You may not realize it but God has totally unlimited power. "With God all things are possible." This doesn't just mean "all ego things are possible" or "all worldly things are possible." It means literally, there is absolutely nothing you can conceive of that is impossible.
Having become accustomed to being limited by ego laws, we have a tough time with this. When for example there is a tsunami which floods an entire city, you might think, well, this is such a huge tragedy that we cannot possibly undo it.
Think again.
God can.
And so what this gives rise to is, realizing there is no order of difficulty in miracles BECAUSE God can do anything. And that means, in order to tap into that power that's in you, you're going to need to have ego-world-defying FAITH or TRUST in God's capabilities, even as they go way above and beyond what SEEMS to be possible.
So the world might be telling you, we can do nothing about this and cannot reverse it. Jesus says that these are mere appearances and that all appearances can be changed by miracles. That there needs to be not one part of the illusion that we consider capable of healing while another part is not. That even this huge seeming disaster can be completely corrected, because this TOO is possible.
Opening our minds up to these POSSIBILITIES, the freedom from all bondage and all ego laws and certainties and consequences, opens us up to having to put our FAITH in a source of power and freedom far beyond what the world suggests to us. This law-defying power is precisely what MIRACLES are for.
When someone dies and they're laying there, are we to think with the ego that "even this cannot be changed" or are we to think with God that "even this can be changed"?
To not believe the sense of limitation and difficulty and irreversibility of these `problems` IS the willingness to overlook their illusions and disregard them as having no order of difficulty at all. We need to learn that nothing is impossible with God, and to trust that, and to know this above all else, otherwise we simply will stay slave to the consequences of sin.
There is nothing God cannot do through you. There is nothing your holiness cannot do. And if that means raising the dead or completely reversing an entire tsunami, so be it. Moses parted an ocean. That's no small feat. If we simply "accept" worldly situations and bodily conditions and problems at face value as though written in stone and irreversible, we have NO FAITH at all.
Jesus is asking for us to develop not only some faith in God's capabilities, but TOTAL FAITH in Him. That means utterly world-defying, law-breaking, demonstrations that what seems IMPOSSIBLE is perfectly possible. Because to God, all things are possible. We are to put our trust in something that is UNLIMITED in its freedom, rather than putting our trust in the ego's sense of utter limitation and impossibility.
Faith (trust in God) reaches outside of the illusory world and connects to a Source of miracles you may as yet not see or fully understand. But your willingness and openness to even conceive of it, coupled with even a vague belief that it holds truth and reality, is sufficient to establish a psychological "connection" to a higher mind.
Believing there is a possibility beyond the physical laws, or a potential or freedom that transcends appearances, is the same thing as believing a Higher Power and disbelieving that the ego's laws have complete power over what happens.
Even if you can't see God or Jesus, or you are not even sure if they really exist, if you have even a little willingness - which is all the Course asks us to have - this is an invitation to the Holy Spirit. It's not just a little willingness to be mistaken, but a willingness to be open to a source of healing and truth which is more true than how things currently appear.
This works both in the areas of healing your illusory mistaken perceptions, in which your willingness invites Holy Spirit to correct your mind, but also in the grander area of the entire illusion, in which your willingness invites Holy Spirit to perform demonstrations of miracles through you for others.
Your mind has the ability to open itself to connect to a Source of miracles even if the majority of the mind is still in the dark. If there is enough of a "leap of faith", this will create a pipeline across which the Power of God can flow. You are able to them become a conduit for the Holy Spirit to work through you, in spite of you having a large body of delusions of your own that need to as yet be corrected.
Reaching outside the illusory world to join with God is all that it takes. Some measure of belief in the real truth. Many people just don't as yet realize that it is as easy as this, and so don't act in the role of extender of God's love through miracle working. You may not realize that you really only need to have some faith/trust and believe in the truth in order to now be a vessel for Holy Spirit to flow through.
A vast majority of miracles performed in the world today are performed by students of whatever spiritual system, students who are still "in process" of awakening and who are still learning about the truth. They do not need to be completely purified in order for such miracles to work through them, if they have willingess to allow Holy Spirit to "use them" and work with them.
Some trust in God is all it takes, a little willingness to accept that God's truth is true.
Lately Holy Spirit has been starting to push me to do things I don't think I can do by myself, or that I don't believe would be a good decision.
I was not going to eat pizza, claiming that it would congest my sinuses too much. He said, eat the pizza. I ate the pizza. It wasn't a problem.
I was not going to buy a dairy ice-cream for similar reasons, and he suggested it was okay, so I did it, and I had no symptoms.
Today, I was tired and emotionally wrought after some release and healing, and I didn't want to go to the store, but needed some stuff. Holy Spirit said, "go!". So I went. And I didn't go based on my own belief that I would be able to rely on myself, but based on the belief that because He supports it, I WILL be able to go. I had FAITH!
