There are two great powers of Creation that are at work in our human experience: the power to create a home for God and the power of the action of God. These powers are at work in our human experience all the time. They are at work inside us as individuals and between us in relationships. Both powers are required to produce life.

The action of God has to have some place to land. If it doesn’t, that doesn’t mean the power is not present. But it is not landing here if there is not a home for it to land here in the human world. Our humanity is meant to be that kind of a home. We are a home for God. Cosmic power lands here in our flesh body. It lands in our thoughts and it lands in our feelings.

Very literally, we are a home for God. That’s not a religious statement. That’s a statement of absolute truth. What else is animating your body or stimulating your thoughts and feelings? You don’t have to believe it. Experience it. You are a home for the action of God. If you weren’t, you wouldn’t be alive. The power of the universe wouldn’t be constellating in your own experience the way it is. And according to the nature of the home that you offer, so is the ability of the power of God to achieve working in your experience.

We provide a home as a human being for the indwelling Reality of Being within us. At the same time, we are here to be the achieving power of God in expression. We are here to be that energizing, motivating reality of power that comes into the human experience. We’re not just receiving it. We are here to give it active expression. We are here to be it.

There’s an intersection of those two powers that is happening in our human experience and that’s why we’re alive. You take the achieving power of God away from this pile of dust and there is not much left. There is an intersection between the action of God and the home for God; and depending on how well that intersection is going, so is my human experience. I am either a thriving human being or something else is happening. The same is true between us as human beings all the time.

So there is the dynamic interplay between the achieving power of God and the home for God that is provided. When I think of the world that is most immediate to me and I think of what is most important in that world, as we enter the new year, 2016, the affordable care act is somewhere on the list of my concerns. There are dozens of other practical things I have to take care of in my world, just like anyone. But all those things are way down the list compared to what I am talking about now. I am not talking about a religious or spiritual theory. I am hoping that together something comes alive in our awareness so that we can function creatively around what I am speaking of, in both our human individual experience and in our experience together.

To thrive in the world we are in, we need to amp up both those energies. We need to develop our ability to bring the action of God into our world. It is that energy that creates. It is that energy that brings something into the world at large. It is that energy that lets us fulfill our mission and purpose in life, however we conceive that to be. How do we fulfill any mission or purpose without the power from within to achieve it?

At the same time, it does no good to amp up that power if you have a human facility whose circuits are blown by it. You have to develop your ability to be a home for that power so you can receive it and take the jolt of it and not have it blow your circuits. That is true individually and it is true universally for humankind. If, by some arbitrary means, we were able to raise the voltage on the creative action of God through the body of humanity today, what do you think would happen? More war, I would think. More human “progress” yielding environmental destruction.

Can humanity take more achieving power poured into it than is pouring through it right now without totally rupturing? I don’t think so. We are having trouble as it is. So it is very easy to see how there is such a need for community building in the world at large. There is such a need to come together in the world at large among people across ethnicities, culture, religion, nationality and everything else. There is a need for community building, for coming together so that the voltage of creative juice that is meant to come through us can come through us without frying our circuits. The power of true community building creates a home for the achieving power of God in the human experience.

What I’m talking about is true at the micro level—at the individual level—and it’s true at the macro level pervading the entire planet. But now I want to bring it down to someplace in between—to your individual life and the world in which you function and the world you and I share together. What I want to suggest is that what needs to happen is there has to be an upping of both of those energies together and not separately.

So acknowledging that we don’t function solely as an individual but also in dynamic relationship with others in a collective, we see that those energies must rise among us. Whether you are looking at that as a family or community, an organization, a department or a team, these two great powers are constellating among us. Whether we look at it from the standpoint of all of humankind or the more immediate fields in which we live and function, there needs to be not only a bringing up of both energies for that collective to thrive but there has to be the intersection of those energies. You could be in a group of people and you might see that the initiating, achieving power is coming through one person full tilt—they are full of ideas, full of energy, full of the motivation to get it done. Then you might have somebody else who brings the energies of community building, creating a true home. Both these energies need to be brought up, but not only do they need to be brought up, they need to intersect. Because if they don’t you have disaster on your hands. A home lacking the power of creative action is stagnant. We could all be sitting in a circle and enjoying ourselves but if there isn’t some kind of energizing power brought into that circle, there’s nothing going on. By the same token, we can be all dressed up with no place to go if we’re all energized and there’s no place for that energy—that creative idea, all that creative juice—to land. In that case, we are probably just blowing circuits. So we need to not only raise these powers of Creation, we need to let the energies intersect and then experience the dynamic of Creation when the home for God meets the achieving power of God and we do something together.

