1. Forget not once this journey is begun the end is certain. Doubt along the way will come and go and go to come again. Yet is the ending sure. No one can fail to do what God appointed him to do. When you forget, remember that you walk with Him and with His Word upon your heart. Who could despair when Hope like this is his? Illusions of despair may seem to come but learn how not to be deceived by them. Behind each one there is reality and there is God. Why would you wait for this and trade it for illusions, when His Love is but an instant farther on the road where all illusions end? The end is sure and guaranteed by God. Who stands before a lifeless image when a step away the Holy of the Holies opens up an ancient door that leads beyond the world?
2. You are a stranger here. But you belong to Him Who loves you as He loves Himself. Ask but my help to roll the stone away and it is done according to His Will. We have begun the journey. Long ago the end was written in the stars and set into the Heavens with a shining ray that held it safe within eternity and through all time as well. And holds it still; unchanged, unchanging, and unchangeable.
3. Be not afraid. We only start again an ancient journey long ago begun that but seems new. We have begun again upon a road we travelled on before and lost our way a little while. And now we try again. Our new beginning has the certainty the journey lacked till now. Look up and see His Word among the stars, where He has set your name along with His. Look up and find your certain destiny the world would hide but God would have you see.
4. Let us wait here in silence and kneel down an instant in our gratitude to Him Who called to us and helped us hear His Call. And then let us arise and go in faith along the way to Him. Now we are sure we do not walk alone. For God is here, and with Him all our brothers. Now we know that we will never lose the way again. The song begins again which had been stopped only an instant, though it seems to be unsung forever. What is here begun will grow in life and strength and hope, until the world is still an instant and forgets all that the dream of sin had made of it.
5. Let us go out and meet the newborn world, knowing that Christ has been reborn in it, and that the holiness of this rebirth will last forever. We had lost our way, but He has found it for us. Let us go and bid Him welcome Who returns to us to celebrate salvation and the end of all we thought we made. The morning star of this new day looks on a different world where God is welcomed and His Son with Him. We who complete Him offer thanks to Him, as He gives thanks to us. The Son is still, and in the quiet God has given him enters his home and is at peace at last.[1]
Once our hearts and minds begin the journey to God, the end is certain. There is no failure; there is no need for despair; there is no need to fall for form or be deceived by thoughts of death, disease, and disaster. Behind everything the world of flesh and form can put in our way – there is the reality of God.
It was such a relief to find that I am not the only one in the world who feels the stranger here! From the time I can remember I have felt homesick for a place that I cannot describe in words. In paragraph two of Epilogue, Jesus emphasizes to us that we are strangers here; we will never make this world our home, or this flesh and form our identity. The journey back was written before the separation into time and space even took place; no matter how many billions of years we believe have elapsed – it is hardly a blip in the face of the Eternal Kingdom of God. The many different faces of all of those who have been born and died; those who live now and will die; those who have yet to be born – are one in spirit and in truth. We are one – you and me – in the Sonship of God and the Brotherhood of Christ, His Son.
Let this fill us with courage and happiness. No matter how many times we lose our way; no matter how far you may have strayed from Holy Spirit within; no matter how the world may try to blame and shame you, Jesus tells us to look up and see God’s Word among the stars, where your name and my name are one with God. We will not learn who we are from our family and friends; we will not learn who we are from our priests and preachers, rabbis and gurus; we will not learn who we are from our kindergarten teacher or our professors. The world would hide our identity in flesh and form. The world would define us by our station of birth, our ethnicity and race, our politics, religion, or level of wealth, status, or education. None of these things define us or tell us who and what we are. God alone has the right and the privilege to identity us for He is our Father, our Creator, the Reality that has no counterpart.
Today pay particular attention to paragraphs four and five during your devotional practice. Silence your ego. Kneel in gratitude to Jesus who called to us and helped us hear God’s Call. Focusing our minds on Jesus—the manifestation of Holy Spirit, helps us to accept the divine in our human journey through time and space. When we accept the divine about us, we recognize Who and What we really are; the multitude in which we are one, the beauty, the power, the glory and majesty which shares everything God is, with us, His Son. The burden of humanity becomes lighter and easier in this frame of reference. We have no real worries and no real cares – why would we choose to be less than all that we are and ever will be in Christ Who makes us one? It is in this quiet confidence and ultimate trust that we return Home and find our peace at last.
[1] A Course in Miracles. Clarification of terms. Epilogue. Foundation for Inner Peace, Second Edition (1992).
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