When looking into your heart and mind, God sees stress and storm and doubt. The shadows are very troublesome indeed and they call out all the Spirits power, lent by God, in order to combat them and send them back to those dark recesses to which they belong. For nothing shall interfere with the progress of this work! But they are allowed to attack it; for it is only by that attack that you find your strength, that the weak ones are exposed to view and that the fainthearted fall to the ground! Yet they rise again, and with the strength that comes from the great Fount of all Strength, on they go again.
Some started this work with a rather curious idea of "a campaign". What is a campaign? The army on one side is assembled and the foe on another. It is a matter of brains and tactics, but above all, of faith and of courage. You know well that it wouldn't be "war" if the one army set out and marched boldly over the enemy's lines and they retreated without a blow; that is not warfare, it never got to warfare. How then could you imagine that with such important work as this the enemy would not put up a pretty stiff fight? It is not reasonable. Yet such is the mind of a child that when they go out with their great older sibling they think that all their enemies will hide. To them that sibling is a tower of strength and they think that no one could face so formidable a foe. They do not know that all the foes are not children like them; that there are big and dangerous adversaries waiting to strike even the most courageous; those who are strong even with the evil within them.
To a certain extent you have placed God and the Spirits as that elder sibling and you have been horrified that anything should dare to challenge your progress. But God and the Spirits, old in the ways of the world, of your world and of your own spheres, knew. But it would not have been wise to have told you of battles long before the enemy was even on the horizon. They bid you walk with them and tried to strengthen and train you and build up your faith so that when the enemy really came across your path some preparation would be there.
These battles are not easy even for the most experienced, but with God in your heart there is no doubt as to which side the victory will go. Sometimes that victory, that longed-for triumph, is postponed; for you were not quite strong enough. This is the training process, a little more had to be done before you could entirely free yourself from the network of evil which surrounded you and find God. In the end you have always found Him. The tears, the sorrow, the regret, all of these have been there; but mounting on the grey steps of suffering at last you emerge from the darkness into the Light!
Of necessity you have much to learn, and the majority, if not all, have much to learn in order to try and follow in the footsteps of the Master. Do not be downhearted; do not let that fearsome thing called depression or despair tempt you. It is nothing but temptation to suggest that you had better take the easier road in the valley below. All in good time. Do you know you are getting on much better than would appear from outward and visible signs to your physical eyes and mind; much, much better! The time is coming soon when those faithful few shall indeed stand under the Sun of God's Love, and in that brightness and warmth forget everything which is of sadness that the past has held; forget and go on their way rejoicing.
This is not a promise to steady your will; it is an instruction, it is a direct injunction from the Most High as God sees all, knows all, and will withhold nothing.
Has He not sorrowed with you? Those who have had big sorrows, did God fail you then? Did He not gather you into that same brightness which is of the Crucified; He who understood suffering so well! Go back on the past and recollect this and that, and remember that in your time of trouble and temptation you were not forsaken, you were not forgotten, and the healing and the blessings came straight from the heart of your Father. The blessings which showed themselves in visible form then have since been gathering in value and are like a deep river under the surface of your life, which flows on and will flow on for evermore. Nothing can touch you if you are only true, and nothing can harm you if you only wish God to guide you, and nothing is strong enough to stop the promised revelation if you only endure. Soon for those who have endured the most, that word is going to be changed forever. Looking back on the chains of the past which cut and tore the flesh and tortured the mind they shall indeed look back and see them behind them forever. Then they are free; made free by suffering, purified by the blows of life, and sacred to God because they wished to do better and wished to rise to that strong self enthroned within.
It is a joyous occasion when the blessing has drawn you together; the blessing which is entirely of the Holy Spirit, a blessing which cannot be translated into the earth language at all, because there is no end to it, no limit. No limit because it is of God in that sense which nothing else could be; the blessing of the gift of the Holy Spirit.
Your friends and loved ones are near in great numbers. They are drawing you nearer to them by those rings of love. Could you see with the eyes of the spirit you would know that for this short time you were as one; no separation, no barrier, nothing strong enough to come in between. Think of them as this, feel their hands upon your heart and know that God, by His great understanding of human needs, has brought them and kept them in your life although, in some cases, you have put them outside or have forgotten that which was in other days.
The Christ is also in your midst, drawn by the wish for service, by the longing to follow in His steps. Drawn here because no heart, however frail and wayward; no mind, however dim as to His infinite compassion; no heart or mind that shuts Him out by physical limitations, ever finds Him absent when the need is there. Send out your mind to Him, trust in the Giver of all good gifts, ask and you shall receive that which you crave; the presence and the visible evidence of those you love. God first gathered into that those that wish to be as God would have them be in your world and in the Spirit World. The Spirits do not make the same great distinction that you do; the body does not alter to that extent. You are one of the children of God, all on the same journey, all imbued with the same desire. Whether you are in the flesh or free from it God sees the spirit within; that spirit that strives and fails and strives again, and finally gets the grip and then the struggle is over.
You have come rather close to the things that matter; you have lifted the veil just a little and looked within and have seen that which makes the mind ponder, and that which separates you a little more from the desires of the world.
In themselves the desires for the things of the world are not evil; they are toys, and it is not wrong for a child to ask for pretty things. But if that child preferred their toys to their Parent, those who are Parents can understand that the pain would be acute. If they turned from their parent and even refused to take of that love, then the pain would be worse, and in that case the toy would have an evil influence.
You see the difference. It is not easy to make people understand, and yet it is quite simple. Unconsciously, insidiously, the things of the world get such a hold on the physical mind that Holy things are first put a little further back, and then they are ousted from their right position. That brings the things of the material world into disrepute, and it rests entirely with the individual. Any parent wishes to give their child the things that please. Is God less of a parent than you? It is an indictment that many make, unconscious of the blasphemy that lies behind. But be on your guard, for where your treasure is there is your heart, and if your treasure is of the earth then it certainly means that your thoughts do not turn towards Heaven.
Readjust these little differences, which are used again and again by the shadows to veil the love of God. Trust the Father more, and know that He understands the longings and the yearnings of the human heart. But be on your guard against the wolf in sheep's clothing. That applies to all. It is the masked enemy that takes you in; it is the "kind friend" who finds the third path, and there is no third path; it always leads into the wrong!
You have this privilege which others, many of them, are denied; the privilege of being put on your guard and the privilege of being warned against the second best. The spirit within will have only that which is of God, and until you listen to the voice of the spirit, sorrow will come; dissatisfaction with self, restlessness and a weariness of things relating to life.
Strip yourself of that which holds you down; be free! Say that nothing, nothing shall hold you back, and then the strength will come! Weakness shall be turned into strength and more than that; those who hold firm in the Lord, to them the great Light will come, and that Light will convince those who were wilfully blind, as well as those who looked and could not see, that God will gather them all in.
The Spirit is in such command. You do not understand, but the Holy Spirit is coming upon the world, and to the patient watchers the first sign has come, which shall be revealed at the appointed time. In looking back the patient watchers shall know the first sign has been shown.
God's blessing is on you; you are indeed His child, following in the way, stumbling, footsore and very weary. But you are nearly home; nearly home in the sense that the Light is in front and the wood is fast being left behind, and when there is light you know where you are; you get your direction and home is in sight!
