Part 1 Undoing the Way We See Things Now
LESSON 193 All things are lessons God would have me learn.
- God does not know of learning. Yet His Will extends to what He does not understand, in that He wills the happiness of His Son inherited of Him be undisturbed; eternal and forever gaining scope, eternally expanding in the joy of full creation, and eternally open and wholly limitless in Him. That is His Will. And thus His Will provides the means to guarantee that it is done.
- God sees no contradictions. Yet His Son believes he sees them. Thus he has a need for One Who can correct his erring sight and give him vision that will lead him back to where perception ceases. God does not perceive at all. Yet it is He Who gives the means by which perception is made true and beautiful enough to let the light of Heaven shine upon it. It is He Who answers what His Son would contradict and keeps his sinlessness forever safe.
- These are the lessons God would have you learn. His Will reflects them all, and they reflect His loving kindness to the Son He loves. Each lesson has a central thought, the same in all of them. The form alone is changed, with different circumstances and events with different characters and different themes, apparent but not real. They are the same in fundamental content. It is this: Forgive, and you will see this differently.
- Certain it is that all distress does not appear to be but unforgiveness. Yet that is the content underneath the form. It is this sameness which makes learning sure because the lesson is so simple that it cannot be rejected in the end. No one can hide forever from a truth so very obvious that it appears in countless forms, and yet is recognized as easily in all of them, if one but wants to see the simple lesson there. Forgive, and you will see this differently.
- These are the words the Holy Spirit speaks in all your tribulations, all your pain, all suffering regardless of its form. These are the words with which temptation ends, and guilt, abandoned, is revered no more. These are the words which end the dream of sin and rid the mind of fear. These are the words by which salvation comes to all the world.
- Shall we not learn to say these words when we are tempted to believe that pain is real, and death becomes our choice instead of life? Shall we not learn to say these words when we have understood their power to release all minds from bondage? These are words which give you power over all events that seem to have been given power over you. You see them rightly when you hold these words in full awareness, and do not forget these words apply to everything you see, or any brother looks upon amiss.
- How can you tell when you are seeing wrong, or someone else is failing to perceive the lesson he should learn? Does pain seem real in the perception? If it does, be sure the lesson is not learned. And there remains an unforgiveness hiding in the mind that sees the pain through eyes the mind directs.
- God would not have you suffer thus. He would help you forgive yourself. His Son does not remember who he is. And God would have him not forget His Love, and all the gifts His Love brings with it. Would you now renounce your own salvation? Would you fail to learn the simple lessons Heaven’s Teacher sets before you, that all pain may disappear, and God may be remembered by His Son?
- All things are lessons God would have you learn. He would not leave an unforgiving thought without correction, nor one thorn or nail to hurt His holy Son in any way. He would ensure his holy rest remain untroubled and serene, without a care, in an eternal home which cares for him. And He would have all tears be wiped away, with none remaining yet unshed, and none but waiting their appointed time to fall. For God has willed that laughter should replace each one, and that His Son be free again.
- We will attempt today to overcome a thousand seeming obstacles to peace in just one day. Let mercy come to you more quickly. Do not try to hold it off another day, another minute or another instant. Time was made for this. Use it today for what its purpose is. Morning and night devote what time you can to serve its proper aim, and do not let the time be less than meets your deepest need.
- Give all you can and give a little more. For now we would arise in haste and go unto our Father’s house. We have been gone too long, and we would linger here no more. And as we practice, let us think about all things we saved to settle by ourselves, and kept apart from healing. Let us give them all to Him Who knows the way to look upon them so that they will disappear. Truth is His message; truth His teaching is. His are the lessons God would have us learn.
- Each hour spend a little time today, and in the days to come, in practicing the lessons in forgiveness in the form established for the day. And try to give it application to the happenings the hour brought, so that the next one is free of the one before. The chains of time are easily unloosened in this way. Let no one hour cast its shadow on the one that follows, and when that one goes, let everything that happened in its course go with it. Thus will you remain unbound, in peace eternal in the world of time.