What I believe about all that is that it takes a truly strong person to be engaged in the process, no matter what role they are playing. If you’re not a strong person, you are fearing for your own welfare in the process and you might make a show of strength, but that show of strength is actually weakness. Creation takes a person who is strong in their self-assurance and strong in their own power. If your selfhood is at risk in your creating, you are in a very weak position. A person who is weak in that way can make a show of strength. That show of strength could be to be bossy, pushy, asserting their rights, and aggressive—all those wonderful human traits. But what the wise person sees is a weak person. It takes a strong person to bring the vulnerability and the transparency that’s intrinsic in being a home for God. To be a home for God I have to be willing to be innocent, open and vulnerable. I have to know that I am so intact that nothing can hurt who I am.

A strong person who is providing a home for God can make the conscious choice to move toward relationship, not away, knowing that it could be uncomfortable. It could feel like it hurts at times, but I’m not hurt. I am a home for God. I am part of the reality of the Creator. Nothing can diminish me. Nothing. And in my openness and vulnerability and in my innocence, I am powerful. I am strong. I am bringing creative power onto the scene. I have the strength to do that. I know I do. It’s inherent in who I am.

If, in relationship to others, it is my turn to bring the achievement of God, that also requires true strength. And it takes wisdom. A person bringing the achieving power of God into the world has to be aware of the intersection of that power with the home for it that is available in other people. In relationship to others, it takes far more than amping up one’s own creative power to its limit on some kind of arbitrary basis. A person bringing the action of God has to relate to another and have that power received. God is not just blasting the earth with cosmic power, and God has no interest in doing that through you.

The creative power that’s within all of humanity is entering human hearts wherever human hearts are open to let it come in. As an instrument of that power, I’m not content to go up on a mountaintop to proclaim whatever my truth is and shout whatever powerful message I have where nobody can hear. That would be meaningless in the world in which I live. It has to be received and I have to be paying attention to how it’s being received.

Then I have to measure what I’m giving according to how it’s being received and responded to by other people, because it isn’t about either creative power on its own. Either power actually can’t exist on its own. They are meaningless on their own. It’s about the dance—the dance between you and other people as these creative powers are activated. It’s about the interplay of what happens when I bring the achieving power of God into your life. What happens for you when I do that? How do you receive it? What do you do with it? Can you make a home for it? Does it fall on deaf ears? Is it rejected or can it be received, and then can something be given back? Are we up for the dance? What level of engagement are we up for? What measure of life? Because this dance is life-giving. That’s what I know about it. It is fun. It is creative.

You have a problem if you bring the achieving power of God and it registers for another person as something oppressive, aggressive, or overly assertive. Maybe the issue is with how that power is being received or maybe there is an issue with the way you are expressing that power. Maybe it is just that the intersection between your action and someone else’s receiving is not going well. Whatever it is, we need the action of God and we need the home for God. We need more of both and we need them to intersect creatively.

Where I live, at Sunrise Ranch, this is what we need. We need God’s achieving power to put together a greenhouse. We need that power to serve people in our kitchen or at the front desk or do any of the other things we do. We need that power in our life. We need to be able to release its vitality. We need that power. We need to be able to receive it and to radiate it.

If I am a strong person, I can take it if you don’t do it right. I can be with you if you don’t do it right. And we can learn and we can do the dance.

If any part of the dance isn’t working, we could all bail. We can all bail on the dance. What an enlightened person knows to do is to move into the dance between these two great powers with assurance and strength. An enlightened person knows the intersection in themselves. As an individual, and then with others, they practice the vulnerability, the openness, the connection that is inherent in being a home for God. They melt in surrender before their God.

If I know that experience for myself, I can be a home for that dimension of God that is within you. I’m not worried that you won’t do it right. Do you think that’s a powerful position to take? It is so powerful, and how many people do you know who know that? They think that by being fluid and transparent and open with another person they are at risk. There are very few people that I know who understand that they can be in that place of openness to God and be in their power. That experience can be life-changing not only for yourself but for another person. Most people have never been in relationship with somebody else who is carrying that attitude. When they have that experience they think to themselves, O, my God, there’s actually someone else who will sit there and listen to me and receive my own creative energy, my creative juice, and they are transformed.

