April 19, 2004
God holds your spirits in the hands and embrace of complete love. You are held in that love for two reasons: 1) you are loved, and 2) you learn what it means to be loved so that you can love.
We have spoken so often about the meaning of being loved and being loving. You know that you learn to be loving through the experience of being loved. All human beings can learn to be loving because all human beings are loved. If you are given a gift by someone and you are unaware of that gift, the gift is nevertheless given. As you become aware of the gift, you become aware of the giver. You are all the recipients of love, but equally important is your awareness on a profound level of the nature and character of the giver.
You want to know more about God, but to understand God you must understand God’s gift. God’s gift to each of you is manifested in many diverse, broadly defined aspects. The gift of God may be the gift of being listened to, the gift of being cared for, the gift of being loved nonjudgmentally, the gift of being loved compassionately. The gift of God is not riches. The gift of God is not fame or high position. The gift of God is applied equally to all. When you know what it means to be ministered to, when you know what it means to be cared for, when you know the touch of a healing hand, when you know the care of an enfolding arm, you are becoming aware of the true Giver of those gifts. God gives gifts through others.
When you pray for peace, the gift of peace ultimately is exercised by others. It is sensed by you as an inner peace. It is an awareness of a presence that is conducive to mutual understanding. When you pray for health, you pray for balance, you pray for a vision that brings comfort, that brings a confidence in the rightness of what follows. Who provides that comfort? How does a perfect stranger become aware of the Giver of life when in your presence? That awareness is not achieved by talking about it. That awareness is achieved through observation, the result of action.
Your lives ultimately seek balance. Each of you can help provide that balance. Each of you can foster an environment that encourages balance. In so doing, you are acting as the hands and arms and heart of God. What you offer to others that is supportive, uplifting, healing, hope-giving, is evidence of God on the human plane of life.
You often ask, “What is it that You would have me do, God? Am I doing as I am here to do, or must I be doing something else? Is what I am doing a reflection of Your Presence?” All human beings are capable of asking that profound question. What life provides the soul is the opportunity for growth. That growth can be achieved in many ways, but it is most effective when it is accompanied with balance. Of course you can learn through adversity. That is one channel for learning, but when experiencing adversity many other channels are closed. In achieving balance in life, the channels to spiritual growth are pointed in many different directions, but they all result in the growth of the spirit.
In no way does caring for the afflicted eliminate opportunities that are essential for their spiritual growth. Those who are not able to achieve the balance that is sought still grow. They still develop, for in every human being there is the need to be loved. There are many whose lives interrupt or provide a barrier between the giver and the recipient, but the need persists. For some whose life experiences are out of balance, the growth that is necessary is achieved in part. For some, that may mean experiencing human life again, possibly several times.
Your soul chooses to be joined with the human form in the journey of human life. But the life of that human form is not predetermined. Whether it is long or short, suffering or not, lies beyond the scope of that individual decision. A soul chooses a particular life-form for its potential. That potential may be influenced by where in the world that life begins. It may be influenced by the experiences of the family of that new life-form. It may be influenced by many factors, but nothing is preordained to happen to that life-form. There is only potential, there is only environment. Nevertheless, the soul chooses the life-form that best meets the needs for spiritual development.
Sometimes those lives experience little balance. Some lives are tortured by physical and emotional limitations. Any effort to seek balance is an effort ordained by the concept of God-inspired wholeness. No individual is being punished and therefore experiences a life of great difficulty. There is no punishment. There is of course the need for spiritual growth. That growth must ultimately be achieved. There is no time frame, but the reality is spiritual growth always leads to a full return to the godly love, the outer circle. That is the mission of all souls. Therefore it should be in the consciousness of all to provide assistance, to provide a means for helping others to achieve balance.
When you act with loving, nonjudgmental compassion toward another, you are encouraging the balance of which we speak. When you are critical, when you are angry, when you generate negative energy in the world by whatever means, you’re inhibiting, you’re slowing down the potential for balance. We are quick to say, however, that such negative energy never stops the achievement of balance, for balance will be met. It is the nature of the soul. It is the nature of God. It is the character of the Giver of Gifts, the embodiment of balance. When you give a gift that is offered with balance, you are in effect God’s agent giving that gift. The recipient in accepting that gift has a glimpse of God, the Giver.
Such gifts do not know time. Gifts are not limited in terms of when they must be received. You offer the gift of understanding to someone who is difficult to understand. That gift is never lost. You may not live your human lives long enough to see that gift acknowledged, but it is given with love and that positive energy is never lost.
The concept of time is a human-made concept. There is no past, there is no present, there is no future that is separate, one from another. All that exists is now. All that has ever existed is now. All that will ever exist is now. There is only the present. Yes, you have memories of the past, but the past is merely a reflection of the present. The past is merely the reflection of the present. The future is only a reflection of the present. Think of this in different terms. The energy you create in your world now, as you identify it, has an impact on the future. Therefore, that future is a reflection of the present. You perceive the past in today’s terms, but they are still part of today. Your understanding of the past is merely a reflection of today. There is no differentiation. The now that you speak of is all there is, but the now is also the always, the forever, the permanent. The now is everything that was and all that is to be, in your terms.
How do you understand your lives when you are in the middle of them, so to speak? You can understand the direction of your lives if you allow yourselves to be sensitive to its reflection. Think for a moment how you reacted to someone recently. The impact can be understood by positioning your thoughts to the perspective of the other. It does not change who you are, it does not change how you reacted, but you are better able to understand the impact of your reactions. Your reactions remain real; the impact remains real. Both are in the present, both are in the now.
It is possible and desirable to place yourself into the perspective of the reflection of who you are, what you do, and how you act in the world. You can see yourself because you are then reflecting yourself, but the sense of now remains.
Our lives are very clearly in the present. We see the present. We see all that the present includes. Although your lives are not predetermined, we see events as they unfold as part of the present. We know your general reactions and we therefore have an understanding of where those reactions will lead. If you are concerned for your own health, we may reassure you that you will be healed, that you will achieve balance. That is a certainty. Does that mean that in a restoration of health all will be as you wish it to be? That cannot be predicted, for you are beings of choice and you can therefore choose what your expectations and anticipations may be. They may or may not be what belongs to the picture of the present. But when you are reassured of healing, you are reassured of balance. This balance may be physical, it may be emotional, but it is always spiritual.
Your journeys toward that inner circle from which you can look out to the outermost circle of the loving presence of God are sure, they are sustained, they are steady, and they are illuminated through your guides. You can be confident that you are on the path that you must be on at this place in your present, in your now. Devote your lives to the reality of balance—your own balance, the balance of others—for out of balance comes the vision of God’s outer circle of love, and it is that vision that protects and secures the balance you seek forever.
We pray for your balance. We pray for your ability to place yourselves in the position of reflection. We pray for your continued growth and progress to the inner circle that you may then fully comprehend the path that leads to the ultimate loving presence of God.
Rejoice in the balance! Rejoice in the pursuit of the balance! Rejoice in the knowledge that you are all loved! And rejoice in the conviction that in recognizing your gifts, you see clearly your Giver!
Amen.