Monthly Archives: November 2019

Lesson 334 Today I Claim The Gifts Forgiveness Gives

30 Saturday Nov 2019

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Audio credit: http://www.eckiefriar.com Lesson 334

II.  SECTION 12. What is the Ego?

Lesson 334 Today I claim the gifts forgiveness brings.

  1. I will not wait another day to find the treasures that my Father offers me.  Illusions are all vain, and dreams are gone even while they are woven out of thoughts that rest on false perceptions.  Let me not accept such meager gifts again today.  God’s Voice is offering the peace of God to all who hear and choose to follow Him.  This is my choice today.  And so I go to find the treasures God has given me.
  2. I seek but the eternal.  For Your Son can be content with nothing less than this.  What, then, can be his solace but what You are offering to his bewildered mind and frightened heart, to give him certainty and bring him peace?  Today I would behold my brother sinless.  This Your Will for me, for so will I behold my sinlessness.[1]

Today we make up our minds to delay ourselves no longer!  Today is the day we discover the eternal treasures that our Father gives to us.  No longer can we accept the things of this world and hold them dear for no matter what we accumulate in this world of time, we know that it will turn to rot and bring us sorrow – our riches, our assets, our status in the world all rest on the valueless. We can no longer be tempted to search for salvation in our special relationships and the ego-promises of this world – for now we know.  It is the peace of God we want.  We are searching for what was never lost!  The peace of God, like truth and love and God Himself, is and always was.  We, who were tempted to find another purpose than the one in which we were created, became possessed of a dark shadow that bade us seek what could never be found; that called us to follow that which cannot lead, that promised to cherish when it can only despise.

Today we seek only that which is eternal.  We put all else aside – special relationships, worldly ambitions, banal affiliations- for we see them for the meager substitutes they are.  The peace of God is ours today – for we have opened our minds and hearts to hear and we choose to follow Him.  This is our choice today – as we go two-by-two, hand-in-hand to collect the treasure that God has given us.

Dear brother, take note.  It is through our brokenness, bewilderment, and dread we are brought to the peace and certainty of God.  We forgive the separation.  We forgive our brothers their dark shadow even as our own dark shadow fades away.  We offer only forgiveness and gratitude for it is only through the ego’s betrayal, deceit, and despair that we find our way to God.

[1] A Course in Miracles. Workbook for Students.  Lesson 334 Today I claim the gifts…Foundation of Inner Peace, Second Edition, p. 469.

Lesson 333 Forgiveness Ends The Dream Of Conflict Here.

29 Friday Nov 2019

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Audio credit: http://www.eckiefriar.com Lesson 333

II.  SECTION 12. What is the Ego?

Lesson 333 Forgiveness ends the dream of conflict here.

  1. Conflict must be resolved.  It cannot be evaded, set aside, denied, disguised, seen somewhere else, called by another name, or hidden by deceit of any kind, if it would be escaped.  It must be seen exactly as it is, where it is thought to be, in the reality which has been given it, and with the purpose that the mind accorded it.  For only then are its defenses lifted, and the truth can shine upon it as it disappears.
  2. Father, forgiveness is the light You chose to shine away all conflict and all doubt, and light the way for our return to You.  No light but this can end our evil dream.  No light but this can save the world.  For this alone will never fail in anything, being Your gift to Your beloved Son.[1]
Photo credit: http://www.michealneil.com

In Section 12, we learn what the ego is, what it stands for, and how to escape the ego and its conflict with our Father.  The ego’s desire to remove itself from God, to take the Sons of God, the creation of God and do something else with it, make another purpose with what belonged to God and will always belong to God is the conflict that must be resolved.  All other conflicts – in the microcosms of our daily lives or in the macrocosms of world affairs – stem from this desire to take what belonged to God and make something separate from it.  This is why we cannot be free unless we face this truth about ourselves.  We cannot blame it on each other.  We cannot blame it on the devil or any source outside of ourselves alone.  We must face our own darkness – the darkness of separation and of according ourselves to be the center of the universe, the master of our own destiny, the guardians of the galaxy, so to speak.  We must face the fact that what we made to take the place of Creation’s glory has been to wreak havoc upon the earth, with vain imaginings of blasting our rocket ship egos throughout space.

