Regret

There is help of so marvellous a character all around you that you can put all your doubts to one side and be certain that that help will be more than sufficient to carry you through.

If only you could remember this a little more. So many of God’s children, when things are difficult, feel that the Spirits withdraw; that their distress, in some way or other, puts a barrier between those in the Spirit World and them. In fact, it is as if they feel that the Spirits don't like to see them what they call "making a fuss" and so, in order to demonstrate their disapproval, the Spirits turn aside until they have "come to themselves". That is one of the most abominable lies that the evil seeks to force upon the minds of tired children!

Unfortunately, while on earth it is difficult not to judge those free from the flesh by earth's standards. Many people in the world adopt that attitude, under the mistaken idea that it is "bracing". They are influenced in many cases by good motives; they don't realise that in time of mental, physical or material trouble the kind heart of another is wanted most of all.

When your need is greatest the Christ is nearest! It is when those pressing shadows of unhappiness are there in force that the Spirits are gathered, not in like force, but in numbers far exceeding anything that evil could produce. So throw aside those earth ideas in connection with the Spirits. It is not easy in your world; people act in the same way so often that it is firmly impressed on the physical mind. But the Spirits are never tempted to do likewise. In fact, it would be entirely against the inclination of even the least advanced on the Spirit side because you must remember that once you are able to look into the heart and mind of another blame or criticism withers down to its very roots and only love remains!

It may seem strange to you that this is applicable not only to those who are out to climb rather ambitious heights in a spiritual sense but to those who are as yet in the valley as well. But compassion overwhelms every other feeling, and you cannot think of compassion without at once including love. In this world it has been said that "pity is akin to contempt", but in the Spirit World there is no such rendering of what is, and should be, part of everyone's spiritual equipment. Those who are unable to feel pity have indeed a lot to learn, but even in the most elementary now and again something strikes the cord of pity, and God is reflected by the one concerned.

Do not make so many mistakes in your thinking. It all comes from an unconscious effort to bring into harmony the spiritual and material points of view. When things go wrong and your mind suffers, in the way of rebellion or from its own anguish, very often with the strong spirit there is the added whip of discouragement and dissatisfaction that the mind of the body is not able to do better. This being so, the train of thought is carried on with the result that those on the Spirit side are forced into the earth mould and are judged entirely by the physical standards.

There is the connecting thread right through which builds up a good case on the shadow side linking the Spirits to that chain of circumstantial evidence, and so the last state is worse than the first.

There is power here of a marvellous kind. The need is here as well, and this you should take as an unbroken rule. When things are hardest with you God and the Spirits are nearest, and that sense of separation is put into your mind only by the evil who uses your distress as an additional opportunity for striking again.

Direct your thoughts in regard to Regret; regret when you have passed out of the body and look back on what has been!

It seems to some of God’s children that the joy of the Promised land is cut into to a very serious extent by this apparition of Regret, and a chill comes upon the heart and mind to think that after escaping the sorrow of the physical that the spiritual world should be tinged with the same thing in spite of all the promises of joy to come. It is not only those promises you have received during each sacred evening, but more important still, those promises which, like sweet scented flowers, are dropped in in so many places in the records which you call the Bible.

The promise of joy hereafter is a very comprehensive thing and to those who are weary, who have had rather a serious struggle during physical life, the thought of peace and contentment is very welcome indeed. They say they do not want treasure or power or gifts of any kind; just peace and harmony. Then those who come back and give their experiences cut into this hope in a very definite way; they speak of regret in tones that bring dismay to those who have built up quite another picture of the life to come.

Will it be hard for you to understand that both are absolutely correct. Once again you come up against the limitations of the physical mind which exclaims "How can these two conditions be there; they are in direct opposition to each other!"

There is not one child who wishes to love and serve God who shall not find that peace and that harmony for which the soul so longs! It is essentially a spiritual longing and one that will remain for ever and ever. You know with many wishes that they are of a temporary nature only and as your conditions change so they fade and pass away, and you soon forget that they ever existed. You have no need to dwell upon those; but the longing for peace, for unity with the spirit and each other, is essentially of God and you shall find it not only intact but in such measure that you will be amazed.

