Part 1 Undoing the Way We See Things Now
Lesson 165 Let Not My Mind Deny the Thought of God.
- What makes this world seem real except your own denial of the truth that lies beyond? What but your thoughts of misery and death obscure the perfect happiness and the eternal life your Father wills for you? And what could hide what cannot be concealed except illusion? What could keep from you what you already have except your choice to see it not, denying it is there?
- The Thought of God created you. It left you not, nor have you ever been apart from it an instant. It belongs to you. By it you live. It is your Source of life, holding you one with it, and everything is one with you because it left you not. The Thought of God protects you, cares for you, makes soft your resting place and smooth your way, lighting your mind with happiness and love. Eternity and everlasting life shine in your mind because the Thought of God has left you not, and still abides with you.
- Who would deny his safety and his peace, his joy, his healing, and his peace of mind, his quiet rest, his calm awakening, if he but recognized where they abide? Would he not instantly prepare to go where they are found, abandoning all else as worthless in comparison with them? And having found them, would he not make sure they stay with him, and he remain with them?
- Deny not Heaven. It is yours today, but for the asking. Nor need you perceive how great the gift, how changed your mind will be before it comes to you. Ask to receive, and it is given you. Conviction lies within it. Till you welcome it as yours, uncertainty remains. Yet God is fair. Sureness is not required to receive what only your acceptance can bestow.
- Ask with desire. You need not be sure that you request the only thing you want. But when you have received, you will be sure you have the treasure you have always sought. What would you then exchange for it? What would induce you now to let it fade away from your ecstatic vision? For this sight proves that you have exchanged your blindness for the seeing eyes of Christ; your mind has come to lay aside denial and accept the Thought of God as your inheritance.
- Now is all doubting past, the journey’s end made certain, and salvation given you. Now is Christ’s power in your mind, to heal as you were healed. For now you are among the saviors of the world. Your destiny lies there and nowhere else. Would God consent to let His Son remain forever starved by his denial of the nourishment he needs to live? Abundance dwells in him, and deprivation cannot cut him off from God’s sustaining Love and from his home.
- Practice today in hope. For hope indeed is justified. Your doubts are meaningless, for God is certain. And the Thought of Him is never absent. Sureness must abide within you who are host to Him. This course removes all doubt which you have interposed between Him and your certainty of Him.
- We count on God, and not upon ourselves, to give us certainty. And in His Name, we practice as His Word directs, we do. His sureness lies beyond our every doubt. His Love remains beyond our every fear. The Thought of Him is still beyond all dreams and in our minds, according to His Will.[1]
Notes and Personal Application: Lately I have been taken up with gardening. James built me a little greenhouse and I started hundreds of seedlings – tomatoes, okra, cucumbers, peppers, marigolds and sunflowers, basil, oregano, eggplants, chives, green beans, squash, cabbage, and cilantro. Growing things has become somewhat of a passion for me – never having had a “green thumb,” now here in my senior years I suddenly have a keen interest in tending to plants. This year I have been especially enamored of lavender and it has proved to be a real challenge to get the seedlings started, and yet I keep buying seed packets and trying again until now I have finally started four tiny plants after many failures.
The first thing I want to do when I wake up in the morning, after enjoying a cup or two of coffee and going over the lesson and devotional, is run out to the garden. The weather has been beautiful – sunny, hot, breezy. The air smells so good and being outside, I get to chat with the neighbors who ride by on their horses and bikes, or out taking a walk or working in their yard. People ride by and beep their horn and wave and sometimes stop for a bit. In other words it all seems very real.
Going to bed at night, I am sore from head to toe. My back aches, my legs hurt, my shoulder, neck, and arms are fatigued. It is hard to get comfortable to sleep. My head hits the pillow and before I have time to quiet my mind and say my evening prayers, I am in snooze mode. Still, even with the aches and pains, life in time seems real and heaven does not seem that real to me. Today in particular, we had such a lovely day, quiet, serene, going from one little task to the next, going for a long ride on country roads, revisiting scenery from the past, eating southern fried chicken at Cracker Barrell, and watching two episodes of Hell on Wheels…life here seems too real to turn my back on it and call for Heaven.
Which makes me all the more appreciative that all I must do is sincerely and desirously ask for Heaven. I do not have to be sure and I do not have to be beyond doubt. I do not have to know that this is the only thing I want and make any seeming sacrifices to ask for Heaven. All I must do is ask for it with my heart and with my mind and with desire and passion for what is real. So when Heaven seems distant and this world feels that it is all I want, when I receive Heaven, I will be sure and certain and know that it is the only treasure in which I could ever want. Thank you, Jesus! The other way which required such play-acting, weeping, and self-denial is false, mean, and stupid. I would much rather be honest – yes, I want what is real – but this seems very real to me right now Lord. Please give me Heaven anyway – I want what is real, everlasting, and does not fade away. Here the fruits of my labor only bloom for a season, soon the harvest bounty is decay…I want what is real. Let not my mind deny the thought of the everlasting; let not my mind choose that which is temporal over that which is forever
There is nothing we can do to give us the certain faith in what we can not see with our eyes or experience in our flesh. This we count on God to do for us. We do not have to make bold faith statements, deny our love for the world, and sacrifice our affection for the things which enamor and capture our imagination. We count on God to stir our hope, to free us from our doubts and fears, to clear our inner altar which gets so- cluttered with the distractions of the world. God has never left us – our thoughts may seem to be far from Him, but they are always there, beyond this world of dreams and passing fancies, and eternally placed in our minds, according to His Will. We rest our hopes on God and His Will.
Let us lift our hearts in praise.
[1] A Course in Miracles. Workbook for Students. Lesson 165. Foundation for Inner Peace, Second Edition (1992).
Audio credit: http://www.eckiefriar.com
the friar patch 