Separated from God, we are tiny, solitary specks trapped by time, caught up in a whirlwind of temporality, bloated with a misdirected sense of importance.  We make up stories, we fill our minds with myths of bloodthirsty gods who get caught up in trite battles over souls which have never belonged to anything or anybody but Him Who created them.  We lose our minds to ego, practicing empty rituals and sacrificing our time, money, effort, and blood for meaningless loyalties.  We put faith in our churches, our education, our political systems.  We die for causes that mean nothing outside the hellish realm we have accepted in place of our home with God.  Prodigals all, we left God on our own accord to set up our own kingdom – doomed to madness and failure, folly and ruin. 

This is the conflict at the core of all conflict.  This is the only way to lift the defenses and let the truth shine through – to expose the conflict of conflicts.  To forgive it all – to forgive the rising up, the rebellion against God, the separateness, loneliness, and despair.  This is the light that saves the world.  It is God’s gift to us – the light of forgiveness.  We can forgive all conflict when we understand and forgive the core conflict – we are separated from our Father, our Maker, our Love, and our Bliss.  All relationships outside of holy relationships are doomed.  All civilizations, alliances, institutions, traditions and rituals are meaningless dreams, and they come to an end.  To hold a grudge, to hold accountable, to judge and condemn, to seek vengeance or comeuppance, indeed, the Course teaches, to even rise up in defense, is to make the separation  real in our minds and thus obscure the truth, trapping our mind in the ego’s nightmare.  

Resolving this conflict by seeing our darkness and confusion for what it is, by accepting our Father’s gift of forgiveness to shine away all confusion and doubt, our return to God is made clear to us.  Finally, we can accept our Father’s Love and take joy in the adventure of salvation.  The outcome is as certain as God.  The world is saved.  Creation is and always was the effect of Love.  Time and all that it seems to hold is only a dream.  Let our awakening be sweet; let our journey be pleasant as we practice forgiveness and devote ourselves to Him.   

[1]A Course in Miracles. Workbook for Students.  Lesson 333 Forgiveness ends the dream…Foundation of Inner Peace, Second Edition, p. 469.

Lesson 332 Fear Binds The World. Forgiveness Sets It Free.

28 Thursday Nov 2019

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Audio credit: http://www.eckiefriar.com Lesson 332

II.  SECTION 12. What is the Ego?

Lesson 332 Fear binds the world.  Forgiveness sets it free.

  1. The ego makes illusions.  Truth undoes its evil dreams by shining them away.  Truth never makes attack.  It merely is.  And by its presence is the mind recalled from fantasies, awaking to the real.  Forgiveness bids this presence enter in and take its rightful place within the mind.  Without forgiveness is the mind in chains, believing in its own futility.  Yet with forgiveness does the light shine through the dream of darkness, offering it hope, and giving it the means to realize the freedom that is its inheritance.
  2. We would not bind the world again today.  Fear holds it prisoner.  And yet Your Love has given us the means to set it free.  Father, we would release it now.  For as we offer freedom, it is given us.  And we would not remain as prisoners, while You are holding freedom out to us.[1]
Photo credit: http://www.jewishlife.com

Spinning lies and making illusions is all the ego can do because it knows no truth.  Lost, confused, arrogant, having no center and no reality, fearful fantasies and temporal pleasures are the only offerings the ego can use to distract us from the truth.  For the ego, truth is death – not because of attack and war upon it.  Not because ego is an opponent of truth, only that truth stands alone – certain and real. 

When we forgive all of the illusion, recognizing it as not real, we have cleared our mind to what has always been there.  Truth stands alone – not fighting its way in, battling flesh and blood, bolstered by its own bluster – the shadow has gone, the substitutions vanish – quiet, dignified, and respectful, truth alone stands forever.  We, who believed in lies, deceit, condemnation and dreary, endless battles of right and wrong are set free from time’s version of reality, from the chains of fear and ongoing purposelessness.  Blanket forgiveness allows the light to shine through.  Blanket forgiveness says – “Aha!  It was all a lie, a dream, a mean hoax to keep us from our rightful place in the Sonship of God.  Of course we forgive it.  Look what we learned from it!  We never wish to be separated from God again.  Take us home, Father, to the place where we belong, our purity and our innocence unmarred by the ego who would impersonate and call itself by our name.”

