Part 1 Undoing the Way We See Things Now
LESSON 125 In Quiet I Receive God’s Word Today
- Let this day be a day of stillness and of quiet listening. Your Father wills you hear His voice today. He calls to you from deep within your mind where He abides. Hear Him today. No peace is possible until His word is heard around the world; until your mind, in quiet listening, accepts the message that the world must hear to usher in the quiet time of peace.
- This world will change through you. No other means can save it, for God’s plan is simply this: The son of God is free to save himself, given the word of God to be his guide, forever in his mind and at his side to lead him shortly to his Father’s house by his own will, forever free as God’s. He is not led by force, but only love. He is not judged, but only sanctified.
- In stillness we will hear God’s Voice today without intrusion of our petty thoughts, without our personal desires, and without all judgment of His holy Word. We will not judge ourselves today, for what we are can not be judged. We stand apart from all the judgments which the world has laid upon the Son of God. It knows him not. Today we will not listen to the world but wait in silence for the Word of God.
- Hear, holy Son of God, your Father speak. His Voice would give to you His holy Word, to spread across the world the tidings of salvation and the holy time of peace. We gather at the throne of God today, the quiet place within the mind where He abides forever, in the holiness that He created and will never leave.
- He has not waited until you return your mind to Him to give His word to you. He has not hidden Himself from you, while you have wandered off a little while from Him. He does not cherish the illusions which you hold about yourself. He knows His Son, and wills that he remain as part of Him regardless of his dreams; regardless of his madness that his will is not his own.
- Today He speaks to you. His Voice awaits your silence for His Word cannot be heard until your mind is quiet for a while, and meaningless desires have been stilled. Await His Word in quiet. There is peace within you to be called upon today, to help make ready your most holy mind to hear the Voice for its Creator speak.
- Three times today, at times most suitable for silence, give ten minutes from listening to the world, and choose instead a gentle listening to the Word of God. He speaks from nearer than your heart to you. His Voice is closer than your hand. His love is everything you are and that He is – the same as you, and you the same as He.
- It is your voice to which you listen as He speaks to you. It is your Word He speaks. It is the word of freedom and of peace, of unity of will and purpose, with no separation and division in the single Mind of Father and of Son. In quiet listen to your Self today and let Him tell you God has never left His Son, and you have never left your Self.
- Only be quiet. You will need no rule but this, to let your practicing today lift you above the thinking of the world, and free your vision from the body’s eyes. Only be still and listen. You will hear the Word in which the Will of God the Son joins in His Father’s Will, at one with it, with no illusions interposed between the wholly indivisible and true. As every hour passes by today, be still a moment and remind yourself you have a special purpose for this day; in quiet to receive the Word of God.[1]
Notes and Personal application: It occurred to me today that our lessons make our journeys sound easy. Let this day be a day of stillness and of quiet listening, Jesus says. But for most of us, stillness and quiet listening is a luxury. We have obligations and duties, demands upon us. The phone rings, family members need prayer, the grass needs mowed, the weeds need trimmed, the chickens need fed. The list never ends – everywhere we look here at the Friar Patch we have things calling our name. The woods need cleared; the logs split, the side of the house tiled, the garden roto-tilled…I will not bore with you with our to-do list! When we have a quiet moment, all we want to do is grab a Klondike bar and sit on the recliner with the cats in our lap and watch Somebody Feed Fred, our new favorite foodie show on Netflix.
It takes thought and planning to receive God’s word today. For this meditation, we have decided to use our mealtimes as reminders to practice our three 10-minute periods of quietness today. I hope that you join with us. Choose to reflect deeply on the words that Jesus speaks. This is the way, the only way, that the world changes – through us. Jesus is not going to come and swoop us up and save the world like some modern-day, lone ranger, superhero. The world is saved by you and me becoming one with Christ and thus freeing ourselves from the ego-driven self we made apart from God. No peace is possible in our world until His Word is heard around the world, and it starts when each of our minds accept that we are one in Him.
God does not bully us into His Kingdom; He draws us back by His love and devotion for us. He does not judge us for the stories that we made in separation, the substitutes we made for His love. He purifies us.
Jesus calls to us to hear. Last year when I began to listen to the call of God upon my life, I was instructed to study A Course in Miracles, to steep myself in it. I was told to do the lessons and whether I believed in them or not, to practice the meditations and pray the prayers and accept the fact that I not only wanted God in my life; I wanted to do what God wanted me to do. It is in quietness and stillness that Holy Spirit asked me to share my devotional on this blog. It is in quietness and stillness that Holy Spirit speaks to my mind and heart on a daily basis and assures me of God’s love and devotion – not to me, but to all of us. Our minds are God’s throne – this is where God abides forever, Jesus says. When our minds are not taken up by petty thoughts, with our personal desires, with our trite little grudges and hurt feelings and naughty notions – when we stop judging ourselves and others and just surrender our minds to God, we realize our holiness, our purity, our love. We get past our own agendas, arrogance, and asinine demands and hear God’s Voice!
In quietness we experience His love and devotion to us; in stillness we experience our unity with Him. I urge you to keep your ten-minute practice periods sacred; let nothing persuade you to allow the thinking of the world to intrude upon your time with Him. Close your eyes and ask God for the vision of Christ. Stop your ears to the body’s constant calls and ask Him to open your heart and mind to Him.
In paragraph five of today’s lesson Jesus reminds us that God did not wait until we returned our minds to Him to give His Word to us. He did not hide from us; He does not judge us the way we judge ourselves. He knows us because He made us. We can never leave Him because no matter what we do, no matter what we say, no matter what we dream, no matter our insane thoughts – we will always be part of Him, and we will never find peace, joy, or happiness apart from Him.
Our minds can clickety-clack all day long. We can fill our minds with all kinds of distraction, inventiveness, contrivances but God never leaves our mind. He is always calling to us – beyond the maddening cries of the world. Today we get quiet and receive His Word.
[1]A Course in Miracles. Workbook for Students. Lesson 125 In quiet I receive…Foundation for Inner Peace, Second Edition, (1992). pp. 225-226.
Audio credit: eckiefriar.com Lesson 125
the friar patch 