And, in answer to your long question to Me yesterday, if I were to answer, “Okay, okay, I will change life to what you ask,” you might well be flabbergasted and even crestfallen. The wind would be taken out of your sails.

You might think: “What is God thinking? What? Is He conceding that I have made a good speech? What is the matter? Does God think He has lost a court case? Is He abandoning His Godship? Is He giving up His Domain so easily? Is He giving up on us, His children, without a backward glance? Is He withdrawing life from us?”

Beloveds, getting what you ask for is not always what you want.

Oh, yes, you may groan and grumble about life as it is. You may even make a good case for a carefree life given to you by sleight of hand, yet, in the end, what you have asked for -- begged for – isn’t truly your heart’s desire. The fact is that you do want to find your own way to the Land of God, even as exploration and discovery and digging deep aren’t at all what you like to believe you had in mind.

You may have drooled over the easy instant way, and then you are left with your mouth hanging open. You never liked instant mashed potatoes. You never did, did you? And the myriad of revolutionizing instant foods that have cropped up, in your estimation, do not begin to hold a candle to the real thing. How you long for the food your mother or grandmother used to make fresh.

Instant foods are also referred to as convenience foods.

Do you really think you want a convenient enlightenment, one you can pick up off a rack at no cost to you, and everyone has one? An enlightenment you get free? Passed out like penny candy? Yours for the asking?

When you look at life this way, instead of in a complaining way, you would prefer to stand in line for the real thing.

What would be the meaning of a college degree that was printed out at your request without your having to succeed on your own? It’s true that Heaven is granted everyone who leaves the world. This is how it is. While you are on Earth, Heaven is already granted to you, yet you have to get there on your own. There are many signs posted with arrows to Heaven, yet no free passes here on Earth.

The Reality is that you have to have the eyes to see where you are. I already gave you a beautiful world. I didn’t throw you into a jungle. I set you down in a beautiful world, and, from time immemorial, I have asked you: “Tell Me what you see.”

You look around. Wearing your cool sunglasses, you see your life in shambles. You say: “I see a frightful world, God.”

And I say, “Look some more.”

And you come back and say: “The world has always been like this.”

I shake My head and say: “The world you presently see is not the world in front of you.”

Then you say: “How many times do I have to look? For God’s sakes, God, how many times do I have to look?”

And then I shake My head wisely, and answer for you: ”As many times as it takes.”

And then I look you squarely in the eye, and I ask you: “Yes, how many times will it take before you see the beauty I set before you?”

And then you say nothing. Silence is your answer.