Part 1 Undoing the Way We See Things Now
Review IV
Lesson 149 My Mind Holds Only What I Think With God.
(137) When I am healed, I am not healed alone.
(138) Heaven is the decision I must make.[1]
Notes and Personal Application: Today we open with the prayer that our mind holds only what we think with God. This is not a prayer request; it is a prayer of confirmation. All other thoughts in our mind fade away – we are left holding only what we think with God. When we meditate upon this lesson idea for five minutes in the morning and five minutes in the evening, we are setting ourselves free from troublesome worries, cares, and concerns – everything is in God’s capable hands. We are His and only what we think with Him means anything at all. There is no need to fight off ungodly thoughts; we simply recognize them for the big nothing that they are and gladly let them go. Unholiness is a thing of the past – it is gone, as if it never were.
While yesterday’s last lesson review was “sickness is a defense against truth,” today’s idea pulls us away from the idea of sickness and assures us that as we choose truth over sickness, our healing heals not only ourselves, but our brothers as well. While sickness operates on laws from this world, healing operates on laws from the world beyond this one. Sickness splinters our wholeness with others; healing makes us one again. Healing is wholeness, and we are whole only through our oneness, the Brotherhood of Christ, the Sonship of God.
Jesus reminds us that in the world Anti-Christ becomes more powerful than Christ to those whose body seems more stable and solid than the mind. In the world, the message of Christ is nothing but a dream, a false hope. Those who seek the world beyond are despised here as insipid and foolish, while salvation’s cynics are seen as shrewd and smart, the ones who have a firm grip upon a reality which can be witnessed, defended, examined, judged, condemned, and justified. Yet these world views sicken our minds, cause our bodies to fail us, and cement our minds in fear and separation.
When we allow our minds to grasp the truth, we are healed. And we are not healed alone! In paragraph 10, Jesus tells us that all of those around us, who cross our minds, the ones we touch, and even those with whom we have lost touch with, who no longer speak to us or appreciate our gifts, are healed along with us.[2] We have no need to go out in the highways and byways and convert others to our way of thinking. We simply focus upon our own healing and the healing of others naturally follows.
In our second review idea, we contemplate the idea that Heaven is the decision that we must make. It is not “a” decision, it is “the” decision, the one decision we must make while we are under the mesmerism of time. In reality, the decision has already been made for us. There is no choice. God has made us and has not abandoned us. But in the dream-like enchantment of separateness, we are here to make the conscious choice for heaven. Consciously, we must consider the alternatives, to understand what we are up against, we must look upon the darkness and the shadows and to judge it with the help of Heaven. We must be willing to have our perceptions be corrected; we must want the truth, and only the truth. We must give up our love for darkness and the lie. We choose heaven when we recognize how all else lacks meaning, has no value, and ends in death.
Choosing heaven ends not only the fear of hell, but the fear of God. Choosing heaven means we no longer value the valueless – we no longer insanely attempt to make meaning where none can be found. Our attachments, our idolatry, our bad habits, the false affections and affectations that loomed so large are seen for what they truly are – dumb and trite mistakes, easily forgiven, long forgotten, of no lasting effect. We are free of terror, spite, and lies forever. We are free of the world of opposites, of specialness, of death. Heaven is the decision that we make. We never change our minds, because when we make that conscious choice, it is the only thing we could possibly want.
[1]A Course in Miracles. Workbook for Students. Lesson 149. Foundation for Inner Peace, Second Edition (1992). p. 277.
[2] A Course in Miracles. Workbook for Students. Lesson 139. Foundation for Inner Peace, Second Edition (1992). p. 265.
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