And as I went, I exclaimed that I will go and I will shop and I will be fine because I will be infused and sustained by the power of God, I will be filled with his strength, and I will have no problems. And as I got to the store, I could FEEL the presence of a strong, light, joyous energy in me, and not only did I have no problems with tiredness etc I even felt open with other customers, seemed to attract people who were laughing and happy, and generally felt supported. I even believe there was an angel there who showed up as a man... sometimes I can tell, and that man spoke to me about bananas, and it was funny and it was all good.
So this is what I am finding now. There are certain things that I believe are true of the "natural world" based on the ego's natural laws. But then, there is God's will, God's power, and His SUPERNATURAL strength. And as you step out to do things which push you beyond your natural boundaries, and which go out on a limb, and which you could only do IF you had God's strength to support you, then knowing that you do and inviting it to do so, God DOES come to support you in supernatural ways! That means you are walking with God.
And so I am learning, more can be done through me and by me IF I have God with me. There is a power that can work through me. There are goals that I can achieve which I could not achieve alone but which are achievable because God rushes in to make them so! Ahhhhhhhhh.
"I am sustained by the love of God" - ACIM
"God goes with me all through the day" - ACIM
This doesn't just mean I have a buddy to talk to, it means if I will step out and take a risk and go beyond the ego's laws, God's Will be done!!!
Can I get an amen?!
I believe I have received. Thank you God.
2000 years ago Jesus said "Therefore I tell you, whatever you ask for in prayer, believe that you have received it, and it will be yours."
Gratitude is an attitude of fully appreciating what is already present, or has been already given.
What you may not realize is, if it appears you do not have what you want, if you be pre-grateful for it ahead of time, believing that you have already received it as if receiving was "in the past", it comes to you!!
There is a law here. The law is, that where there is gratitude, the thing you are grateful for is being appreciated and therefore it must be present. Should you be grateful for the presence of something that the world seems to not contain, it will materialize. It has to, because gratitude extends and believes in what it is grateful for.
In other words, gratitude CREATES. God created through gratitude because gratitude appreciates what already is and God appreciates - is aware of and fully embraces - what He already is, which creates more of the same.
This seems like complete nonsense to the ego, how can gratitude create when the thing to be grateful for doesn’t seem to exist yet? The ego thought system is only grateful for what it "gets" in the future, not for what is HAS. It’s non existence is an illusion because all that God provided is ALREADY GIVEN, merely hidden temporarily. And so lacking it is NOT TRUE.
It operates similarly to the law of forgiveness. Forgiveness is fore-giveness, ie it gives love and truth ahead of time proactively SO THAT nothing goes wrong and therefore there is nothing to forgive. It brings about a state in which it’s own law is extended to ENSURE there is no problem.
Similarly, gratitude to God for what he HAS GIVEN, pro-actively CAUSES it to be present, acknlowdging that it must already be here, and therefore expressing and creating it so that it does not seem to be lacking. Gratitude undoes lack or the illusion of lack, just as forgiveness undoes the need to forgive by removing the illusion of unforgiveness or judgement. And remember that miracles supply a lack and that is why they heal, therefore gratitude is miraculous!
God’s power works in the opposite direction to the ego. The ego says, I presently lack and therefore need something and so I "desire"it and then tries to use its own will power to force it to happen, without God.
This morning I found myself doing this because I was "commanding" that something be healed, it was not working, the problem seemed real and not healed yet and I became quite intense and demanding about it. Then I became frustrated and angry. I had to admit that I was trying to force it myself and was using my own will. This wasn’t working. So in frustration I gave up, which was a good thing.
God works in the opposite direction. He does not focus on the lack of what you want, because absence is the idea that God is absent. He does not focus on the answer being in the future because that reinforces the idea that God is not here right now, and that He has been here already this whole time. He does not complain because complaint is the opposite of gratitude and complaint is a failure to appreciate what is present.
Complaint attacks what is here now, gratitude loves what is here now. However, this does NOT MEAN that you should love and be great full for what is currently showing up in form! Form is an illusion! Be grateful for the shit the ego gave you and you will keep it! You have to ignore form because God did not create it. You have to love and be grateful only for what God has given, what may seem invisible to you at first.
So to bring forth a miracle healing or manifestation from God, we must ACT LIKE God’s truth and in line with God’s nature. It’s no use attacking what is, or complaining, or trying to make it go away with intensity or will power, or to desire what you want as if you do not have it. Those are not forms of asking, or forms of receiving. They focus on lack and make it real.
The ego’s attempts to "get"are guaranteed to fail because they do everything other than be like God, everything other than receiving His will, and everything which actually pushes away what you are trying to bring about. As usual, the ego makes it appear like it is asking and desiring and wanting, when in fact it is doing the opposite. Seek and do not find. To desire something on the basis that God did not already supply it, and therefore it is not here now, and only exists in the separated state of the future, is a GUARANTEE that you will continue to lack and suffer!
If God’s nature is the truth and we are asking for God‘s help, then we first need to get rid of the idea of "needing help." Instead, let us acknowledge what is TRUE ALREADY. You have already received God’s healing. God already established your perfection when He created you, which you can think of as in the past. So the perfection, restoration, healing, what you want, is not in the future. It must be already present because God alreaday established it in the past, and so it’s is already here, now.
