III. Honesty
1. All other traits of God’s teachers rest on trust. Once that has been achieved, the others cannot fail to follow. Only the trusting can afford honesty, for only they can see its value. Honesty does not apply only to what you say. The term actually means consistency. There is nothing you say that contradicts what you think or do; no thought opposes any other thought; no act belies your word; and no word lacks agreement with another. Such are the truly honest. At no level are they in conflict with themselves. Therefore it is impossible for them to be in conflict with anyone or anything.
2. The peace of mind which the advanced teachers of God experience is largely due to their perfect honesty. It is only the wish to deceive that makes for war. No one at one with himself can even conceive of conflict. Conflict is the inevitable result of self-deception, and self-deception is dishonesty. There is no challenge to a teacher of God. Challenge implies doubt, and the trust on which God’s teachers rest secure makes doubt impossible. Therefore they can only succeed. In this, as in all things, they are honest. They can only succeed because they never do their will alone. They choose for all mankind; for all the world and all things in it; for the unchanging and unchangeable beyond appearances; and for the Son of God and His creator. How could they not succeed? They choose in perfect honesty, sure of their choice as of themselves.
III. Tolerance
1. God’s teachers do not judge. To judge is to be dishonest, for to judge is to assume a position you do not have. Judgment without self-deception is impossible. Judgment implies that you have been deceived in your brothers. How, then, could you not have been deceived in yourself? Judgment implies a lack of trust, and trust remains the bedrock of the teacher of God’s whole thought system. Let this be lost, and all his learning goes. Without judgment are all things equally acceptable, for who could judge otherwise? Without judgment are all men brothers, for who is there who stands apart? Judgment destroys honesty and shatters trust. No teacher of God can judge and hope to learn.[1]
As we quiet our minds and hearts and come to our devotional habit, read over today’s text with care and with prayer. Ask Holy Spirit to teach you what you need to know about your honest practices and your dishonest practices. True honesty comes when we are not afraid to examine our own hearts and minds, when we are not afraid to take a closer look at the role we play in the disharmony and disruption that is going on in our personal and public lives. There can be no self-deception in our walk with God. We must come to God with a complete desire to be His Son and return to His Kingdom. We cannot take anything from this realm with us. All the reasons in which we find ways to keep people away from us, to maintain separateness, to hold grudges and build cases must be put down honestly at the inner altar. We must ask for purity of mind and honesty in our walk with God in order to get the Help we need, for on our own we live in self-deception.
We come to God as we are in our humanity. We must know what we are “giving up.” If there is still something about your humanity that you love and feel a sense of sacrifice, identify it, be honest about it. Our salvation requires total and continual honesty. If we are still hooked on our sexuality, if our past is still haunting us, if our tempers rage out of control – we must be truthful about it. I cannot help you if I am deceiving myself; I cannot build trust in you if you are practicing self-deception and therefore would deceive me.
I would much rather hear someone speak to me from their heart and with honesty about their earthly trials, temptations, and spiritual failures than spout off a hyped-up testimony about how Jesus changed their lives and set them free and now they are going up in the Rapture and leaving the rest of us behind. None of us are interested in hypocrisy; whitewashing our human experience helps no one, elitism and leaving others behind is not what we teach or how we live. What we choose for ourselves, we choose for everybody. This is what we practice. And we practice it until we get it right. So let’s tell the truth, and if we are not ready to tell the truth, then let’s stay quiet and ask Holy Spirit to speak through us.
Staying quiet is probably the best thing we can do until we master non-judgment. Judging others is a dishonest practice. When I judge you, I am judging your humanity. I am assuming that I know what is right and wrong in your life and that I have a right to declare if you are saint or sinner, if you are sane or insane, if you are honest or dishonest. God has already judged you as His Son. That is all I need to know and agree with. Whatever you do with that Sonship is between you and God. If you, in your seeming madness, pose a danger to me or others, I learn to trust by relying on Holy Spirit to keep me from any harm you plan for me. There have been many times in my life when my resolve to not judge or go into attack deepened by witnessing healed relationships and peaceful minds. Conversely, there have been many times when I learned to trust in Holy Spirit because I chose to judge others, getting angry, threatening to pull someone’s hair, giving someone the old social snub, or some other ego-based response. Recognize how stupid this kind of response is because it does not bring healing and correction, which is what we really want for ourselves and for everybody! While it is entirely up to us how long it takes us to be established teachers of God, non-judgment is clearly a characteristic to reach for, to accept gladly from His Hand, and to practice until made perfect.
[1] A Course in Miracles. Manual for Teachers. IV. What are the characteristics of God’s teachers? ll. Honesty lll Tolerance. Foundation for Inner Peace, Second Edition (1992).
For daily 2021 Workbook lessons visit www.i-choose-love.com courtesy of Linda R.
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