In today’s prayer we state that we will no longer hold Creation prisoner by our fear of the ego’s illusions.  There is no attack in our Father and His Love.  The Vision of Christ gives us reality as we see past time and suffering into eternity.  We set Creation free today, and as we set Creation free, we are free!  Letting all the ego’s condemnation and bluster go – we will no longer give the outrageous nightmare our energy, our belief, or our allegiance.  Truth is truth and there is no other. 

[1]A Course in Miracles. Workbook for Students.  Lesson 332 Fear binds the world…Foundation of Inner Peace, Second Edition, p. 468.

Lesson 331 There Is No Conflict, For My Will Is Yours

27 Wednesday Nov 2019

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Audio credit: http://www.eckiefriar.com

II.  SECTION 12. What is the Ego?

Lesson 331 There is no conflict, for my will is Yours.

  1. How foolish, Father, to believe Your Son could cause himself to suffer!  Could he make a plan for his damnation, and be left without a certain way to his release?  You love me, Father.  You could never leave me desolate, to die within a world of pain and cruelty.  How could I think that Love has left Itself?  There is no will except the Will of Love.  Fear is a dream and has no will that can conflict with Yours.  Conflict is sleep, and peace awakening.  Death is illusion; life, eternal truth.  There is no opposition to Your Will.  There is no conflict, for my will is Yours.
  2. Forgiveness shows us that God’s Will is one, and that we share it.  Let us look upon the holy sights forgiveness shows today, that we may find the peace of God.  Amen.[1]
Photo credit: http://www.skydharma.com

My heart was so troubled today upon reading the news.  There is one story after the other of heartache and despair, pain and suffering.  One story in particular filled me with anguish – of 19-year old Aniah Blanchard, whose remains have been identified after disappearing last month – last seen at a convenience store.  Perhaps it is losing my own daughter when she was 18; perhaps it is seeing my grandchildren growing up in a world where danger seems to lurk at every turn; perhaps it is ordinary compassion and empathy which reaches out to Aniah and her family although I do not know them personally. 

Today’s prayer calls this anguish foolish.  God’s Son cannot cause himself to suffer!  It must be part of the ego’s rotten dream – Aniah and her suffering along with the rest of our suffering is simply not the reality of God.  For God loves Aniah just as He loves me.  He would never leave us desolate, to die within a world of pain and cruelty.  To think that this is so, is idolatry.  It is to believe the ego’s lies because there is no will except the Will of Love.  Today’s prayer calls this fear a dream that has no will that could stand against the Will of God.  Today’s prayer claims that conflict is sleep and peace is awakening; that death is illusion, and life is eternally true.  Today’s prayer reminds us that there is no opposing our Father’s Will.  There is no conflict, for our will is His.

Forgiveness is called for again and again in the dream of fear.  When we forgive, we are showing our understanding that what happens in the ego-world of fear is only a dream, an illusion, a trick of the enemy which would have us identify with it rather than God.  When we forgive those who would kill our children, we show that God’s Will is the one that we share; we acknowledge that no matter how real it feels, how dire it seems, time and all that happens in it is merely the ego’s nightmare. When we dare to fix our gaze upon the holy sights of love, there is where we find the peace of God.  

This peace and love cannot be found in the ego-world.  And yet ego-world, in all its gory glory gives us ample opportunity to practice the vision of Christ, rather than the images of the ego.  As we offer the vision of Christ, forgiveness is withheld from nobody for any reason.  Freedom is gained not for the few, but for all.  God’s Will is not for us to suffer; and our will is His. 

[1]A Course in Miracles. Workbook for Students.  Lesson 331 There is no conflict…Foundation of Inner Peace, Second Edition, p. 468.