This seems somehow impossible to ego thinking. Is it even possible to get your mind to believe that it has already received what is already given by God, even if it *appears* that it isn’t showing up yet? Yes, it is possible! Is it possible to appreciate and be grateful for, what currently appears to not even exist yet? Yes!
That your perfection appears to not be showing up right now is an illusion. It is merely blocked. Any current appearance of you not being or having what God has already given, only means that your perfection IS here already but it is hididen. The notion that it is not here, showing up as illusions of "my healed self must be in the future", is an ego lie. Your healed self IS already here. Forms that are currently showing up can be blinding. They are not really there.
You must just bring about the recognition of, gratitude for, appreciation of and belief in the truth, that God has ALREADY GIVEN what you seem to lack, literally "in the past". Gratitude receives, by focusing on the acknowledgement of it being here now, of the healing having already occurred, and truly believing that this is so because it is in accord with God’s nature.
Eventually once you have let go of all of the egoic ways you are trying to bring about a result, you need to get purely into the mindset and belief that you HAVE received from God already, regardless of what is showing up, and regardless of whether it’s absence seems to continue to show up for a while. You have to ignore all ego signals, what form looks like, what conditions seem to persist, or any fearful doubting ego thoughts about it having not worked.
If you can get your mind into this seemingly "backwards" way of thinking, which boils down to "I believe I have already been given this, I have already received it, and I am grateful to God", or even more simply, "thank you", and hold onto that belief, God will answer. Believing it is important. It has to be true for you that you feel that you HAVE received it, even if it has not materialized in form yet, and you develop that conviction by thanking God.
If you are thanking God for having already supplied your lack, then it implies you HAVE, therefore it is true, and therefore you believe it. This helps you to see through any illusion that you lack or continue to be sick. It gives you a feeling of certainty and joy in spite of any illusory conditions, and you will stay true to that belief in spite of lingering forms or circumstances. And that’s means, you are now HAVING FAITH.
Faith is a state of genuine trust and knowing, not wishful thinking or hope. It is rooted firmly in the believing that God has already provided and therefore it is a DONE DEAL. It is belief that God’s way or truth is TRUE. This belief will ignore and pay no attention to what anyone says or any doubts or anything showing up in form. It bypasses illusions and all ego signals. It transcends what appears to be showing up, knowing that God’s HAS provided.
If you are completely certain that you have received, it will give you strong faith ie strong belief, which will make it impossible for you to be swayed by external illusions or claims to the contrary. It will also give you a sense that you know the days of your sickness are now limited because you believe God more than you believe the ego illusions.
This takes you beyond the ego’s nature. Now you are playing by God’s rules, according to His will for you that you be divinely happy and healthy. That you ARE that already, and merely need manifest it by focusing on it and believing in its presence. Jesus says to be vigilant only for the Kingdom of God. This is what it means. To believe only God’s nature and to align yourself with it and receive it as God already gave it. I am still as God created me says the same thing.
You are still as God created you, therefore the perfect Self that God created before time began is still here now, it has been fully given, it is true of you, it is present already, you are grateful for it, you believe in it and know it to be true, you trust it, you allow and accept it (atonement principle), and it is therefore your reality.
Believing this way, having this faith in a God, makes you supernatural.
In A Course in Miracles, forgiveness is a movement away from believing that illusions are true and real, towards recognizing that they are in fact not true or real. This becomes clear when your awareness increases sufficiently to reveal a larger truth, which shows you the ways in which the "smaller truth", i.e. illusory lies, are in fact limited and untrue.
Forgiveness, as a process, is also a movement from unawareness, in which you don't see clearly or fully, to a state of expanded awareness where you see more of the whole picture and with greater accuracy. As you go through this, what seemed to be true of your illusions starts to be recognized as being not as true as the larger truth.
It's a matter of becoming clear about what REALLY is true, and what is actually false. Getting truth and illusions confused is the ENTIRE content of the ego, and the entire content of the separation from God - which is you trying to make illusions become reality.
As you become more aware of what the truth really is, and less convinced about what the truth is not, your discernment of true vs false becomes clearer. You learn to recognize the truth for what it is (not the illusion you thought it was), and recognize the illusion for what it is (not the reality you thought it was).
Through forgiveness you will eventually reach a truly, fully "forgiving" state of awareness, which recognizes ALL of the truth, which is that nothing has really happened, there is only innocence, and therefore there is nothing to forgive.
Now, there are a couple of pieces of the puzzles of performing miracles which I did not really get, but which certain Christian practitioners tried to describe. They would say that you have to a) believe in Jesus ("be a believer"), and b) have "faith". Since their belief in Jesus was heavily wrapped in Christian theology, I had trouble discerning exactly WHAT it was about Jesus that I was supposed to believe - such as that He died for our sins and such, which is not an ACIM teaching. I also have never really 'got' what faith means, because it was never explained in a clear context.
