"But Moses said to God, "Who am I that I should go to Pharaoh, and that I should bring the children of Israel out of Egypt?" So He said, "I will certainly be with you." (Exodus 3: 11, 12 first line; New King James Bible). "Fear not, for I am with you; Be not dismayed, for I am your God. I will strengthen you, Yes, I will help you, I will uphold you with My righteous right hand." (Isaiah 41: 10; New King James Bible). "When you pass through the waters, I will be with you; And through the rivers, they shall not overflow you. When you walk through the fire, you shall not be burned, Nor shall the flame scorch you." (Isaiah 43:2; New King James Bible). "For God has not given us a spirit of fear, but of power and of love and of a sound mind." (2 Timothy 1: 7, New King James Bible).
During the last month, I've spent lots of time, awake in the darkest hours of the night. The world seems to be a lonely place, indeed, when one gazes out the window at 3:00 a.m. It is comforting to see a neighbor's light shining at that hour. It proves we're not alone, despite the distance between houses. Someone is awake with us. Civilization still exists. Yet, we don't need the dark of night to feel so alone. Loneliness is a natural outcome of material identity. Consciously dwelling within our individual body forms, our soul seems to be hidden from the world, most of the time. Beholding the world from behind our mask of a mortal, fleshly identity, we can feel alone at Disney World. Thus, one of the greatest truths this human experience will ever hide from us, is the actual fact that we are never alone within our own being. We never were, and never can be. We exist, forever, within our conscious link to God. We share our true identity with our Creator. God never was separated from Its own creation, and heavenly creatures. There never was God and you, like two separated individuals…there has only been God as you. God is the spark of life and Intelligence that dwells within us all. God is the infinite identity of all created or produced by Spirit. God is our forever partner through eons of time—and God never leaves. In Chapter 21 of the Old Testament Book of Genesis, we read the story of Hagar, one of Abraham's wives, who came face to face with God in the wilderness, where she thought she and her infant son had been left alone to die. For, feeling that this younger wife, Hagar, was mocking her, Sarah, (Abraham's first wife) asked Abraham to "Cast out this bondwoman and her son: for the son of this bondwoman shall not be heir with my son, even with Isaac." (Genesis 21: 10). God instructed Abraham to do as Sarah wished, "And Abraham rose up early in the morning, and took bread, and a bottle of water, and gave it unto Hagar, putting it on her shoulder, and the child, and sent her away: and she departed, and wandered in the wilderness of Beersheba." (Genesis 21:14). Setting her child away from her so she wouldn't see him die out there in the wilderness, Hagar's story continues: "And God heard the voice of the lad; and the angel of God called to Hagar out of heaven, and said unto her, What aileth thee, Hagar? fear not; for God hath heard the voice of the lad where he is. Arise, lift up the lad, and hold him in thine hand; for I will make him a great nation. And God opened her eyes, and she saw a well of water; and she went, and filled the bottle with water, and gave the lad drink. And God was with the lad; and he grew, and dwelt in the wilderness, and became an archer." (Genesis 21: 17-20). God has never left or abandoned any of His children, even though we don't perceive this great fact while wandering through the false sense of life in matter, rather than life in Spirit. Had Hagar known that God was always with her and her son, she would have never feared for their circumstances. But in the disguise of mortal, fleshly form, our conscious awareness of reality is at a low level, to say the least. She didn't perceive God in the flesh, so she naturally assumed that God was not present with her. Generally speaking, we assume that God is absent from our lives and daily experience, most of the time. Yet, we're told that this is not so; "for within Him we live and move and have our being." (Acts 17:28, New King James Bible). So, how is it possible to live and move and have our being within God, and not know it? To do so, I believe that one must perceive the concept of dimensions. One definition of a 'dimension' is "the range over which something extends." (Webster's New Student Dictionary, Copyright 1969; G. & C. Merriam Co; American Book Company). Thus, a dimension must encompass a portion of time and space of its own, to be a 'range' over which something extends to its borders. And each dimension must be exclusive of all other such places, to occupy its own range. Whatever one perceives a dimension to be, however, it must encompass a given realm in time and space. For our purposes here, the dimension in question can be a spiritual, rather than physical, range, or realm of existence—meaning that, to 'live and move and have our being' in God, (whom the Bible tells us is Spirit) we must be talking about a spiritual realm of existence, rather than a material place. So, 'to live and move and have our being' within God, must mean this: no matter how invisible God's spiritual realm of existence is to our limited, five physical senses of perception, the realm of Spirit is here, all the same, right where we are only accepting a physical view of things. In the dark of night, we don't see the sun shining half way around the world. Yet, it is there. So, too, God's ever-presence in Its own creation is a given; but it takes spiritual sense to perceive what the fleshly senses cannot. To 'live and move and have our being' in God means that we exist in God's dimension of Spirit. It means that our circumstances are all spiritual, not material as we have thought. It means that our substance of being is spiritual, not physical. It means that our laws are spiritual laws, not physical laws of cause and effect in matter. And until we began to perceive that the invisible reality of spiritual existence is with us every moment of our immortal lives, we will really never be in touch with reality. During the hours of my own dark journey through the land of loneliness, I found that, not only did I believe myself to be alone with myself, my limitations, and my erroneous perceptions of God's absence, but I felt unable to fill my time with useful endeavors to do during the long nights, to fight the boredom of perceiving only what ideas my consciousness could come up with. My thoughts began to rise higher as I suddenly remembered the biblical passage, "Thou wilt shew me the path of life: in thy presence is fulness of joy; at thy right hand there are pleasures for evermore." (Psalm 16:11, King James Bible). My perception of things began to expand, as I realized, that, if indeed I was always in God's presence, and God had never left me alone to my own devices, then God's universe was with me, too. My circumstances are not what they seem. My true circumstances are really only my God-given circumstances of body, soul and mind, time, space and law—and that nothing can separate me from the invisible presence of my true birthright and circumstances as God's own off-spring. Shortly after realizing the fullness of my spiritual environment and my connection with the infinite consciousness of the Almighty, ideas of how to spend my time in the midst of the dark, human night began to unfold in thought. What had seemed a desert place of activity and purpose now began to bloom in the fullness of God's universe of Spirit. In many ways, the night became the new day dawning in thought. So, if the false, material sense of loneliness begins to make you feel isolated, forgotten and desolate, (particularly in the darkness of the night) just remember who you really are (God's spiritual child, still at one with your Source of all good). Then let the divine Intelligence, Wisdom, Truth, Love and Purpose, fill your consciousness with the perception of how things really are, until you realize the presence of your own divine identity, right where a limited, mortal selfhood appears to be, but is not. Then you will find, spilling out from within your own, deeper consciousness, all the glories and riches of your true birthright. And the truth will finally dawn that God has never left you, or anyone, alone with a limited, fleshly identity at all. Divine Love, (and all that belongs to us as God's own spiritual children) is still with us, wherever we humanly seem to be. And the wonderful thing about this Love is that it never leaves. .
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