12. What Is The Ego

27 Wednesday Nov 2019

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Audio credit: http://www.eckiefriar.com Section 2 Part 12

II.  SECTION 12. What is the Ego?

  1. The ego is idolatry; the sign of limited and separated self, born in a body, doomed to suffer and to end its life in death.  It is the “will” that sees the Will of God as enemy and takes a form in which it is denied.  The ego is the “proof” that strength is weak, and love is fearful, life is really death, and what opposes God alone is true.
  2. The ego is insane.  In fear it stands beyond the Everywhere, apart from All, in separation from the Infinite.  In its insanity it thinks it has become a victor over God Himself.  And it its terrible autonomy it “sees” the Will of God has been destroyed.  It dreams of punishment, and trembles at the figures in its dreams; its enemies, who seek to murder it before it can ensure its safety by attacking them.
  3. The Son of God is egoless.  What can he know of madness and the death of God, when he abides in Him?  What can he know of sorrow and of suffering, when he lives in eternal joy?  What can he know of fear and punishment, of sin and guilt, of hatred and attack, when all there is surrounding him is everlasting peace, forever conflict-free and undisturbed, in deepest silence and tranquility?
  4. To know reality is not to see the ego and its thoughts, its works, its acts, its laws, and its beliefs, its dreams, its hopes, its plans for its salvation, and the cost belief in it entails.  In suffering, the price for faith in it is so immense that crucifixion of the Son of God is offered daily at its darkened shrine, and blood must flow before the altar where its sickly followers prepare to die.
  5. Yet will one lily of forgiveness change the darkness into light; the altar to illusions to the shrine of Life Itself.  And peace will be restored forever to the holy minds which God created as His Son, His dwelling place, His joy, His love, completely His, completely one with Him.[1]
Photo credit: http://www.m.brecks.com

Idolatry is the worship of anything that is not God, not reality, not real and our lesson today tells us that the ego is idolatry, a sign of the separation from God, made of flesh and blood, doomed from the start to suffer and die.  The ego sees God as the enemy and instead of the image of God, we are given, in separation, the image of the ego which seeks to prove that strength is weak and love is fearful, that life is death and what we see here in the flesh and in the world is true while God is not. 

Being separated from our Father drives us out of our mind!  We are afraid because our egos have left their Source to be apart and alone.  We experience a bloated sense of self-importance and believe that we can move and operate outside the Will of God.  In this nightmare of separation, our egos destroy families, friendships, communities, and our world.  Our egos create dramas, attack enemies, seek vengeance, administer punishments, and lives in anticipation of the next crisis upon which to feed.

God did not create the ego; the Sons of God have no ego and abide safely in their Father.  They have no insane dreams nor lift themselves against God.  The Sons of God live in joy and bliss.  They do not suffer or have any need of sorrow.  There is no need to consider fear and punishment, sin and guilt, for they were created in love and peace and joy and God’s Will is for their eternal bliss. 

When we become real, the ego will have no place in us!  No more trembling at the thought of murder, rape, and plunder.  No more dreams of war, destruction, or death.  No more belief in ego’s magic substances or its sacrificial demands for salvation.  No more tribute to the crucifixion on blood-soaked altars exalting sin.  Death does not exist for the Son of God.  What is created by our Eternal God cannot die, cannot perish, cannot sin.  

Jesus refers to forgiveness as lilies.  Lilies symbolize humility, devotion, and innocence.  In our humility we lay down our egos in exchange for reality.  We devote our minds and hearts and lives to this reality.  We practice innocence through forgiveness, no longer confusing ego with the Sons of God.  Darkness changes into light; peace is restored to our minds; Christ returns and sets up His Kingdom in each of us, filling us with joy, love, and unity. 

Today let us offer the lilies of forgiveness.  Today let us remember the reality of God. 

[1] Course in Miracles.  Workbook for Students. 12. What is the ego…Foundation for Inner Peace, Second Edition, p. 467.

Lesson 330 I Will Not Hurt Myself Again Today

26 Tuesday Nov 2019

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Audio Credit: http://www.eckiefriar.com Lesson 330

II.  SECTION 11.  What is Creation?

Lesson 330 I will not hurt myself again today.