Turn to those remarks, which have been given under the Christ's direction, in regard to sorrow and regret over missed opportunities. Those warnings were necessary, they are always necessary to the children of the earth, because when they pass over so often the half-reproach is wrung from them; they did not know, they did not understand! Because they did not know and did not understand much help is given to them to make up for that which is missing. But when you get a spiritually advanced character, it doesn't satisfy them to have that which they have not wrestled for themselves. So over and over again, according to their advancement, they leave their gifts, unwilling to take them as their own possessions until they have gone down to the first rung of the ladder of endeavour and by prayer and effort have gained them; just as they would have had to do had the knowledge of these spiritual laws penetrated their physical minds when on earth.

You see, there is a very big distinction between those who know and those who have no chance of knowing. Those who love God best will not take advantage of not knowing; they treat themselves exactly the same as if they had known and thrown it aside.

In coming back, you must remember that to a certain extent they take on earthly conditions, and everyone who speaks to you in this way has not only a great deal to contend with in order to do so, but also, for the time being, they attract to themselves all those old thoughts and memories of years long past.

The effect is almost suffocating; because you, as you live your life, only get the experiences of the moment, but they get the experiences of years in bulk, which makes all the difference. It is this bringing together with so much force of the physical with the spiritual that wrings from them those cries of regret and remorse over what might have been done and what was allowed to slide.

Do not think that when they are working for God on the Spirit side, working for God in the spirit, that they are obsessed by grief and regret. There is no time for these feelings to be indulged in. When you see so much that can be done, when you realise that every thought, as well as ever second of time, is of first importance, then all other feelings are swamped by the enthusiasm to do and to create for God! While they are speaking to you their one thought is to prevent you from making the same mistakes; those little omissions which they see now count so much, once the body is laid aside. They speak with intense seriousness and complete sincerity.

Do not go wrong on that point, but also do not feel that they are sorrowful or regretful during their spiritual life. Pain is of the earth only, and joy and gladness and beauty and brightness is everywhere in the World of Spirit. That is true in every particular, and when your friends come do not allow yourself to be disturbed by the thought that after all their struggles and strivings to bring out the God within themselves, that they are sad or anything but rejoicing in the Lord!

Self-complacency has no place in the joy which is of God! Sometimes upon the earth those who are very shut in manage to get a good deal of temporary satisfaction out of what is called "self-approval"; that complacency which carries them through a lot. The outsider, not a very discerning one perhaps, mistakes that for happiness, but they have no connection at all. The joy and the gladness over here comes from the contemplation, so far as can be borne, of the wonderful Love of God! Think of your love for anyone on earth; how you like to be with them, how your whole nature expands under the miraculous power of love. You say to yourself that you are a different being when you are with them! Yes, you are, in the sense that the real you opens out even as a flower and the fragrance of the soul is allowed to escape and to bring its own sweetness to another.

That is an elementary illustration of what makes the happiness on the Spirit side. There is everywhere that which draws out from all everything that is of worth, and you know Who it is that has this power; only Love itself could produce love from those so limited in comparison. The Christ, your Saviour, is the Magnet here, as well as in many cases on earth and it is His great and overwhelming love for you that is literally the sunshine around you and the sunshine within. Only to be nearer to Him in thought, only to be able to cast forth to another just the tiniest ray of the Love which represents the ideal.

It is simplicity itself. There is nothing that makes one grow so fast as the sun of Love; nothing that creates, that develops, and that unfolds! It is the centre of attraction, and when the eyes of the spirit are opened and you see a little of what Love means, then all that latent nobility within comes to the surface and there is nothing, nothing you would not do to develop that which represents, in miniature, the Christ and God who made you!

Be quite sure in your mind that although remorse may burn and torture the mind of those who were estranged from God, once the wish is there to climb the joy comes in so much abundance that the suffering itself is joy in its completest form.

