"Father, I come to You today to seek the peace that You alone can give. I come in silence. In the quiet of my heart, the deep recesses of my mind, I wait and listen for Your Voice. My Father, speak to me today. I come to hear Your Voice in silence and in certainty and love, sure You will hear my call and answer me."
Now do we wait in quiet. God is here because we wait together. I am sure that He will speak to you, and you will hear. Accept my confidence, for it is yours. Our minds are joined. We wait with one intent; to hear our Father's answer to our call, to let our thoughts be still and find His peace, to hear Him speak to us of what we are, and to reveal Himself unto His Son.
If you are trusting your own strength, you have every reason to be apprehensive, anxious, and fearful. What can you predict or control? What is there in you that can be counted on? What would give you the ability to be aware of all the facets of any problem, and to resolve them in such a way that only good can come of it? What is there in you that gives you the recognition of the right solution, and the guarantee that it will be accomplished?
Of yourself you can do none of these things. To believe that you can is to put your trust where trust is unwarranted, and to justify fear, anxiety, depression, anger, and sorrow. Who can put his faith in weakness and feel safe? Yet who can put his faith in strength and feel weak?
God is your safety in every circumstance. His Voice speaks for Him in all situations and in every aspect of all situations, telling you exactly what to do to call upon His strength and His protection. There are no exceptions because God has no exceptions. And the Voice Which speaks for Him thinks as He does.
Today we will try to reach past your own weakness to the Source of real strength. Four five-minute practice periods are necessary today, and longer and more frequent ones are urged. Close your eyes and begin as usual by repeating today's idea. Then spend a minute or two in searching for situations in your life which you have invested with fear, dismissing each one by telling yourself,
"God is the Strength in which I trust."
Now try to slip past all concerns related to your own sense of inadequacy. It is obvious that any situation which causes you concern is associated with feelings of inadequacy, since otherwise you would believe that you could deal with the situation successfully. It is not by trusting yourself that you will gain confidence. But the strength of God in you is successful in all things.
The recognition of your own frailty is a necessary step in the correction of your errors. But it is hardly a sufficient one in giving you the confidence which you need and to which you are entitled. You must also gain an awareness that your confidence in your real strength is fully justified in every respect and in all circumstances.
In the latter phase of the practice period, try to reach down into your mind to a place of real safety. You will recognize that you have reached it if you feel a deep peace, however briefly. Let go all the trivial things that churn and bubble on the surface of your mind, and reach down and below them to the Kingdom of Heaven. There is a place in you where there is perfect peace. There is a place in you where nothing is impossible. There is a place in you where the strength of God abides.
Repeat the idea for today often. Use it as your answer to any disturbance. Remember that peace is your right because you are giving your trust to the strength of God. W(85)
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".
I get this feeling that deciding on my own is not the right thing to do, given everything that's said about choosing not to decide, not doing it all on your own, etc. So then I feel torn.
But what I then see is that really, when I am in a state of indecision, fear, doubt, etc I am really not in a state of decisiveness. I probably am trying to decide, but I am not being decisive. And my attempts to decide are really delaying mechanisms to avoid the certainty of decision. In this state, I'm not really making any decisions at all anyway.
Pretty much every time Jesus says "decide", I am in a state of fear and self-doubt. I recognize then that staying in this state is not going to bring about any kind of decision, and if I want to become decisive, I have to get out of the fear.
Sometimes then, I will remark to Jesus that I don't know what to decide, and He will say, "you know". As I pull myself out of the fear and become more dynamic, more certain, more sure of myself, I then automatically feel more decisive and knowing and sure of what it is that I will do.
Then I have to even put aside this idea that I don't already know - that I even need to decide, and stop for a minute to become aware of what it is that I know already.
If I already know, a decision is not needed. If I already know, then I don't need to even get into the fearful drama of "not knowing" what to do. Then, somewhere deep inside, I tune into what it is that I know, and in this there is an acceptance, a peace and a clarity that makes it much more obvious what to do.
Usually knowing is covered up by all kinds of faffing about, doubting, fearing, drama, control, thinking, etc. None of it is really needed because it's actually all a distraction away from knowing. I can't know what to do when I'm choosing to be in a state of not-knowing. Seems so simple, but easy to get lost in.
As I go forward, and as I embark on new endeavors led by trusting Jesus etc, I find myself coming up against fears and concerns I didn't have to face before. Yet each step of the way He guides me to trust, to know, to put aside fear, and to recognize the ways that I am undermining my own certainty and decisiveness. In other words, learning to claim and work in a more empowered state of confidence.