  1. Let us this day accept forgiveness as our only function.  Why should we attack our minds, and give them images of pain?  Why should we teach them they are powerless, when God holds out His power and His Love, and bid them take what is already theirs?  The mind that is made willing to accept God’s gifts has been restored to spirit, and extends its freedom and its joy, as is the Will of God united with its own.  The Self Which God created cannot sin and therefore cannot suffer.  Let us choose today that He be our Identity, and thus escape forever from all things the dream of fear appears to offer us.
  2. Father, Your Son can not be hurt.  And if we think we suffer, we but fail to know our one Identity we share with You.  We would return to It today, to be made free forever from all our mistakes, and to be saved from what we thought we were.[1]
Photo credit: http://www.aviaryrecoverycenter.com

When we forgive the world, we no longer attack our own minds.  The images of pain that we have emblazoned upon our minds are gone.  We step out of our blighted imaginations and into reality.  We put down powerlessness and are enveloped in God’s power and God’s Love which is our birthright and inheritance as part of His creation.  Forgiveness cleanses our minds from blame and accusation and prepares us to accept God’s gifts and restores our spirits with love, peace, and joy.  This is God’s Will – to be united with His own!  Those who God created cannot sin and suffer, although the created ones can choose another dream, another way, another path that leads to nowhere. 

In today’s lesson we are gently urged to choose our true Identity in God.  Wake up from the dream of fear and separation from our Father. Be safe always from the nightmare of fear, the black hole of sorrow, the pit of despair that our false identities in the ego would offer us in substitution. 

Our prayer reiterates this theme as we talk to our Father as His Son who realizes that being hurt is not one of the attributes of God.  We need not come to God in sorrow and in pain.  The ego would make our walk with God one of joylessness and martyrdom.  We deny our true Identity as Sons of God when we choose to suffer and to allow the ego’s lies to hurt us.  Today we pray that we learn of and embrace our true Identity.  We choose freedom from all our mistakes!  We choose salvation from all we thought we were!  We will no longer allow tormenting thoughts of guilt and shame afflict us and deny us the joy of the Lord.  For we are Sons of God and we are as God created us.  We will not hurt ourselves again today by believing otherwise.  Today we will accept forgiveness as our only function. 

[1]A Course in Miracles. Workbook for Students.  Lesson 330 I will not hurt myself…Foundation of Inner Peace, Second Edition, p. 466.

Lesson 329 I Have Already Chosen What You Will

25 Monday Nov 2019

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Audio credit: http://www.eckiefriar.com Lesson 329

II.  SECTION 11.  What is Creation?

Lesson 329 I have already chosen what You will.

  1. Father, I thought I wandered from Your Will, defied it, broke its laws, and interposed a second will more powerful than Yours.  Yet what I am in truth is but Your Will, extended and extending.  This am I, and this will never change.  As You are One, so am I one with You.  And this I chose in my creation, where my will became forever one with Yours.  That choice was made for all eternity.  It cannot change and be in opposition to itself.  Father, my will is Yours.  And I am safe, untroubled, and serene, in endless joy, because it is Your Will that it be so.
  2. Today we will accept our union with each other and our Source.  We have no will apart from His, and all of us are one because His Will is shared by all of us.  Through it we recognize that we are one.  Through it we find our way at last to God.[1]
Photo credit: http://www.activated.org

We thought we flouted the Will of God.  We thought we introduced a second will stronger than God’s Will.  How could this possibly be true?  If we consider Who God is and What God is, how could there be anything but His Will in His universe.  Either we believe that God is all-powerful, all-loving, all-good or we believe that He has an opposite which is as mighty and as strong and as powerful as He is, a will that He is always at war with.

In the Course, Jesus teaches us that there is no Will but God’s Will.  Anything outside God’s Will is nothing.  It cannot be for God is all and in all.  What would not be the Will of God does not exist except in dreams, illusions, and the vain imaginings of the separated Sons of God.  We have no battles to be fought and no wars to be won.  When we accept God’s Will as the only Will there is, we realize our oneness!  We realize that the battles we thought we had to fight have faded away.  We realize the sins that seemed to plague us and fill us with shame are nothing, but ideas separate from the Will of God, mistakes that fade into the nothingness, and of no account.  The judgments we would cast upon each other may extend time but do not, in the least bit, affect eternity or our Father’s Will.  We realize that the enemies we have made are our brothers in the Sonship of God.  We realize that nothing that happens here in time, where Sons of God dream of separation is worth mentioning or remembering.  It is over.  It is finished.  Christ has returned and set up His Kingdom within us and restored us to our Father’s Kingdom, our eternal home. 