If they had a tendency to be obnoxious, aggressive, or overly assertive, where did it go? Where did it go, when the achieving power of God that is within them is being welcomed by you?

There are all kinds of pain in the human experience. There is the pain of oppression, which is the pain of being vulnerable and then finding that one has been oppressed by another person. We’ve got a long history of that, both personally and globally.

There is also the pain of having your creative fire not received by another person. That can hurt. It can feel like it’s just devastating. But what a strong person knows is that while it can feel like it hurts, they’re not hurt. Nothing’s changed about me. I still have that power to give. I am the achieving power of God in action.

There is rejection to suffer. I can state categorically that anybody who offers something important to other people is going to face rejection. It can be at the very personal level. You bring creative fire, creative ideas, creative energy, and it is rejected by somebody and maybe by a lot of people.

If you want to bring something important into the world at large, most people won’t like what you have to offer and they don’t have to. Most people probably don’t particularly like Sunrise Ranch and they don’t have to. If one percent of the world’s population loved us, we would be doing great. That would be 70 million people—99% rejection.

If you make it about the rejection, you are committing yourself to a life of perpetual pain. It isn’t about the rejection. Whoever rejects you doesn’t define you. It is the people who love the achieving power of God, of the Creation that you are bringing, and who are making a home for that in themselves that should be of primary interest. Those people are saying, I love that, I’m with you. I’m embracing that power that you just gave to me. It’s nourishing me and, not only that, I believe in you. I am your Bethlehem.

That power of creation can be born right here in this space that I create for you. Have you ever had anyone do that for you? I bet we all have. You can be the Bethlehem for another person.

There is no human being for whom I don’t have care and compassion. But I don’t concern myself very much with the people who aren’t interested in the dance. I want to be with people who get this and want to do this together. We have friends around the world and we’re meeting more of them all the time. I want to be with those people who are ready for the dance and I don’t want to concern myself with all the people who don’t. There may be people immediately present with me who are clueless and I don’t care. Who gets it? Who wants to live the dance? Who wants to be with that creative achieving power of God that is in them and find out how much of that they can bring into my world? How much creativity; how much energy? Who wants to be a home for God? Who wants to live the dance between these two great creative powers together?

I reached the end of my day today and I was exhausted at so many levels. And I’m here to share this message. I’m so loving giving my all. In that, I find my human limits. Sometimes my humanity says, I’ve had enough. But I love the achieving power of God that I get to be in my world. I wonder how much more I could bring. And I love being the home for God, for this Spirit that I am. And always, as this human being, I love being the home for the creative juice that comes to me. And I love being home for the creative power that comes through you.

I appreciate it when someone sits down with me, as someone did this afternoon, and is happy to hear from me all the creativity that I have to share. It felt wonderfully good to have somebody be a home for the God that’s within me; to just be there and intelligently receive my creative fire. So I appreciate it when others do it for me and I love the opportunity that I have to be there for others in their brilliance.

We are either running towards that opportunity that we have with each other or we are running away from it. If you’re taking your cues from anyone who’s running away from this opportunity, you are taking your cues from the wrong place.

So meet the opportunity that is in front of you, knowing your own strength and your own stature. Go for it! Take your lumps. Unless you’re leading a really different life than me, you will have them. But you know it is not a big deal. What is a big deal is the opportunity that is before you—you get to create with other people. You get to be the Creator and activate both that achieving power and the home for that power—the home for you in your Divine Reality.

These verses are from a Christian hymn. I heard them quoted by Martin Luther King. I see them in a way that transcends Christianity and is relevant to my life and yours.

If I can help somebody as I pass along,
If I can cheer somebody with a word of song,
If I can show somebody he’s traveling wrong,
Then my living will not be in vain.

If I can do my duty as a Christian,
If I can bring salvation to a world once wrought,
If I can spread the message as the Master taught,
Then my living will not be in vain.

These words speak to that commission that is individual to each of us, that Creation that we came to bring to the world, that service, that difference we came to make to other people and to this world.

May we be together on that journey. May we collaborate together in beautiful ways and may we ignore anything that would discourage us from doing that, that would deter us from doing the one thing that brings happiness and fulfillment: The Dance.