But I've become clearer on this now.
The only way that "believing in Jesus" and "having faith" become meaningful, is when you can discern that the ENTIRE WORLD IS AN ILLUSION. It is necessary to have a really strong clear distinction between what is TRUE, and what is FALSE. So as you go about your life believing in the world, (even if you're trying to learn not to believe in it you probably still do), while you're in this sort of in-between phase of "some of the truth is true, but some of it I don't get", you will also be similarly confused about what it means to believe in Jesus, and what faith is.
If parts of the world are real to you, in spite of what you might claim otherwise, this HAS to mean that you in part also believe that God is not entirely real. It also means that you have 'faith in' the ego, and faith in sickness and death.
Now, this isn't something that people want to admit but, the simple fact is, either you believe that God is real, fully, or in some way you don't believe it. And that displaced belief will be put into a conviction that the ego is real - that it is truth, and that everything it claims is true. That will go on to mean that when shit happens in the world and it seems real, part of you will be trying to look to God for a way out of it, but part of you will be attached to believing in it. And so you are now torn, or your faith is divided. And Jesus says faith cannot serve two masters.
So what needs to happen is, through proper forgiveness, we need to become REALLY CLEAR about the distinction between reality, and illusions. We can' have this mishmash of partial reality and partial illusion. It will confuse us and rob truth of meaning.
To be able to believe in Jesus, means that you believe Jesus is 100% reality, He is 100% love, He is 100% truth, 100% immortal, 100% innocent, 100% at peace etc. He shares this truth with God 100%.
IF that is true, if that's your definition of truth, then it HAS to mean, that anything not of God is not truth. So now you need to be very clear, WHAT is not of God? Because if you go on believing God created the world, and yet the world seems to be the place where things fuck up big time, then... well, now you are super confused. And of course you are confused because it makes no sense that God would create a world with sickness in it, because that means God creates sickness. So now if you were to follow that truth, and you were trying to find some healing or peace from experiencing sickness, how the heck would you have any kind of power to turn to if that power believes in sickness? You'd be hopeless.
So... to believe in Jesus means to believe in God, that God is the one and only truth, and only things which are completely in accord with unconditional love are of God. Nothing else. Absolutely nothing else at all can be permitted to take up the label of "real" or "true".
So then you have to ask yourself, did God create the world? No. He did not. So that means the world is not real. And that's mind-blowing, if you really take in deeply. It completely undermines your entire view of reality - or rather, your mistaken view in which you think illusions are reality. Because all this time you've been thinking you're living in a 'real' world and now you find out, it's a tricking illusion pretending to be real!
But this is how you can then have faith. You can have faith because, now that you believe in God's truth, and you know that God's truth is the only truth, and that this world is NOT a part of God's truth, that means whenever any shit happens in the world, you can BYPASS it, OVERLOOK it (forgiveness), and HOLD STRONG to the truth as God would have it be. That means, NO MATTER WHAT is in front of your face, no matter what happens, no matter how serious it seems, no matter how final - even death, YOU DO NOT BELIEVE IN IT, because believing in it would have to mean - you really do not believe in God all the way.
But if you DO believe in God, then.... no matter what happens, no matter how serious, you do NOT pay it attention, you do NOT believe in it, and you instead express and extend GOD'S REALITY in place of it. You cancel it out. You overwrite it. You clarify that the problem is NOT real, is NOT the truth, and you replace it with love. This shows the nothingness of the illusion, puts everything in its correct order, and corrects all confusion. It also produces miracles.
So you have faith by believing that God's truth is true, and that this is shared by Jesus.... and you have faith by holding true to that fact regardless of how the world seems to be. The only question of your faith wavering is when you believe the illusion enough that your belief in God's power wavers, and that means you've temporarily forgotten that God's truth is true. You've believed in the ego again. So you lose faith when that happens.
This kind of faith in God is not blind faith or just 'hope'... it is CERTAINTY, it is KNOWING, it is TRUTH, and it is CORRECTION.
Holy Spirit interjected while writing that the word "trust" is really what faith means. Trusting God. Trusting the real truth. Trusting that BECAUSE of what the truth is, that "this problem" is not insurmountable or irreversible. It is that knowing of the truth, that trust in the truth, which powers miracles.
So forgiveness leads you to miracle mindedness, a clarity about what is true and what is false gives you miracle mindedness, and a certainty about the truth being true (and that therefore the world is not real) gives you the foundation for faith. Your trust/faith in God's Way gives you miracle-working capabilities.
To get there you're going to have to question the validity of every way that you're trying to find truth in the world, because it means that you're looking for truth in an illusion. It means you're not clear yet about what is true and what is false. The world is false - head's up!. Entirely false. It is entirely an illusion that doesn't really exist or mean anything at all. Every time you 'seek' for truth in it, you will not find it, because it is not there. You need to learn to stop trying to do that and instead believe in God.
The miracles will flow from there.
When I recently started to recognize that the whole world is fundamentally unreal, I started to experience "faith" in God. It seemed to require an UNBELIEF that this world is "true", in order to shift my allegiance and dependence over to the unseen Source.
