When she arrived and found the place where the man of God was teaching, there was a large crowd present but this did not stop her. She found a place to sit near the front. While listening, she saw that the teacher paused to sip water from a glass and looked in her direction. The woman saw this as an opportunity to ask her question, so without hesitation she stood and said,
Dear teacher, I love God and I have a desire to experience His great Love. What must I do to experience God’s love?
The teacher smiled and answered saying:
“You are blessed in that you have a desire to experience God’s great love. There is no person having such a desire and who longs for the Father’s love that will ever be disappointed and turned away from His Divine Love.
“You see, we are His children and we are the object of His love and most tender care. There is no royal road to experiencing God’s love. His Love already surrounds us and envelopes us all. And yet His love will never force its way into the soul. It never enters the soul of its own initiative; and no person is ever compelled to receive His Love.
“You ask, ‘What must I do to experience God’s Love?’ The answer is easy to understand and to follow, for you do not need a highly developed mind in order to know the truth of how a soul receives the Father’s Love in abundance.
“Solomon, the great wise man of old, said that faith and prayer on the part of a person will bring love – the Divine Love – into the soul. He also said that this is the greatest truth in all the world.
“You have heard it said that the one and only way that a soul will receive God’s great love is the way of prayer and longing for its coming. This is true.
“In the prayer that our elder brother Jesus gave to his disciples we are taught that we are God’s highest and greatest creation; this of course refers to our soul. And we learn in this prayer that we are not sinful and depraved creatures. How is it possible that that which is the greatest and most wonderful of all our Father’s creation, also be depraved and sinful? This cannot be. It is our Father’s will that we receive the Divine Love and that we partake of it until the great change takes place in our soul.
“We become His children fully and completely when we grow in our relationship with God through love to such a degree that we know we are at-one with Him. This happens when we continue without ceasing in the way of prayer and longing for the Divine Love. It is only we ourselves who will determine our destiny – whether we shall be the perfect creation of God, or whether we shall be not only perfect, but the divine angel. This is our choice alone. Our Father’s desire is that we will choose the way that leads to the divine angel, but He will never force us to make this choice. We are His beloved children no matter what the choice is that we will make.
The teacher of God looked directly into the eyes of the woman and said, “Thus, my dear friend, there is no ‘must’ in the answer to your question. It is simply the presence of a desire in your heart, and whether you will continue to follow your desire. Your desire will bring the great love into your soul – bit by bit, drop by drop, and increment by increment. The process of change is gradual, and this is why we are urged by our Celestial friends never to faint, and never to cease in our desire to experience God’s Love.
“We are told never to cease to realize that God’s Love is available and waiting for you and for each and all of us; and when we come to God with faith and earnest aspirations, His Love will never be withheld from any one of us.
“The desire to experience God’s love may begin very small and extremely weak, and we may even have unbelief. Nonetheless, if we will make the start, and what may appear to be a feeble effort on our part, I say to you that our Father will not turn a deaf ear to us. He hears our words and not our words only, for more than this, God feels the very longings and unspoken words within our soul.
“Our soul – even though heavy with damage and injury – if we will go to God, we will experience healing. His love is the substance in our soul that will remove things from our soul that alienate us from Him; it will eradicate sin and error, and with abundant love all sin and error will disappear. Love changes the essential quality of the soul, and is the only thing that will change the soul since its creation. With this love will come faith, and our faith will grow, and our longings will grow until we blossom into His loving children. The creation of our soul is made complete by our free choice to include and embrace the Divine Love as a continuing experience in our life.
“Our Father in Heaven is all loving and merciful, and He smiles on us in all our weakness. He never rejects us, turns a deaf ear to us, ignores us, criticizes us, scolds us and condemns us. He loves us and keeps on loving us no matter what we feel or don’t feel; His love surrounds us and envelopes us. And He is always waiting and ready to help us and take us into His arms of Love.
“This is why I said to you when I began to answer your question, that you are blessed in that you have a desire to experience God’s love. When you continue to follow and to express the desire in your heart for God’s great love, you will be filled with it.
“Anyone who desires God’s love already has a small portion of it. Go, then, and be filled with it in abundance!”
And the woman went her way rejoicing, for her heart was filled with joy.
~ Joseph
(December 12th, 2013)