Part 1 Undoing the Way We See Things Now
Lesson 59 Review of Lessons 41-45
- (41) God goes with me wherever I go.
How can I be alone when God always goes with me? How can I be doubtful and unsure of myself when perfect certainty abides in Him? How can I be disturbed by anything when He rests in absolute peace? How can I suffer when love and joy surround me through Him? Let me not cherish illusions about myself. I am perfect because God goes with me wherever I go.
- (42) God is my strength. Vision is His gift.
Let me not look to my own eyes to see today. Let me be willing to exchange my pitiful illusion of seeing for the vision that is given by God. Christ’s vision is His gift, and He has given it to me. Let me call upon this gift today so that this day may help me to understand eternity.
- (43) God is my source. I cannot see apart from Him.
I can see what God wants me to see. I cannot see anything else. Beyond His Will is only illusions. It is these I choose when I think I can see apart from Him. It is these I choose when I try to see through the body’s eyes. Yet the vision of Christ has been given me to replace them. It is through this vision that I choose to see.
- (44) God is the light in which I see.
I cannot see in darkness. God is the only light. Therefore, if I am to see, it must be through Him. I have tried to define what seeing is, and I have been wrong. Now it is given me to understand that God is the light in which I see. Let me welcome vision and the happy world it will show me.
- (45) God is the Mind with which I think.
I have no thoughts I do not share with God. I have no thoughts apart from Him because I have no mind apart from His. As part of His Mind, my thoughts are His, and His thoughts are mine.
Notes and Personal Application (2019): Morning Prayer – Thank you for this review of the ideas in this Course, Holy Spirit. Thank you for reminding me of what I have learned and for taking me one step at a time to the fullness of truth. I want my thoughts to be part of the mind of my Creator and part of creation itself! I desire to think with Love, to think with the Holy Spirit, to join with my Lord and Savior, and take my part in the Sonship of God and the Brotherhood of Christ. In Jesus’ name. Amen.
Morning meditation – I am looking at Lesson 42: God is my strength. Vision is His Gift. God gave me the vision of Christ as a gift. I can call upon this gift at any time. I can call upon Holy Spirit, and I can call upon the Vision of Christ. I want this day to teach me about what Christ’s vision is for the world, for eternity, and the everlasting Kingdom of God.
Today I learned about the One Choice. It just became so alive to me when I was writing in my journal. When we make the One Choice, all other choices line up and follow. It is not that long, disheartening, complicated list of dos and don’ts that squelched the love of God from my awareness. God’s spirit is in us, is us, and we have no worries about being cast from His Kingdom. Those things about us that seem to be clinging to the ego, the loving awareness of our true identity will naturally cause us to joyfully and willingly give up. Making that One Choice for God, all things of the ego world become tasteless and joyless because we now know something far better. We see how repetitive, dull, and meaningless our attachments to ego world are. Seeing with our blighted understanding, the last vestiges of attachment are loosened and let go. We have no worries about sin because sin has lost its meaning when our mind is whole and complete in Christ. There is no need to preach or to judge others for their sins. When we speak, God’s love speaks through us; Holy Spirit shines through us. We are secure. We know who and what we really are – we belong to the Sonship of God, the Brotherhood of Christ, the Family of God, co-creator with Him.
Daily Prayer – Our Father Who Abides in me, holy is Your name. Your kingdom come, Your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven. Thank You for supplying our daily needs; thank You for forgiving our mistakes; thank You for teaching us to also forgive our brothers, who also make mistakes. Thank You for leading us to truth with Love, dear Father. Keep us from believing false things about You and deliver our minds from evil. In Jesus’ name. Amen.
Notes and Personal Application (2020): Today, we got up early so we could have breakfast with two of our grandsons. So there we were at dawn-thirty sipping our dark French roast and devoting our time to prayer and to today’s lesson review before getting ready to meet them at Perkins.
All of the lessons from today seem to have such weight and depth in our awareness. God goes with us wherever we go – we never have to be afraid, for ourselves or those we love because our trust is in Him who rests in absolute peace! We can even say with all seriousness and not be the least audacious: I am perfect because God made me and goes with me – everywhere.
To see our own perfection, we certainly need to accept the review for Lesson 42! God is my strength; vision is His gift. If we look at ourselves, we are not going to see perfection. But lesson 42 tells us we can exchange the pitiful illusion of seeing that we experience in the body and accept His gift, the Vision of Christ. What we see through Christ’s Vision transforms ourselves and our world forever and helps us to understand the perfect peace of eternity. Let us all accept God’s gift today and see through the eyes of Christ!
We cannot see through the eyes of Christ without our Source, Who is God. If we look at the world through the body’s eyes, we will see a tainted version of reality, an illusion that keeps us trapped in an ongoing cycle of life and death, where every infant born is doomed to suffer and to die. How depressing is the shadow world! Our minds must make all kinds of defenses to protect us from its insanity and sorrow. Yet God gives us the Vision of Christ and it is through these eyes that we are lifted from the nightmare into the realm of love.
We do our best to function in the world of darkness, but here’s the thing. We just can’t see. There is no way, no matter what technology that we have at our fingertips; no matter how much money we have in our bank accounts; no matter how many friends we have on Facebook – that we can manage because we do not see the big picture or know the reason for it all. We are still in the dark, no matter how many lights we turn on because we are separated from our Source. When God is the light in which we see, it becomes clear that we have been living the dream, and it was not the dream it was cracked up to be! It is such a relief to realize that we have made the whole thing up, that it was silly to think we could manage to live in separation from God and call it life. That we do not have to settle for the world’s weak excuses for love and belonging because we have the real deal in Christ. When we see with the eyes of Christ, we are filled with glee.
And then there is Lesson 45 reminding us that without God, we cannot even think! Those electromagnetic reactions we call thoughts? The neuronal activity of our brains can hardly be called the Mind of God and surely does not contribute to the thoughts we share with God. Our brains may be the epicenter of our earthly lives, but let me assure you our brains do not generate the thoughts we share with God! In our Course, Jesus refers to our everlasting spirits as our mind. We have been given the mind of God. The mind of God is not our brain, it is our spirit. As part of His Mind, our thoughts are His, and His thoughts are mine. Thinking with the Mind of God pulls us out of the darkness and into the light where all is made clear and perfect. Our brains are amazing organisms, but they are prone to error and disease, not so the Mind of God! When we think with the Mind of God, we are not stuck in the echo chamber of our human brain, which gravitates towards those who share the same blighted opinions and tunnel vision, making enemies and frenemies of those who it supposes different. When we think with the Mind of God, we think with Love; we think with eternity. We see the big picture in which we belong.
the friar patch 