Jesus talks about faith in the Course, in reference to putting our faith in the ego (faithlessness). We have faith in what we believe is true.
"Your faith lies in the darkness, not the light. How can this be reversed?" - lesson 91. "Your faith is placed in the most trivial and insane symbols" - lesson 50
And from Chapter 17 "the call for faith": "Had you not lacked faith that it could be solved, the problem would be gone". "There is no problem in any situation that faith will not solve."
If you believe the world is real and the problems are real and people's sicknesses and suffering is real and sin is real etc, that's a lot of faith being put into the ego. You are siding with it and you are siding with this world. You are convinced by physical appearances and believe this stuff is really happening. There is no faith there.
Now, prior to this shift for me, I've experienced many years of talking to Holy Spirit and Jesus, working with Angels, and having various other interactions with "the other side", and came to depend quite strongly on their guidance each day. And that over time developed trust. But, it didn't develop trust to the level that I'm starting to experience now. It really required me to question whether the ENTIRE WORLD was real and a source of truth.
Some major chunk of belief in the ego world has been withdrawn from it. You have to realize that this world does not contain any truth at all, and notice the ways that you keep trying to find truth in it, and how futile that is. It's like, all this time you were believing in the world and listening to it and trusting it and taking its word for the idea that it was fundamentally real, had factual truth to it, COULD be trusted, and that it was just something wrong with you that was making you incapable of successfully FINDING its secret truth.
And now, suddenly its cover is blown, you have been disappointed by it one too many times, it has lied to you, it has promised that you'll find truth and yet failed every time, and so now you have come to your senses. You withdraw your allegiance from it, withdraw your trust and belief in it, and now are all the wiser. It is NOT to be trusted and cannot be believed, because the truth is not out there. To get this, I think you have really open up to the idea that the whole world is not real in its entirety, including everything in it - people, bodies, planets, space, time, suffering, loss, pain, death, etc. All of it. A big giant lie.
Then you compare this world to God's truth and you start to find out that EITHER God's truth is true or this world is true. Because this world contains so many things that simply cannot fit into God's truth. You must learn and trust that God is unconditional love at all times, which MUST mean, God cannot and does not create suffering, sickness, despair or misery. He would not create death.
"If this were the real world, God would be cruel. For no father could subject his children to this as the price of salvation and be loving. Love does not kill to save. If it did, attack would be salvation, and this is the ego's interpretation, not God's."
As you open up to this, it should dawn on you not just that your mind inside your body has ego in it, but that the body ITSELF is ego, and the physical universe ITSELF is ego. ALL OF IT! This will be somewhat mind blowing. But at the same time you'll discover that it makes incredible sense. And all of a sudden a whole bunch of things that Jesus says in the course suddenly click into place, clear as day. "There is no world", literally, because it is not real. Not just a metaphor, not just an interpretation of your mistaken perception's view of a real world, but literally this whole physical universe is just a DREAM. It really is true.
This is a major turning point in your awareness to realize this. Because now the foundation for all of the ego thought system is exposed. So many mistaken perceptions and beliefs and values are now brought into question in contrast to this new truth, that God's truth is true, God's truth CANNOT create worlds like this, and therefore this world CANNOT be reality. "This world is not my home".
For me, it was at the dawn of STARTING to accept this truth, that I started to find myself experiencing "faith". It was as though I was faithless before. I had now "sided with God". The world seemed much less believable, much less real and trustworthy. I started to notice when I was looking to anything IN IT as a "Source" of truth, or as a solution, or as an answer, or as a way to solve problems. The idea of the "source" of truth had shifted away from this world and began taking root in God. A God, a reality, that is beyond this illusory world entirely.
As Jesus explains, "The miracle is taken first on faith, because to ask for it implies the mind has been made ready to conceive of what it cannot see and does not understand. Yet faith will bring its witnesses to show that what it rested on is really there. And thus the miracle will justify your faith in it, and show it rested on a world more real than what you saw before; a world redeemed from what you thought was there."
What this means is, your sense of REALITY and TRUTH shifts to an UNSEEN world, the world of Spirit, which is God's realm. Even though you may not see it, and you may not directly experience it yet, you have some amount of BELIEF that it contains the truth - a truth which must be more true than the physical world in its entirety. That trust, that belief, which spans and overlooks and bypasses physicality, produces FAITH.
Faith indicates that you trust something that is REAL, and are shifting to an awareness of its existence. At first it may seem distant and remote but over time that faith is going to increase. It's real faith because it is faith in reality. It also means that you're starting to recognize and depend on a SOURCE which is not of this world. A source which provides not only answers and truth, but a source which has power, which is creative, which can express through you, and which performs miracles. It's a source of abundance, a source of correction, and a source of being SUSTAINED by God.
