I do not presume to know the timetable of God’s plans and purposes, but I do know that with each of us the time to turn and begin to go where we ought to go is not later than now. Where are we really going? As we come again to the season that celebrates the coming forth of our living Lord and Savior, we would well remember that divine plan and purpose that in due time would take us from this swift passing life to a real and personal everlastingness of life, with limitless eternal possibilities, and with our loved ones with us, always, and forever. This is God’s plan and purpose. Many people try to tell us suffering is part of God’s plan, but I do not believe that. I think that is just a consequence of human being having free will. God wants us to be happy and safe and that is why we have commandments to teach us how to live. That is why it really matters where we are going and why we need his gospel to tell us how to get there. If there is any condemnation or animosity in me, I gladly lose it. I lose it and let it go as I turn to that silent presence within me which gives all and withholds nothing. As we enter into the harmony of eternal peace, into the joy of knowing that we are now in the Kingdom of God, from which no person is excluded, take time to realize that we are stretching forth into an endless future of pure delight. #RandolphHarris 1 of 6

We are born wit a will to live and an almost equal will to die; when we look forward to more pain and unhappiness than to peace and joy in living, the mind begins to destroy the body so we shall not have to suffer the pain we unconsciously anticipate. The will to live and to be happy is necessary to our physical well-being. The more we study the way the mind works the more we realize that most of our physical infirmaries, and perhaps all of our unhappiness, come from certain deep-rooted reactions to life that generally are built around the idea that we are not wanted or needed or loved. We feel some deep sense of guilt, and this gives rise to a feeling of insecurity and stress. Thus we reject ourselves and suffer because of this self-imposed condemnation. Idea, thoughts, and psychic formations in general become localized between the organic elements of the nervous system, where resistances and association-tracks form the correlate corresponding to them. Everything that can become an object of internal perception is virtual, like the image in the telescope produced by the crossing of light-rays. The unconscious psychic process leads to the justified expression for the morbid race, which goes on in the inner conflicts of the mind, until finally the frustration is so great that the mind begins to destroy the body because of impressions it has received are destructive. #RandolphHarris 2 of 6

When the unconscious process of self-destruction reaches a point where there is no longer a will to resist it, the person loses their will to love and so even nature cannot restore that individual, and generally in such cases he or she passes on. The physician, it is true, does not learn of these unconscious processes until they have produced an effect on consciousness. The unconscious is the larger circle which includes the smaller circle of the conscious; everything conscious has a preliminary unconscious stage, whereas the unconscious can stop at this stage, and yet claim to be considered a fully psychic function. The unconscious is the true psychic reality; in its inner nature it is just as much unknown to us as the reality of the external Word, and it is just as imperfectly communicated to us by the data of consciousness as is the external World by the reports of our sense-organs. What we need is a deep, underlying faith or conviction about life that will remove this inner conflict and frustration and let the original divine patter come to the surface, for we are all rooted in God, the living spirit. There would have to be perfection at the center of our being or we should not be here. You are therefore perfect, even as our Father which in Heaven is perfect. #RandolphHarris 3 of 6

Our roots run deep into the creative soil of the infinite mind, and if we have not stopped drawing straight from the roots of our being we should be all right. The same God and Father who made us in his own image, wants to show us the way of life and redeem us from death; that the Heavens have been opened and the fullness of the gospel brought again, to save and exalt us all, if we are willing, which is God’s purpose: to being our immortality and eternal life to pass. If we are on the wrong path, it is important to find out where and when and how we started to deviate—that pathway that leads to destruction rather than life, the pathway that leads to unhappiness and frustration rather than joy through self-expression. Humans are born to be happy, to live creatively, to love, to sing, to dance, and to express themselves to the full capacity of their humanity. When they do not do this they feel unhappy, sad, and alone, and wish they were dead—they no longer have the will to live. However, we can go back to that which is more fundamental. We can go back to God, the creative spirit, and understand that we are born of God. There is only one life, that life is God, that life is perfect, that life is our life now. Nothing has interfered with that life, nothing can interfere with it. #RandolphHarris 4 of 6

There is nothing in the Universe that holds anything against us. We have to learn to forgive ourselves and forgive everyone else. The past is gone and it no longer affects us. This is April, this glorious time of the year when nature again comes alive. It is a season of promise, a time of beauty. It is a time for falling in love. This morning I noticed a handsome young man and a beautiful young lady walking hand in hand toward this building, a diamond ring on her finger, and I surmised that they will be married, as will scored of thousands of others across the land when April turns to May and May to June. To those of you who, with glad hearts, dream of marriage and the establishment of a home, expect the Lord to build that house. Know that God holds nothing against us, and if we have done anything to hurt others, or they have done anything to hurt us, we now forgive ourselves and them. Therefore we are conscious that we have complete clearance. There is no judgment, no condemnation. We must know that there is no fear. Perfect love casts out all fear. Therefore, we have confidence in life. We have a deep faith and a complete conviction that God is all there is and that we are wanted and needed and loved, not only by the divine spirit but by everyone we meet. We belong to life, it belongs to us, and we are going to enter it with joy. Life is ready to give us everything that is good, and we are ready to pass it on to others. #RandolphHarris 5 of 6

We are a channel through which good flows in every direction. Giving and receiving, and receiving and giving, the channel is never stopped. Respect for one another, the kind of respect that regards one’s companion as the most precious friend on Earth and not as a possession or a chattel to be forced or compelled to suit one’s selfish whims. Love cannot be forced, it comes out of Heaven, unasked and unsought. This respect comes of recognition that each of us is a son or daughter of God, endowed with something of his divine nature, that each is an individual entitled to expression and cultivation of individual talents and deserving of talents and deserving of forbearance, of patience, of understanding, of courtesy, of thoughtful consideration. True love is not so much a matter of stressful concern for the well being of one’s companion. We have no sense of insecurity nor stress. We feel secure in God. We know that we will be guided and guarded and loved into fulfillment. We have no stressful thoughts for tomorrow, for we shall know what to do when tomorrow comes. We have to be educated into our ignorance or else the full presence of the divine will be kept at bay. #RandolphHarris 6 of 6