I am finding that the more I am willing to put aside the dishonest toys of fear and self-sabotage, the more I am growing in confidence and strength and certainty. Also fear is reducing, people are growing ever-more approachable, and procrastination is melting.
This is how we gradually move into action. This is how we get off the fence and become truly helpful. And this is how we let go of the dependency on the ego as our guide as to how we should waste time.
We need to learn to be truly decisive, certain, knowing and trusting, before we might become actually willing to allow God to guide and direct us in all that we do. This somehow is tied into becoming willing to do His Will, and to follow Jesus's direction. But in a partnership of mutual agreement.
In this world, God's Son comes closest to himself in a holy relationship. There he begins to find the certainty his Father has in him. And there he finds his function of restoring his Father's laws to what was held OUTSIDE them, and finding what was lost. Only in time can anything BE lost, but never lost forever. So do the parts of God's Son gradually join in time, and with each joining is the end of time brought nearer. Each miracle of joining is a mighty herald of eternity. No-one who has a single purpose, unified and sure, can BE afraid. No-one who SHARES his purpose with him can NOT be one with him.
Each herald of eternity sings of the end of sin and fear. Each speaks in time of what is far BEYOND it. Two voices, raised together, call to the hearts of everyone, and let them beat as one. And in that single heart beat is the unity of love proclaimed and given welcome. Peace to your holy relationship, which has the power to hold the unity of the Son of God together. You give to one another for EVERYONE. And in your gift is everyone made glad. Forget not Who has given YOU the gifts you give. And through your NOT forgetting this, will you remember Who gave the gifts to Him to give to you.
It is impossible to over-estimate your brother's value. Only the ego does this, but all it means is that it WANTS the other for ITSELF, and therefore values him too little. What is inestimable clearly cannot BE evaluated. Do you recognize the fear that rises from the meaningless attempt to judge what lies so far BEYOND your judgment you cannot even SEE it? Judge not what is invisible to you, or you will NEVER see it. But wait in patience for its coming. It will be GIVEN you to see your brother's worth, when all you WANT for him is peace. And what you want for HIM, you will receive.
How can you estimate the worth of him who offers peace to you? What would you want EXCEPT his offering? His worth has been established by his Father, and you will RECOGNIZE it as you receive his Father's gift through him. What is in him will shine so brightly in your grateful vision, that you will merely love him, and be glad. You will not think to judge him. Who would SEE the face of Christ, and yet insist that judgment still has meaning? For this insistence is of those who do NOT see. Vision OR judgment is your choice, but never BOTH of these.
Your brother's body is as little use to you as it is to him. When it is used ONLY as the Holy Spirit teaches, it has no function. For minds NEED not the body to communicate. The sight that SEES the body, has no use which serves the purpose of a holy relationship. And while you look upon each other thus, the means and end have NOT been brought in line. Why should it take so many holy instants to let this be accomplished, when one would do? There IS but one. The little breath of eternity that runs through time like golden light is all the same. Nothing before it; nothing afterwards.
You look upon each holy instant as a DIFFERENT point in time. IT NEVER CHANGES. All that it ever held or will ever hold is here right now. The past takes nothing FROM it, and the future will ADD no more. Here, then, is EVERYTHING. Here is the loveliness of your relationship, with means and ends in perfect harmony ALREADY. Here is the perfect faith that you will one day offer to each other, ALREADY offered you. And here the limitless forgiveness you will give each other is ALREADY given; the face of Christ you yet will look upon ALREADY seen.
Can you EVALUATE the giver of a gift like this? Would you EXCHANGE this gift for ANY other? This gift returns the laws of God to your remembrance. And merely BY remembering them, the laws that held you prisoner to pain and death MUST be forgotten. This is no gift your brother's BODY offers you. The veil that hides the gift hides him as well. He IS the gift, and yet he knows it not. No more do you. And yet have faith that He Who sees the gift in BOTH of you, will offer and receive it for you BOTH. And through His vision will YOU see it, and through His understanding RECOGNIZE it, and love it as your own.
Be comforted, and feel the Holy Spirit watching over you, in love and perfect confidence in what He sees. He knows the Son of God. And shares his Father's certainty the universe rests in his gentle hands in safety and in peace. Let us consider now what he must learn, to SHARE his Father's confidence in him. What IS he, that the Creator of the universe should offer it to him, and KNOW it rests in safety? He looks upon himself not as his Father knows him. And yet it is impossible the confidence of God should be misplaced.
"Miracles demonstrate that learning has occurred under the right guidance, for learning is invisible, and what has been learned can be recognized only by its RESULTS."