That means, you are now shifting from a "horizontal" belief system in the ego, a linear belief system, where you look to other locations in physical space as the source and cause of things. Before, you believed the only way to be provided for was to earn money at a job. Or you believed the only way to heal was to identify a linear cause in this world. But now, you're going VERTICAL. And that means, you're looking to a SOURCE which completely transcends this world, whereby you actually have access to a creative, abundant source of everything, which can flow through and to you from an unseen place. A supernatural source of support.
Your faith in that source starts to rewrite all the rules about HOW you are going to be able to accomplish things in this world. How money is going to come to you. How health is going to be restored. How relationships will improve. Where you should go and what you should do. It all starts to be inspired by AND empowered by an unseen Source of supernatural POWER, which is God. And this reliance on this Source means that all the laws and rules of this world will be broken in demonstrating faith in it. Miracles. Spontaneous financial abundance. Spontaneous solutions to "problems" which has no basis in the physical "natural" world. It's not going to "come from" this world, because this world is not a real CAUSE. It's going to come from BEYOND this world, supernaturally!
When you go to do things, you will start finding yourself placing an otherworly level of trust in something you don't even see. If it says to go do something, your trust that it is true allows you to trust it and go do it, EVEN IF there are "natural" egoic reasons why not. And as you go do it, with FAITH IN that supernatural power, you go forth miraculously and with light and an empowerment that defies the laws of the ego world. It would seem crazy to depend on a Source of strength that you don't even see yet, but your faith in it will bring forth "witnesses", ie demonstrations and PROOF, that you were right to trust it, and this will only further amplify your reliance upon it.
Now you are no longer alone, you are no longer fighting through life with little power, you are no longer scraping to survive. You have all of Heaven behind you! And not just remotely, but like, working through you, orchestrating events, causing healing miracles, giving you strength that you could not have had if the ego were your source. Bypassing all illusions and all physical laws completely.
God really is a "supernatural God", a miraculous God. This is what we are to come to learn to trust and depend on. Removing our faith in the ego's world and the ego's laws and the ego's version of reality, we are able to shift allegiance to trusting and depending on God for everthing. For me I feel like I am only just getting started in this, and experimenting with it, but I can only see an exciting trend in future towards INCREASE in this faith, INCREASE in miraculous living, INCREASE in abundance from God, INCREASE in joy and happiness, and INCREASE in trust.
Later, as Jesus promises, that which you had ego-defying faith in, beyond the world, which was unseen, will become more and more seen, and more and more demonstrated, to the point where it is no longer unseen. It is all around you and through you. And you will become more directly in the experience of God, finally FULLY believing that only His truth is true, and that there has never been another truth to replace it. YES!!
There is a certain leap of faith required in learning to trust and work with Spirit. It's like opening up to trusting that something completely out of sight and out of control is going to be there when you need it. We are completely unaccustomed to seeing situations this way and it requires a lot of TRUST.
Since we have been relying on our own self all this time, on our ego intellect, our own abilities, our knowledge etc.... we are very used to needing to have a sense of personal confidence in a situation in order to proceed with an action.
So we'll have to make sure that we're in the right mood, we have to have all the ducks in a row, we need reassurance that this is the right thing to do, and we feel that we need to kind of talk ourselves into the right frame of mind to 'perform'. We have to ready ourselves, and we won't move ahead to take actions until we have gathered enough ego information and enough reliance on our own capabilities. And to create something of quality simply threatens us to have to perform at the top of our game, which is nerve-wracking.
But the problem with this is that it shuts out Spirit. The problem is, since we are experiencing ourselves as disconnected from Spirit, we keep having to rely on ourselves, depend on ourselves, accumulate our own skills, develop our own prowess, acquire our own knowledge, and build ourselves up to try to handle situations. But this puts all of our sense of TRUST squarely in our own ego abilities. Trusting our own ego produces FEAR which undermines any sense of reliability.
Spirit doesn't work the same way the ego works. Spirit is much more spontaneous. Spirit is also extremely capable and unlimited and doesn't suffer from the inadequacies, limitations, insecurities and difficulties that our ego self has to deal with constantly.
Spirit is actually ready to fly right now, right away, without any preparation. God is immediately on hand and ready to heal, right now. Holy Spirit is immediately on hand and ready to teach the highest of truths, right now. They don't need time to get ready. They don't have to figure out what to do. They don't need to get themselves into the right mood or to be on their best form or to have put aside as many fears as possible in order to take some decisive action.
So what this means is, if you want to work with Spirit, such as to express Holy Spirit's Voice or to teach from a higher place or to perform a healing miracle, there has to be a certain amount of 'blind faith' and a different kind of trust. This trust quite literally means that you really need to actually START taking steps to move forward and express, knowing that Spirit is going to show up immediately and be there to help you.
It actually kind of requires you to be much more spontaneous and UNPREPARED. (Who knew that being unprepared could lead to greater confidence when trusting Spirit?!) And even if you feel unprepared and uncertain and afraid and doubtful about whether YOU can pull off whatever it is that you're about to attempt - teaching, healing, writing, whatever.... even though you do not know what the heck you are going to say, even though do not know how the heck you're going to 'do this', you have to actually start doing it with faith that Holy Spirit is right with you in the MOMENT.... and that as you begin to 'flow', all of Heaven is going to rush in to support and help you.