- This is the lesson God would have you learn: There is a way to look on everything that lets it be to you another step to Him, and to salvation of the world. To all that speaks of terror, answer thus: I will forgive, and this will disappear. To every apprehension, every care and every form of suffering, repeat these selfsame words. And then you hold the key that opens Heaven’s gate and brings the Love of God the Father down to earth at last, to raise it up to Heaven. God will take this final step Himself. Do not deny the little steps He asks you take to Him. [1]
Notes and Personal Application: Today let us practice saying: I will forgive, and this will disappear, every hour to all thoughts that would steal our joy, cause us rage or anger, blight our light, or darken our pathway. We do not have to hold any such thoughts in our mind. We can set ourselves free from all that the world would throw upon us to wreak havoc upon our minds and cause us to arm ourselves against one another, snub one another, or widen the separation between ourselves and God.
There are times that the past comes to my mind in such a vivid way – as if undesirable events and wrongdoings that happened decades ago have just now inflicted the pain, sorrow, disappointment, and anger. My ego does not want me to forget the many reasons I have to shield myself against love and forgiveness. As long as the ego can keep me in the go-round of holding grudges, keeping others accountable, building cases against those who wronged me, doubting their goodness and worth, I are trapped in the senseless state of time, of separation, and of uncertainty.
Today Jesus is telling you and me to take a stand against the lies of the ego. We are to open our eyes and know that all of the hurt, the sorrow, the disappointment, the ongoing agony of it all will simply disappear once and for all when we realize that the past has no meaning. The adversities that I suffered in childhood are simply gone. The difficulties, betrayals, and false friends that cluttered my adulthood are no more. There is absolutely no good reason to hold on to them, to let my mind make them real to me, to hold the actors and the players accountable for the nothing that passes in time. All things that happened to me are lessons that God would have me learn. If I thought it would be a lark to separate myself from God, live in a place of opposites, uncertainty, and competition for limited resources, well, then I must learn in whatever manner it takes that it is no picnic, no lark, no high adventure. Jesus insists in today’s lesson that there is nothing that can happen in the realm of separation, in the simulated world of that which is not love that can possibly be cause for me to hold unforgiveness in my heart.
I see things differently through the eyes of forgiveness. All things are lessons God would have me learn. God’s Will is for me to be happy, for my happiness to be undisturbed throughout eternity, for my happiness to expand itself int the joy of creation, gaining scope forever and limitless in Him. That is God’s Will for me and for you. And His Will guarantees that it is done.
Today let us learn the lessons God would have us learn! Every single thing that happens to us either personally or vicariously is a lesson we are here to learn. We are not to hold the people involved accountable. We can avoid any bitterness, anger, resentment, or sense of loss by learning the lesson and forgiving all who were involved in teaching it to us. God hold no ill will toward us. He does not devise lessons to hurt us, to take revenge upon us, or to punish us. Yet each dark circumstance, each jealous, loveless act, each situation that befalls us is a lesson to lead us back to God. Reaping what we sow is not a punishment, it is a lesson in an eternal principle. Casting our pearls before the swine and then experiencing a sense of shame and worthlessness is not a punishment, it is a lesson in an eternal principle. Taking something that does not belong to us and then having the same thing happen to us, is a lesson in an eternal principle, not God taking revenge upon our sin.
When we learn our lessons in truth, we can thank the very ones who taught us by forgiving the role they played in driving those hard lessons home. Forgive, Jesus says, and we will see things differently. These words Holy Spirit speaks to us in all our pain and suffering of every kind. We can put an end to all our problems, we can make our pain and suffering disappear simply by accepting it as a lesson from God. This is a key to the gate of Heaven, Jesus claims. This is how we bring God’s Kingdom to earth – by accepting everything that happens to us as a lesson, forgiving the circumstances, choices, and characters that led us to each lesson, and experiencing healing through the sense of love and peace and joy instead of resentment, grudges, and confusion.
Dear Father, Today let me take each event in my life as a lesson from You. Let me accept the lesson, learn from it, and forgive all the circumstances and people involved who have made the lesson seem loveless and painful. When I forgive, I will see things differently. When I forgive, any hurt, trauma, pain, or sorrow will disappear. Help me to see this through the eyes of Christ. In the name of Jesus, with whom I am one. Amen.
[1] A Course in Miracles. Workbook for Students. Lesson 193. Foundation for Inner Peace, Second Edition (1992).
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