Which means miracles are supposed to produce EFFECTS and CHANGES in things tangible or seen, which DEMONSTRATE learning has occurred. Without the demonstration, the learning has obviously not occurred, because the person is still teaching something else through physical proof. Miracles have visible RESULTS.
"Everyone in the world must play his part in the redemption of the world, to recognize that the world HAS BEEN redeemed." Redeem it with miracles!
"You cannot see the invisible. But if you see its effects, you KNOW it must be there. By perceiving what it DOES, you recognize its being. And by WHAT it does, you learn what it IS."
You MUST be able to see the EFFECTS of miracles in order to know their source is real. You PERCEIVE the effects, in order to recognize the Holy Spirit is real. And by what the miracles DO, IN THE WORLD, PHYSICALLY, you learn about what this power is. You develop your miracle working ABILITY thus:
"You cannot SEE your abilities, but you gain confidence in their EXISTENCE as they enable you to ACT. And the results, of your actions you CAN see."
You do MIRACULOUS ACTS IN THE WORLD. And the effects you produce help you to gain confidence in the ABILITY of miracle working.
"The Holy Spirit is invisible, but you can see the results of His Presence, and through them, you will learn that He is there."
You can SEE... visually, in the world, the RESULTS of the Holy Spirit’s presence. Through the RESULTS, you will learn that he is there.
"What He enables you to do is clearly NOT of this world, for miracles violate every law of reality, as this world judges it. Every law of time and space, of magnitude and mass, of prediction and control, is transcended, for what the Holy Spirit enables you to do is clearly beyond ALL of them."
Let’s just be clear, that your little shifts in perception ARE NOT miracles and have nothing to do with breaking the laws of physics. Miracles VIOLATE the laws of physics. Laws about how big something is, how heavy it must be, the way it must be manipulated, thi is all ignored and trampled upon by the Holy Spirit’s manifestations IN THE WORLD.
"Perceiving His results, you will understand where He must be, and finally KNOW what He is."
You perceive his results not inside your head but in the world. In your body, and beyond it. And the results speak volumes for what He must BE - a power far greater than anything in the world. And clearly NOT OF THIS WORLD, due to his world breaking, law defying capabilities.
"You cannot see the Holy Spirit, but you can see His manifestations. And unless you do, you will not realize He is there. Miracles are His witnesses, and speak for his Presence."
Miracles are WITNESSES to the power of the Holy Spirit. They testify that HE has DONE SOMETHING supernatural. These witnesses CAN BE SEEN with your eyes. They are changes to physical forms, energy, matter, space and time.
"What you cannot see becomes real to you only through the witnesses who speak for it. For you can be AWARE of what you cannot see, and it can become compellingly real to you, as its presence becomes manifest THROUGH you."
Manifest? We’re talking about things happening in the world here. Manifestations. Forms changing. Bodies being healed. The dead being raised. Mountains moving.
And here is clear instruction from Jesus about what you are supposed to be DOING in the world as a miracle worker:
"Do His work, for you SHARE in His function. As your function in Heaven is creation, so your function on earth is healing. God shares His function with you in Heaven, and the Holy Spirit shares His with you on earth."
"You will see miracles through your hands through me. You should begin each day with the prayer "Help me to perform whatever miracles you want of me today."
"15. Each day should be devoted to miracles."
DO HIS WORKS!
No one can look upon what your grievances conceal. Because your grievances are hiding the light of the world in you, everyone stands in darkness, and you beside him. But as the veil of your grievances is lifted, you are released with him. Share your salvation now with him who stood beside you when you were in hell. He is your brother in the light of the world which saves you both.
Today let us make another real attempt to reach the light in you. Before we undertake this in our more extended practice period, let us devote several minutes in thinking about what we are trying to do. We are literally attempting to get in touch with the salvation of the world. We are trying to see past the veil of darkness that keeps it concealed. We are trying to let the veil be lifted, and see the tears of God's Son disappear in the sunlight.
Let us begin our longer practice period today with the full realization of all this, and real determination to reach what is dearer to us than all else. Salvation is our only need. There is no other purpose here, and no other function to fulfill. Learning salvation is our only goal. Let us end the ancient search today, by finding the light in us and holding it up for everyone who searches with us to look upon and rejoice.
Very quietly now, with your eyes closed, try to let all the content which generally occupies your consciousness go. Think of your mind as a vast round area, surrounded by a layer of heavy dark clouds. You can see only the clouds because you seem to be standing outside the whole area, and quite apart from it. From where you stand, you can see no reason to believe there is a brilliant light hidden by the clouds. The clouds seem to be the only reality. They seem to be all there is to see. Therefore you do not attempt to go through them and past them, which is the only way in which you would be really convinced of their lack of substance. We will make this attempt today.