There are people who receive healing miracles, let's say for example they have a broken arm or something. The person prays for them and healing begins, but the person still believes they don't have a healing, and the arms seems to be a problem. But then the healer tells the person, MOVE YOUR ARM. And the person moves their arm, and AS they move their arm, healing comes to the arm.
There are countless examples of this in Jesus's miracles where he tells someone to actually DO something, to do something that they supposedly currently cannot do, so that WHEN they attempt to do it, with some faith that it will BECOME possible, their willingness and openness is what actually brings the miracle into them and healing occurs, AS they ACT AS IF they are healed. For example Jesus might've commanded 'get up and walk', and a paralyzed person who could not walk, would at least ATTEMPT to get up and walk, with enough trust and faith that perhaps it COULD work, and then as they get up, suddenly they can walk. But not until they started trying to do so.
So you see, Spirit is very immediate and becomes a part of the flow as and when you are willing to actually take some action on faith. You will not be prepared. You will not be ready. You will not know how you're going to do this. You'll get to the very limits of the edges of your own ego abilities and all the information you could possibly have gathered and all the preparedness you could've possible done, and still there is another step needed. To trust Spirit, you have to take the leap. You have to ACT AS IF miraculous things can happen, ACT AS IF healing is going to flow when you say it will, ACT AS IF Spirit is going to back you, even if right now you don't feel even connected to Spirit. And Spirit will rush in and be right there to support you.
For example, I am writing a book and I have procrastinated on this for a long time because I kept feeling that I wasn't quite ready, or in the right mood, or I just wasn't prepared. I felt like I needed to get MYSELF into the best possible frame of mind, the most purified readiness, the most spiritual of mindsets etc, in order to be ABLE to pull off this writing. And I could never really rise up to the occasion. I couldn't get myself into the 'heights' of what I knew needed to be written down, and was just always riddled with insecurities and excuses and fears and worries about how was *I* going to write this and how was *I* going to be able to know what to say or to say it correctly etc. So I avoided it.
But then what broke, was that I came to a place of at least realizing it's not going to be me doing this on my own. It's not going to come FROM me, its going to come from Spirit. And I'm going to write it down, but I'm not going to know WHAT to write. I'm not going to be able to prepare for it or study for it or have everything all organized to try to get a sense of confidence about it. Instead, what its going to call for is for me to actually sit down, hands on the keyboard, and to be in that moment WITH Spirit, inviting Spirit to be the one to write, and to then just start doing it. Just GO. And that means trusting something totally outside of myself, totally beyond my own abilities, beyond my mind, beyond any personal readiness. And in that moment, in the now, in the present 'flow' of it, Spirit is right there and started talking, and I started typing, and out it came.
Surprisingly easy once it got going, but I'd avoided it so much because my mind, my ego mind, my separate mind, couldn't see past itself. It couldn't get outside of its own box or its own reliance on "I must do this all by myself". The mind needs to be handed over to Spirit. Spirit is meant to be in charge of how the mind is used. And this really does mean actually surrendering this constant reliance on independent self, on separately having 'the power' or 'the skills' to do whatever. To be Spirit-backed we have to stop being so independent and so self-reliant and trust something that we don't even seem to have any control over, a source of confidence and teaching and creation that is beyond our own self. And nothing can prepare you for that. You have to just do it and try to trust that you're going to be backed up, and you will be.
This is why development of trust is so important. Learning to trust that Spirit has got your back, that Spirit can heal, that Spirit can do miracles through you, and that Spirit can help you no matter whether you have everything under control or not. It's all about learning to be part of a TEAM, instead of going solo all the time. You don't have to do this all by yourself, and you DO NOT have to find the confidence and prowess to pull off some amazing feat of expression all on your own. It's much easier to let Spirit do the heavy lifting, if you can let go enough to take a shot in the dark. And that's what it's like often, just blindly assuming that Spirit will do its thing when you take action to begin the flow.
I'm glad to say I got a whole chapter written, once I finally stopped fearing (depending on my own strength) and trusted that I just had to 'show up' in the present moment and be ready and willing and that Spirit would do the rest. It can really be daunting to have this kind of trust, to trust in something you can't see and doesn't even seem to be there until the very moment that you're having the faith that it will show up. Something outside your control, outside your mind.
Our minds are supposed to be connected to Spirit in this way. They're not supposed to be separated off and trying to rely on themselves. We're not supposed to be bolstered up, or turned into 'models of success', or superheroes. We're not meant to be thoroughly educated and learned. We're not meant to develop this extraordinary prowess at doing something amazing all by ourselves. This is not how the mind is meant to operate in isolation. It's meant to be connected to and a RECEIVER of a flow of spiritual power from Spirit. It's meant to be in service to Spirit. It's meant to receive God and to extend God, not to come up with its own separate power or its own separate abilities. Transitioning over from self-reliance to God-reliance is a tough challenge and goes entirely against our entire ego-centric way of living, but it's what we're called to do.
