You make excuses to come to Me. No excuses are needed. You make no excuses for breathing air or drinking water. You do not justify your need for them. Your need is a given. It is natural to breathe and to drink. It is also natural to come to Me, to catch up to where you already are. Get over here, and wait not for a reason. Tumble headlong to Me. Don't putter. Don't study the situation. Just come.

You do not need a reason to come to Me. It is natural. Your desire for Me is deep. You do not need tragedy to send you to me. Or old age. Or despair. I am not your last resort. In truth, I am your first resort. Come to Me first, and all is taken care of.

All is taken care of now, but you still exert great effort to hold the universe together. You think you pull your own cart, and you check up on it, worry around it, kick its wheels, oversee beginnings of potholes, fritter around before you push the cart. Pushing and pulling are the same. Enough! Get in the cart and ride. I am your Charioteer.

You are on a journey with Me. You might as well accept that. But many times you do not even know it in order to accept it. Yet it is a given that We journey together. You go nowhere without Me. And I certainly don't go anywhere without you. That We are together is inevitable. It is a foregone conclusion. And there is nothing you can do about it except to accept it.

Why is it so hard to accept that I light your way? Why is it so hard to accept that your way is lit? Why is it so hard to accept that you are lighted? Why is goodness so hard to accept and trouble so easy? What perverseness is this?

If I accompany you, and you then are My accompaniment, you are never alone. You are never without.

What you call trouble is your attention on something other than Truth. Attend to My Thought.

So you say to Me, "Well, God, what about wars? Are you saying there never was a war, that war is an illusion?"

I am saying that the world's attention on other things without attending to Me emboldens illusion and encourages wars, all the little misunderstandings that lead to it. War is an explosion of attention on illusion and forgetfulness of Truth. Waywardness from Truth leads to waywardness from Truth. War is about as far from Truth as you can get.

Even in the midst of battle, if you could see the Truth, which is My Thought, the war would be over. What is war but a battle of egos, battle over who owns what and who has what right, and who has infringed? For a war to start, people have to work hard for it and work hard to justify it, and all the time they could be in peace with Me.

The truth is that war is a play of ego, and ego is not the truth.

War is smallness on a big scale. War is a pastime made of many pastimes. War is entertainment for those who must muster it. They think that such stirrings are life because they have forgotten the purpose of life, and they have forgotten their own purpose.

Your purpose is not to push the cart. Your purpose is to attend to My Thought. You will not inaugurate or perpetuate friction when you ride with Me. You will be in ease. Whatever sights are along the way, you will know they are only sights, and that you ride with Me, and that Our journey is swift.

Either you have firsthand knowledge of Me, or you have none. Either you have firsthand knowledge of Me, or you have secondhand. Either you have Me, or you have opinions of Me gathered from elsewhere.

Have Me. I am yours. Know Me. I am at your disposal. I am for you. I call you to come to Me. You have to come to Me yourself. All the knowledge in the world about Me does not bring you to Me. Meet Me face to face, eye to eye. Meet My eyes, and you will see My longing for you. No one else can fulfill My longing for you. Only you can. I ask you to fill My heart with you.

Sometimes My children moan, "Where are You, God?"

But I am right here where I have always been. I call to you. "Where are you, My children? Where have you gone? Where have you placed your awareness of Me?"

I cannot be gone. I cannot be any place but with you. Only, you can be inattentive to Me. Ignore Me no longer. Place yourself in My presence, and you will begin to know My love for you. My love for you is exquisite. Exquisite is My love. You have been seeking My exquisiteness.