After you have thought about the importance of what you are trying to do for yourself and the world, try to settle in perfect stillness, remembering only how much you want to reach the light in you today, - now. Determine to go past the clouds. Reach out and touch them in your mind. Brush them aside with your hand; feel them resting on your cheeks and forehead and eyelids as you go through them. Go on; clouds cannot stop you.
If you are doing the exercises properly, you will begin to feel a sense of being lifted up and carried ahead. Your little effort and small determination call on the power of the universe to help you, and God Himself will raise you from darkness into light. You are in accord with His Will. You cannot fail because your will is His.
Have confidence in your Father today, and be certain that He has heard you and has answered you. You may not recognize His answer yet, but you can indeed be sure that it is given you, and you will yet receive it. Try, as you attempt to go through the clouds to the light, to hold this confidence in your mind. Try to remember that you are at last joining your will to God's. Try to keep the thought clearly in mind that what you undertake with God must succeed. Then let the power of God work in you and through you, that His Will and yours may be done.
In the shorter practice periods, which you will want to do as often as possible in view of the importance of today's idea to you and your happiness, remind yourself that your grievances are hiding the light of the world from your awareness. Remind yourself also that you are not searching for it alone, and that you do know where to look for it. Say, then:
"My grievances hide the light of the world in me.
I cannot see what I have hidden.
Yet I want to let it be revealed to me
for my salvation and the salvation of the world."
Also, be sure to tell yourself:
"If I hold this grievance, the light of the world will be hidden from me,"
if you are tempted to hold anything against anyone today.
As you become more aware that you are doing everything to yourself, and you gradually learn to take responsibility for everything you are experiencing, at some point you'll start noticing more and more that you keep attacking yourself.
Whereas before you noticed perhaps when you were attacking other people, and were thinking that this had no effect on you, and somewhat learned to forgive them and see their innocence, now the focus shifts a bit more directly to yourself.
"My attack thoughts are attacking my invulnerability" takes on a more obvious meaning. You literally keep attacking your own self.
The way these attacks happen is through moments of fear and guilt.
I'll be in the middle of some form of questioning, or self doubt, or worrying about something, and Jesus will poke me... ."Paul".... and then I know that means, I'm making some mistake here. So then I stop and just look at what I'm doing.... and usually it'll be sort of obvious that I'm either in fear, or I'm in guilt. Those are the two main ones.
Often though it's not so obvious what mistake I'm making. Sometimes I have to open up and try to figure it out, especially if I'm far into it. It can be quite confusing and obscure. Fear is not always obvious in its many many forms.
In general, I undermine myself all the time. So what I've become aware of is that, just as the Course says, I keep doing stuff to myself. I keep having attack thoughts and mistaken perceptions which *directly* work against myself.
So its kind of weird when you realize this, that you actually are at war with yourself. You keep on believing, thinking, perceiving, feeling and doing stuff that undermines you, thwarts you, detracts from your confidence, makes you feel unworthy, doesn't give yourself credit, diminishes your value and all kinds of other stuff.
So now it's sort of a cleanup job. You have to realize all the ways that you keep being AGAINST YOURSELF. At the very least, you have to realize you are against yourself, at all.
This being against yourself was completely covered up in a state of denial, when you were more involved with projecting onto others. And that projection really strongly distracted you from *recognizing* that you were attacking yourself. It convinced you that it was always other people who you needed to attack, who were receiving the effects of your attacks, and who this was all about. Once enough of that projecting is undone and you learn to do it less, it suddenly becomes apparent that it's actually not them that you've been attacking, its YOU.
So now you have to deal with yourself. But this is kind of interesting now, because it means that you now know you're really dealing with YOURSELF, not other enemies. You are your ONLY enemy. And there is a lot of hope in that, because it means that you are more aware that you have an opportunity. Since your enemy is yourself, you recognize that if you simply stop attacking yourself, and learn to recognize the ways that you do attack yourself, then there is basically NOTHING STOPPING YOU from becoming a far more capable, empowered, aware, happy person. There is nobody else and nothing else to influence you to stop you once you're on this fast-track to your true self.
So now the challenge for me and you, is recognizing more often and more clearly, when we are attacking ourselves, and learning what that attack comprises - is it fear, is it guilt, is it unlove - and CHOOSING AGAIN and learning not to do that to ourselves. As we do this we will grow in confidence and certainty and love and happiness, on our way home to God.
God is permanence. What God creates is also permanent. How can it be, that if God has created you as permanent, that you can malfunction? The whole idea that you can even have anything wrong with you is completely incompatible with you being permanent.