It is hard for you to grasp that, and yet go back in your mind. Was there not one you loved sufficiently that you would not have willingly, gladly, joyfully, taken of their pain so that they might go free from harm? To those who are climbing this experience comes at least once during the physical life, so you will understand that the pains of growth are taken as joy itself, because each pain brings you closer in touch with the Father.

You must remember than when a child is young and the road is long, the weariness is very great indeed. When you are older and traverse the same distance you smile to remember how tedious, how wearying and how painful it seemed in the days gone by. This should give you hope, for it is just the same with the journey of the spirit, and when you pass into Spirit the very toil which the road represented shall be shown as so much strength that you will be able to look back and marvel that the way seemed so long and so uphill to eyes blinded by the world.

Sort these thoughts out in your mind. You will find they will all fit in in their proper place; not contradictions, but facts appealing to reason and common sense. Above all do not go back on that torturous idea that God, or anyone in the Spirit World, retreats when the shadows advance. As the enemy advances so do they, and could you but see it, not one of God’s children is in danger from them. The self within is protected by that which you call "the past", and that protection is strong enough to defy them all! The physical mind suffers, it is true. These are the stones on the great highway, but in time to come you too shall look back and thank God, both for the great and the small; thank God that they were there and that you felt the pain of them.

The thought which predominates over everything else and always will is the Love of the Christ; the attraction that He has for you, conscious or unconscious, and the attraction which the Master has for all. That power of drawing which is His is the source of all that happiness, that peace and harmony which you and many others are so often sending out your mind to reach. Next time when this longing comes remember that you are trying to contact with holiness, and holiness is joy, and joy is love, and love is God!

You have done very well, very well indeed. The greatest experiment of all was to use a tired mind and body to demonstrate fresh powers. But so it is with the things of God and you will find that if you only try to keep your will in harmony with His, that curious material will be found suitable for His work.

Often the children of earth throw away as useless what the Spirits can utilise in a very valuable way indeed. You are not the best judge of what in your own mind and character is likely to produce the best results. Over and over again the valuable pieces are thrown aside by you; in fact, you would destroy them if it were in your power.

This, then should teach you to enlarge the boundaries of the physical mind a little more, particularly those who are conscious of temptation, of whatever form it may be. It comes to all, of course, in the way most likely to deceive, but don't think that those phases of temptation are blots upon your life. Very often they produce the most beautiful part in the pattern which you are weaving.

There is always a sense of shock to the mind when anything in the nature of temptation is experienced; even in the matter of losing one's temper! Now that is a very common form of temptation, but you will judge yourself hereafter not on the question of temper lost or held, but on the struggle which lay behind, whatever the result may have been. But that does not mean that struggle must be lessened, it should tell you that at once; for as you struggle so shall your progress be, and as you progress so will the sense of peace and unity within.

So regard temptation in a saner way altogether. Fight it with all your might. But do not to fear it, because often the fierceness of the temptation is an illustration of the strength of the spirit within! You do not bring out your big guns to attack a weak enemy!

There is reassurance in this for many. Take the common sense view of temptation in whatever form it may come and hold on tight to the anchorage of the Christ. Do not despise that self which is putting up as big a resistance as it knows how!

Remember that God not only works in mysterious ways but uses all sorts and all kinds of things to bring His children on. So it is not wise to despise this or that in your own life or in your own character, because sometimes the very thing that calls out your deepest disapproval is that which hereafter shall be shown to have produced what nothing else could have done.

Attune your heart to the Spirit still more diligently, and have great hopes for the future; great hopes and great anticipations too. You shall find that all has been provided even to your heart's desire and that God, as your Father, has shown what Father-Love is like!

Rest then in peace and security, and be certain that the tomorrow of your earthly experience shall block out today for ever and ever so far as the sorrow side is concerned.

God said "Let there be Light", and there was Light, and there shall be Light, because it is His will! Amen.

This message was first given in 1924 through Winifred Moyes.

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