It is God’s Will that no one shall be lost in time or otherwise, and so it is.  There is no other Will.  Let us not embrace another choice that would disparage our Father’s Will. 

[1]A Course in Miracles. Workbook for Students.  Lesson 329 I have already chosen…Foundation of Inner Peace, Second Edition, p. 466.

Lesson 328 I Choose The Second Place To Gain The First

25 Monday Nov 2019

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Audio credit: http://www.eckiefriar.com Lesson 328

II.  SECTION 11.  What is Creation?

Lesson 328 I choose the second place to gain the first.

  1. What seems to be the second place is first, for all things we perceive are upside down until we listen to the Voice for God.  It seems that we will gain autonomy but by our striving to be separate, and that our independence from the rest of God’s creation is the way in which salvation is obtained.  Yet all we find is sickness, suffering, and loss and death.  This is not what our Father wills for us, nor is there any second to His Will.  To join with His is but to find our own.  And since our will is His, it is to Him that we must go to recognize our will.
  2. There is no will but Yours.  And I am glad that nothing I imagine contradicts what You would have me be.  It is Your Will that I be wholly safe, eternally at peace.  And happily, I share that Will which You, my Father, gave as part of me.[1]
Photo credit: http://www.eckiefriar.com Zachary at Skyline Drive

In the eyes of the ego, we have to take a second seat to God.  God must always come first, and so naturally, it would seem that we are second, and yet our lesson today states that this is only the way it seems in our upside-down world.  When we heed the Voice for God, our Teacher, the Holy Spirit, we learn that we regain our true Selves by joining with Him who is Truth.  A will that is separate from God’s is a dream of sorrow, sickness, despair, and death.  

Our Father created our eternal spirits in His image.  His Will is our will.  It is only through Him that we find our true identity.  We find Ourselves, not by removing ourselves from God’s Creation but by joining God in His Creation.  Here we find our eternal rest, security, and bliss.  We are God’s Will.  His Will and our will are one.  Happily, we can share the One Will that leads us home! 

David, in the 23rd Psalm, calls God his Shepherd.  When we put aside our separated egos and align our wills with God, there is nothing withheld from our happiness.  God restores our soul and sets our feet on paths of righteousness.  When it is time to leave this earth, we have nothing to fear, for He is with us – His strength suffices; His Will takes us home.  He delivers us from our enemy.  We live in abundance, leaving a trail of goodness and mercy behind us as we leave this earth to dwell in eternity with our Maker.

In our prayer for today, we can gladly say:  Nothing I imagine could ever contradict what You would have me be.  I choose Your Will because it is my will, dear Father!  This other thing is not a will at all, but a mistaken identity forging separation and sorrow.  Restore my soul, dear Father. Place my feet on the path of righteousness and bring me home!

[1]A Course in Miracles. Workbook for Students.  Lesson 328 I choose the second place…Foundation of Inner Peace, Second Edition, p. 465.

Lesson 327 I Need But Call And You Will Answer Me

25 Monday Nov 2019

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Audio credit: http://www.eckiefriar.com Lesson 327

II.  SECTION 11.  What is Creation?

Lesson 327 I need but call and You will answer me.

  1. I am not asked to take salvation on the basis of an unsupported faith.  For God has promised He will hear my call and answer me Himself.  Let me but learn from my experience that this is true, and faith in Him must surely come to me.  This is the faith that will endure and take me farther and still farther on the road that leads to Him.  For thus, I will be sure that He has not abandoned me and loves me still, awaiting but my call to give me all the help I need to come to Him.
  2. Father, I thank You that Your promises will never fail in my experience if I but test them out.  Let me attempt, therefore, to try them and to judge them not.  Your Word is one with You.  You give the means whereby conviction comes, and surety of Your abiding Love is gained at last.[1]
Photo credit: http://www.ecww.org I Will Call and You Will Answer

For most of my life, I have struggled to believe in something that was not real or personal to me in any way.  The stories in the Bible, the sermons that were preached, the testimonies of others, and their conversion experiences left me feeling distant, aloof, and well, a bit skeptical.  I had a profound spiritual hunger and thirst, and yet nothing on earth satisfied it.  There were ones that would chastise me for my uncertainty, having been blessed with such a devout Christian mother.  My heart was searching for the God of love, peace, and joy, and found instead demands for sacrifice, misogyny, and sorrow.  Church services, Sunday Schools, bible studies, radio broadcasts, Christian books, and daily inspirational readings all called for me to have faith in God, but God was a concept that was unclear to me, an unconfirmed and untrustworthy deity that gave my allegiance no place to rest.       

