PART II. SECTION 4: WHAT IS SIN?
Lesson 255 This Day I Choose To Spend In Perfect Peace
- It does not seem to me that I can choose to have but peace today. And yet, my God assures me that His Son is like Himself. Let me this day have faith in Him Who says I am God’s Son. And let the peace I choose be mine today bear witness to the truth of what He says. God’s Son can have no cares and must remain forever in the peace of Heaven. In His Name, I give today to finding what my Father wills for me, accepting it as mine, and giving it to all my Father’s Sons, along with me.
- And so, my Father, would I pass this day with You. Your Son has not forgotten You. The peace You gave him still is in his mind, and it is there I choose to spend today.[1]
Notes and Personal Application Today is a beautiful day in Pennsylvania. The scent of early fall is in the air. There are clouds promising us rain, giving us a respite from relentless heat and drought of summer. Our grandson is coming over to do our weekly grocery shopping, enjoy lunch out at TGI Fridays, and help clean the chicken coops, trim back weeds, and work in the garden. Tonight we invited our daughter-in-law over with us to have cheeseburgers and fries and spend some time together.
And yet for James and I who had a bit of a party last night with some dear friends, we suffered brain fog, a dull headache, and a struggle to hold on to joy throughout the day. We skipped our devotional in the morning, we trudged through our day the best we could, we snapped at each other a few times and contradicted each other’s memories. I felt so much ego-resistance to our Course study that I did not even look at it during the day and was sorely tempted to give it up as being too hard for me and taking all the fun out of life.
Throughout the day, the still small voice of Holy Spirit continued to be a presence in my mind, and yet I was very much aware of the other voice that yammered its chorus of distractions and downright delusions. Instead of turning a deaf ear to its calls, I listened to what it was saying: You have only one life to live. You only have a decade or two left. You should forget about this inner voice you listen to and let steal all your fun and interest and whoop it up. Your life is over. You are deceiving yourself, Eckie. God is not interested in you. God is not the least bit concerned about you or anybody else in the world. This is all there is and ever will be. You get one shot at life; Girly Girl and you should squeeze as much out of it as possible.
One of the biggest shocks and disappointments in my life has been that growing older does not make it easier to resist the false self. It is still the same old girl it has always been a fun-lover, a prankster, a fibber, a flake. The false self that I made to take the place of my real Self has provided me with a life full of fun, adventure, drama, love affairs, reminders of fleeting fancies in the form of an inglorious past, all which add up to a big, empty, go-nowhere, build-upon-nothing zero without the transforming power of Holy Spirit.
I know this false self to bring me nothing but that which is not peace, and yet today it was coaxing me, wheedling with me, enticing me with its giddiness, its puerile pluck, its yearnings to be back in control. All through the day while outside me was shopping, chatting with my husband, grandson, and daughter-in-law, shoveling out chicken manure and taking it to the garden, weed whacking, harvesting, cooking, and cleaning – my thoughts were not on God. I did not want to find what God wills for me for I was afraid that what God wills for me was going to be too hard, too much of a sacrifice, and all I wanted to do was have fun and enjoy my life as it appears in the illusion. Other people seemingly enjoy their godless lives, it argued. So can you, Eckie.
Listening to this other voice, I was promised high adventure, an appetite and passion for things which failed to satisfy for more than a few moments in the past and fail to even interest me at all anymore. You are not God’s Son, it sneered, but a human being made of flesh and blood. You are going to die and be gone for good. Do not waste your time in this go-nowhere spiritual quest when you only have a short time to live and enjoy the world, your family and friends. It is not right for you. Other people can devote their life to God because they do not have anything going for them. But for you it is vanity. It is useless. You change your mind too much. You get bored. You do not really like people that much, and for good reason! Quit promoting such insane ideas. Stop these meetings, this blog – it is just a big waste of your time. It gives you a false sense of hope that you should not be sharing with others.
What I chose to watch on Prime and Netflix after dinner and before bed did not reflect peace or any form of godliness. I did not forget God, I resisted Him. I chose to go my own way, and instead of peace, I felt heavy, grumpy, despondent, and out of sync. I ate too much. My stomach was jumpy. Just about everything anyone said to me got on my last nerve. I swore at the poor cat. Our house seemed a heavy burden instead of a place of shelter, warmth, and love. Restless sleep, bad dreams, and blaming thoughts revealed to me, not God’s Will for my life, but the ego’s desire for my life.
We can learn our lessons through joy or suffering. It is our choice. We rule our destiny simply by the thoughts we choose to think; the Voice we choose to heed or to oppose. Today I chose not to spend my day in perfect peace. In listening to the old self, I got a good taste of what I am missing in the world of separation. I found the empty self full of disturbance, lies, false promises, and unrest. This is not God’s Will for me, and it is not my will for myself.
Today I pray our prayer in my own words, a prayer for the days we choose not to spend in perfect peace.
And so our Father, we did not pass this day with You. We opposed our real Self who is one with You and chose our old selves, who offers us a different way. We thought we could enjoy a day without You in it, and it was not a place we want to be. We want to pass all our days with You. We never want to oppose You and Your Will for us again, because it was quite apparent that what our ego wants for us is not what we want at all! Thank you for Your patience, Your constancy and love. In the name of Jesus, with Whom we are one, Amen.
[1] A Course in Miracles. Workbook for Students. Lesson 255. Foundation for Inner Peace, Second Edition (1992).
Audio credit: the friar patch @ http://www.eckiefriar.com
the friar patch 