It adds a whole new level of meaning to "let go and let God".
The Course talks about the development of trust. What is that?
Well, at first you trust the ego and its false truth. You don't trust God, and you don't trust the real truth. You have trust, it's just misplaced.
Trust is the same thing as faith which means, that you learn over time that God's truth is true and the ego's truth is not true. Also you learn that God's truth can be trusted, and you come to learn that the ego that you used to trust is actually not trustworthy.
The ego's trust is based on you being unaware of its motives and the side-effects of believing in it. It wants you to think its your friend. It wants you to think it is cohesive and makes sense and is sane. It doesn't want you to see the ways in which it does stuff which undermines its trustworthiness.
While the ego has the wool pulled over your eyes you will trust it. You'll trust everything about it. You'll trust your senses. You'll trust the idea that you are a physical body. You'll trust your body's senses, your memory, your perceptions. You'll trust that the world is really happening.
But these are in fact forms of mis-trust in God, because to have so-called trust in illusions is to not trust at all.
Learning to trust God means that you become convinced that God's way is the truth, that you can depend on it, that you rely on it, and that you want it. And that HAS to entail you relinquishing your trust in the ego's version of reality.
You have to to unlearn the trust you've placed in the ego in order to reveal the trustworthiness of God.
God can be trusted because God is love and wants only to love and support you. The ego can't be trusted because it is the anti-christ and would like you to cooperate with its plan of death. It's a slight difference.
As you gain trust in God's truth, you begin to seriously question trusting the ego's world. And that means when the ego makes shit happen you have trust in God moreso than the appearance of what's happening. You trust God more than events suggest you should. You ignore what the ego is screaming at you through all your senses, and listen within instead. That's having faith. Faith is trust.
It's safe to trust God.
It's not just a matter of me taking back responsibility for everything in life, and then sitting there all by myself.
There is instead a shift away from ego-self and towards being aware of and TRUSTING in God.
It's not just a matter of realizing the cause of things is in my mind, not out there, although that's necessary.
What is cause? It's not just some idea or decision. GOD is cause.
It's also not just a matter of removing blocks to awareness of love. What happens when the blocks are removed? Love/God shows up. And that's no small matter.
I've relied on my intellect, on my ego's abilities, on my separate intelligence, on my self-taught learning. But this is all essentially because I am not depending on God.
Independent thinking... okay... highly overrated. It's actually a substitute for being connected to, trusting in, and having real faith in God.
I'm opening up to a willingness to surrender, and to actually believe and stay unwavering in, a knowing-based trust that God is taking care of things.
It's not God that wavers or fails, it's my selfish ego trying to do everything on its own.
I have to let go. I have to surrender. And I have to stop being the one who has all the truth all gathered up in my separate mind like a big database of information.
Truth as information is a substitute for truth as an experiential relationship with God. It is a substitute for being WITH God, intimately. For being AWARE of God's real presence and communicating with Him and being directed BY Him.
It really boils down to a simple either-or question. Either I trust in my own abilities, or I trust in God. Either I think that I have to control and enforce everything myself, or I let go of the reigns and let God.
And in that trust, in that surrender, it's not that God just sits there idle. To trust that he is taking care of things, that he can heal all situations, requires strong faith and belief and certainty and loyalty. And that also means, knowing that God actually IS taking care of things... even worldly things, even worldly problems.
This is the next stage in the development of trust. I have to learn to step aside and not only 'let God' but actually trust God, believe God, and put aside my own little fears and worries about how God won't help or isn't in charge or can't heal things or whatever.
It's about opening up to relying on God, knowing that God goes with me, allowing God, being intimate with God and allowing myself to be supported BY God. And this has everything to do with working miracles, which REQUIRES faith and firm belief and TRUST in God.
My lack of faith, is what it comes down to. As Jesus says in the course we have placed great faith in the ego, in our own selves, in intelligence and thinking and learning, that we have displaced our faith away from God.
I/we must learn that God really is on our side, really is our partner, that we really are taken care of by Him, that he really can and will do what He says he can and will do, and to trust Him to manage life for us.
It's not just that we are separate from God and have to live in separation and maybe get some input from God once in a while. That isn't the LIFE that we are meant to live. We are meant to team up with God and be loved and united with Him, and actually have Him IN us and working THROUGH us FOR us, without us having to carry the entire weight of the world by ourselves.
How can I trust God unless I am willing to let go of control of life and actually allow Him to do this? How can I trust unless I am 'hands off'?
God repeatedly says to me, "let me". And I did not really understand what this meant. I didn't know if it meant he would do something through me if I did something. I didn't know if it meant he was 'maybe' taking care of something, and then me having no faith in that entering into fear and believing that He wasn't doing anything.
If I don't have trust and faith that God can take care of things, I in effect block God's power and actually do fail to RECEIVE God's blessings.
Anyway.
Today I am grateful and thankful that God HAS delivered, God HAS provided, God IS taking care of situations, and I am not alone any more.