s will in life will continue to evolve and change, but certainly that does not mean that your current direction is somehow limited or inappropriate. On the contrary, it is the path that God has ordained you to proceed on, for it is the direction which is best at this time in your lives.
So it is with all religions of the world. When focused on God, each is fully appropriate for those who find real meaning and significance in them. What we are saying is that in your spiritual growth, you must be tolerant and understanding of the growth of others. It is not a game of choosing up sides and winning a contest. It is not the only game which is available. You must have faith in the fact that all you experience in this matter through these messages is valid for you and not assume it has either validity or meaning to another.
Your experiences as a group, while shared in common, are still experienced individually. All leave these meetings with a different impression. All depart for their own life activities with a different fragment, a different impression, a different significance given to that which was experienced. That is God’s intention. No two of you will come away with the same understanding and perspective, even though you both shared the same experience, for God speaks to you not solely as a group but individually. It is one guide, but it is many who hear, and you perceive according to your needs and according to God’s will, according to God’s understanding of what each of you needs.
This can be seen perhaps more easily in the experience of corporate worship within the framework of an established church. All of you worship together but draw from the experience in different ways. Certain elements of the experience have meaning or great significance while others are of little impact, but each has the capacity to draw as the needs dictate and as God wills. Your lives, therefore, are lives of absorption, lives characterized by drawing from your experiences, drawing all that is needed at a given time.
How often it is when you read the printed version of these messages at some time distant from the reception that your interpretation is greatly altered. That which had great meaning months before seems diminished somewhat, and yet an aspect of the message which had relatively little meaning jumps out at you, takes hold of your awareness, and provides meaning for your life at that time.
Such is the experience of God in life. God’s presence is much like these messages. They are always there, but their meaning continually evolves. God’s presence in your lives is constant—that you know—but your experience of God’s presence goes through many changes as you progress through life. God at one time may be full of compassion, comfort, forgiveness, challenge, direction, peace, love, a friend. God’s presence may be many things at different times.
As you experience these messages, it is important to constantly remind yourselves that they really come from God. Your guides help you to hear God more clearly, but it is God who speaks. It is God who directs your conscience. Your guides help your conscience to be electrified, to be heightened in its awareness. Your guides serve to increase the potential for your receptivity of God, but it is God who truly directs your lives, not us. Our responsibility is to keep the passage open to God and to help God be focused on your souls, but we cannot generate that which is given to you. Only God can do that.
For some experiencing these communions through other people, there is a belief that it is Jesus who speaks. For those who believe that, it is true. For those who believe that Jesus and God are one and that it is God who speaks, that too is true. What is important is not the perception of who speaks, but rather the ultimate focus on the presence of God and the application of that awareness by each of you on a daily basis.
Each of your guides prays for you. We pray for your peace and your patience. We pray for your tolerance, your desire to understand. We pray for your love of others and love of yourselves, for if you do not love yourself, how can you love another? We pray for your insight into what is important in your lives, your sensitivity to others—their needs and their own reflections of God. We pray for your understanding of that which God sees appropriate for you to receive. Above all, we pray for your growth, the increasing of your light and its vibrancy throughout the world.
We bless you in God’s name through great love and light.
Amen.