Today’s lesson reminds us that God will hear our call and answer us Himself.  We can learn of God from our experience that this is true, and because our experience teaches us about Him, our faith in Him is strengthened and becomes us.  Faith that endures is not learned from our associations, our attendance, our memberships in religious organizations, or from religious leaders who may or may not lead us astray, disappoint us, or betray our trust.  It is the faith that we gain from our own heart’s searching, seeking, and calling out to God our Father, which prevails and draws us closer to Him. 

Our lesson is one of hope and joy.  Our religious texts, our leaders, our preachers and priests, our brothers in Christ may abandon us!  If we try to reach our Father through their walk and through their talk, they will lead us astray.  For it is through our experiences, encounters, practices, and devotion that we learn with unshakeable faith that God has not abandoned us and loves us still.  He awaits our call and gives us all the help we need to return to Him!  

Our prayer today calls us to thank our Father for His promises that never fail us in our daily practice.  All we must do is test them out, to glean the lessons being taught to us in our relationships and interactions with the world, offering no judgment and condemnation.  Our prayer today calls us to learn through personal experience that God’s Word is one with Him.  We cannot learn salvation through any other channel but to call upon Him.  We cannot muster the conviction and faith needed to accept salvation by merely attending church or performing the traditional rites and rituals.  God provides the conviction and the certainty of His abiding Love when we call upon Him and begin to see and hear Him in our daily walk.  Let us try the promises of God!

[1] A Course in Miracles. Workbook for Students.  Lesson 327 I need but call and…Foundation of Inner Peace, Second Edition, p. 465.

Lesson 326 I Am Forever An Effect Of God

22 Friday Nov 2019

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II.  SECTION 11.  What is Creation?

Lesson 326 I am forever an Effect of God.

  1. Father, I was created in Your mind, a holy Thought that never left its home.  I am forever Your Effect, and You forever and forever are my Cause.  As You created me, I have remained.  Where You established me, I still abide.  And all Your attributes abide in me, because it is Your Will to have a Son so like his Cause that Cause, and Its Effect are indistinguishable.  Let me know that I am an Effect of God, and so I have the power to create like You.  And as it is in Heaven, so on earth.  Your plan I follow here, and at the end I know that You will gather Your effects into the tranquil Heaven of Your Love, where earth will vanish, and all separate thoughts unite in glory as the Son of God.
  2. Let us today behold earth disappear, at first transformed, and then, forgiven, fade entirely into God’s holy Will.[1]
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We are at home in the mind of God, our Father.  He will never forget us or forsake us, for we are forever together, and we are as God created us.  He has given us all of His own holy attributes because we are His Sons and made in His image.  Jesus tells us today in our lesson that it is God’s Will that we are indistinguishable from our Father, that Cause and Effect are made one!

In our prayer today we ask our Father to let us know, to give us this knowledge and understanding and experience of knowing who we are as an Effect of God, as one with God.  Let us create with God and as God – Just as God creates in Heaven, let us, we pray, create on earth.  Let us be the return of Christ and create His Kingdom, giving up the ego world that we have made!  Let us, we pray, follow God’s plan and have the surety of the holy outcome where our Father gathers all of us into the tranquility and peace of His love and His kingdom, and what we have made in our temporal kingdom will disappear, as we unite in the Sonship of God. 

Our lesson today urges us to see the earth fade away, to disappear, it says.  First it will be transformed into love and light, joy and peace as we see our world through the holy perception of Holy Spirit, and then we realize what it was and what it was meant for, why it was given us.  We are called to forgive our journey through time – the hardships, sorrow, and confusion – for what we have learned and what we have gained will hold us forever in God’s Will as God’s beloved Son. 

[1] A Course in Miracles. Workbook for Students.  Lesson 326 I am forever an Effect…Foundation of Inner Peace, Second Edition, p. 464.