Julie to Gloria:
Dear Gloria, this question of pleasing others seems to be a big one for most of us. I was raised to please others and think of them before myself. We surely have not encouraged our children to live their truths. I always have to check how I feel inside about something to see if it is my truth.
Doesn't "One" set your heart a-thrilling!
Sharing this journey to God is so important, and the ones we share it with are the dearest to us.
Gloria:
Dear God, I mentioned to a friend — I'll call her Jane — the situation about someone asking to stay overnight in my house, and she said that if someone asked her that, she would answer, "Absolutely! Stay!" Then I felt bad all over again because I wish I were like that.
God:
You want to be like that because you believe that like that is better, that you would be a better person. You believe that acquiescing follows My Will more than saying, sorry, no.
Gloria:
Yes.
God:
The question is not better person. The question is truth, Gloria. The truth is you did not want to say yes. You wanted to say no. The truth is you did not owe this person. The truth is you would have served that person better by saying no than saying yes against your heart.
If someone proposes marriage, are you a better person to say yes out of deference to their feelings than no in deference to your own? Are their feelings more important than yours? Whom do you serve with untruth?
That lady had a home. She didn't need to stay in your home. She wanted your energy. She wanted your love. Do you have to love her more than yourself? Is that love? What if she wanted to sleep on your couch for a week or a month or a year? What if she wanted you to become responsible for her altogether? Who decides your life? You or someone else?
What if she wanted your money? Are you obligated? Do someone else's needs and wants have to come before your own? Are theirs always more important than yours?
Of course, you would always prefer to be good guy, Gloria. What you have to learn is that not being the good guy doesn't mean you are the bad guy. You are just a guy.
You cannot validate another person anyway, and they cannot validate you. That is a lost cause. Get your validation from Me. You have it. What more do you need?
Maybe Jane likes to have people sleeping on her couch. That does not make Jane better than you. Jane is Jane, and Gloria is Gloria.
It is not what you do for other people that makes you worthy or unworthy. You are worthy.
You do more for the world with My words than you could by making your home a hospital.
You do more for the world by keeping your energy resonant with Mine.
Stay in your truth.
Gloria:
Thank You, dear God.
Would it be correct to say that Jane or someone would do more for the world by opening a hospital, for instance? I mean it would be right for them?
God:
Yes. Certain ones follow their heart and serve Me through physical care of others. But it is much more than the physical care. Mother Teresa, as example again. Her vision and love served. The same work without her vision and love would have been less. She was in her truth.
The merit of an act is more than the act itself. The merit has to do with truth and motive. Meriting is itself a form of judgment, however. Saying no to someone could be a meritorious act. Even stealing a car could be meritorious in ways you cannot know.
One fault of judgment is that you don't have enough information to go by in the first place. But judging is an unprofitable use of energy anyway.
Are you feeling more certain about your ability to say no?
Gloria:
Yes!
God:
Say yes to life. Say yes to life. That does not mean to say yes to everyone who comes along and asks for your energy. Say yes when yes appears from inside yourself. Outside considerations are not the issue. Inside ones are.
Gloria, you have to live with yourself. When you kowtow to others, you do not have a good time. Your heart squeezes because you know you have been unfaithful to yourself.
In the case of true emergency, you would be unfaithful to yourself to turn someone away.
Gloria:
Is this different from conscience, God?
God:
We can call conscience a manifestation of consciousness.
Any skimming away from truth, in word or act, is uncomfortable. That discomfort you know as conscience.
When you tell a lie, you don't feel good about yourself. Why? Because you have skirted truth.
In Heaven, there is no conscience. All are in their truth. There is consciousness.
Gloria:
I guess I am asking: Can an inner truth be different in different societies? Is it an inner truth not to steal?
God:
A little child speaks only truth. A little child knows only truth. He knows there is no stealing. He knows all are one, and everyone has everything. He does not yet have the concept of other yet. That he learns.
The little child thinks nothing of sharing his food. It's his joy to offer you some from his hand as he eats. He has no thought that there will ever be lack. The concept of lack is taught to him along with the concept of other.
The concept of other comes about when you are in a body. You come to believe in bodies, and thus the idea of other is born. The idea of separation signals to you that you can have more or less than another and so you come to believe that lack exists.
Different cultures have different rules for living, and the culture punishes those who break their rules and are found out. I advise that you live within your culture's rules as best you are able.
As best you are able means within your consciousness. Within those structures for living, you have choices. Some people can sit on a jury, for example, and sentence a man to death. You could not. What feels right to another may not feel right to you. Fortunately, your society allows you not to throw stones.
All this analysis is of no avail.
Do good unto others and be true to yourself. No, change that order. Be true to yourself and do good unto others. You are one of My children, and you deserve respect as much as another.