• by Norman Paulsen, Sunburst Founder • Look beyond the narrow confines of your body and this world; look into space and all eternity. Realize that our lives here are but for a moment. They can be lives of bitterness, selfishness, and deprivation, or they can be lives that open like flowers, petals receiving God’s light, and expressing it actively from the beginning to the end. Each soul has its witness, and as we live so our future unfolds.
So it is; realize that the bitterness of today will open up in joy tomorrow if you persist in virtue. One cannot create virtue, one can only receive it; it comes by grace. It comes by the return of our life to Christ. Virtue, in the form of Christ’s life force and self-control descends upon us like a silken garment. One day you are without it, the next you have it. One day insurmountable problems exist, and the next day they are gone. So it is with the kingdom of heaven, with the divine presence of Mother-Father-God.
Each soul is tested to its full endurance. The more tests you receive, the further you grow. God still tests me every day. Just when I think I’m ready to drop from exhaustion, God says, “Here’s a little more life, you can go a little further now.” When you feel you can’t go on any longer, then comes the joy, the rapture of God. If you study the lives of saints, you will find that God never came easily to them. The One who is constantly at work in all creatures, in all elements throughout infinity, never rests. And yet, It rests all the time.
God wants and expects you to be a god, in your true image, as She created you. This was God’s intention, that we dwell here in these bodies, that we enjoy life and each other in full consciousness, knowing eternity. How can we accomplish this? Every moment we must ask, “God, God, God-Mother-Father come to me, dwell in me!” The fruit of heaven is so luxurious and so ecstatic—one taste, and you will give all that you have for more. God hears our every thought, our every desire. As we think and desire, and desire and think, our future is written and our past is erased—karmas overcome.
Remember, God wants you to be an irresistible force. The vessel of your soul must contain the wisdom of heaven, the power of God. God must be sure that your vessel will not crack. Therefore, accept those tests in life that come upon you, and realize that if you persevere, it is God who is building that vessel of you that will contain Him. No matter how much our cup might want to hold the wisdom of the sea of eternity, it can only hold a cupful. It is by expanding our cup that we can contain more of that wisdom, that strength. One must be patient with God; have faith in God, whose time is eternity. We get in too big of a hurry sometimes. All will take place in God’s time if we will allow it.