How can your total complete perfection, immortality, innocence, holiness, sinlessness, purity, guiltlessness, immacuate cleanness, ever turn into some kind of MALFUNCTION? How can heaven just BREAK someday? How can immortals suddenly become sick out of nowhere? How can what is permanently perfect, ever degrade or corrupt or decay or be destroyed?
The idea of death and the idea of eternal life are UTTERLY INCOMPATIBLE. You can't BE malfunctioning. God does not create things that don't work. His brand even comes with a guarantee.
"My sinlessness is guaranteed by God."
"God's promises make no exceptions. And He guarantees that only joy can be the final outcome found for everything."
"The Guarantee of Heaven"
"We thank you, Father, for Your guarantee of only happy outcomes in the end."
"He Who ensured your sinlessness must be the guarantee of strength and light as well."
"God's guarantee will hold against ALL obstacles, for it rests on certainty, and NOT contingency."
"In this one fact is sinlessness proclaimed to be forever part of everything; the central core of its existence and its guarantee of immortality."
"It is His laws which GUARANTEE your safety."
"And thus His Will provides the means to guarantee that it is done."
"Leave, then, the transfer of your learning to the One Who REALLY understands its laws, and Who will GUARANTEE that they remain unviolated and unlimited."
"It needs but two to understand that they can not decide alone, to GUARANTEE the joy they asked for will be wholly shared."
"Yet, to the dedication to the truth as GOD established it, NO sacrifice is asked, NO strain called forth, and all the power of Heaven and the might of truth itself is given to provide the means, and GUARANTEE the goal's accomplishment."
"But the guarantee of your continuity is God's, not the ego's."
"The Atonement is the GUARANTEE of the safety of the Kingdom."
"The removal of blocks, then, is the ONLY way to guarantee help and healing."
"The world WAS a way of healing the Separation, and the Atonement is the GUARANTEE that the device will ultimately do so."
"Your sinlessness is guaranteed by God."
"My sinlessness is guaranteed by God."
"Its oneness is forever guaranteed inviolate; forever held within His holy Will, beyond all possibility of harm, of separation, imperfection and of any spot upon its sinlessness."
"In me is His creation sanctified and guaranteed eternal life."
"It is in this that the simplicity of salvation lies. It is because of this that it is guaranteed to work."
"God's treasure house can never be empty. And if one gift were missing it would not be full. Yet is its fullness guaranteed by God."
"Your claim to miracles does not lie in your illusions about yourself. It does not depend on any magical powers you have ascribed to yourself, nor on any of the rituals you have devised. It is inherent in the truth of what you are. It is implicit in what God your Father is. It was ensured in your creation, and guaranteed by the laws of God."
"The end IS sure and guaranteed by God."
"Our home is safe, protection guaranteed in all we do, power and strength available to us in all our undertakings."
"We will attempt today to find this Thought, Whose presence in your mind is guaranteed by Him Who speaks to you from your One Self."
"And God Himself has GUARANTEED the strength of miracles for what they witness TO."
"Where two have joined for healing, God is there. And He has guaranteed that He will hear and answer them in truth."
"Morning and evening do we gladly give a quarter of an hour to the search in which the end of hell is guaranteed."
"The "right to live" is something no-one need fight for. It is promised him, and guaranteed by God."
"The body's health is fully guaranteed because it is not limited by time, by weather or fatigue, by food and drink, or any laws you made it serve before. You need do nothing now to make it well, for sickness has become impossible."
"Who could be surer that his happiness is fully guaranteed?"
"What is the Will of God? He wills His Son have everything. And this He guaranteed when He created him AS everything."
"Our success in transcending the ego is guaranteed by God, and I can share my perfect confidence IN His Promise because I know He gave me this confidence for both of us and ALL of us."
When you are afraid, it is because you do not trust. Or more specifically, you trust the ego and yourself alone, rather than trusting God. You always trust something, whether it be reality or illusions.
When you trust in your own strength you become afraid because this cuts you off from God's strength. And the fact is that your real strength IS the power of God in you. And without God's strength you cannot be all powerful. In fact, alone, your only option is to be weak and insufficient.
When you are in weakness you will be automatically afraid because you know that you lack the power needed to deal with existence. Without the power of God, you are up against insurmountable obstacles and irreversible problems and all manner of threats and dangers. And you are NOT equipped to handle it without Him.
While you are depending solely on yourself, you are closed off and confined and limited, small and weak and frail, and you are in a state of fear. You cannot get out of this state of fear while you maintain dependence on yourself to be strong, and you cannot muster enough strength alone to get out of it.
What the fear then says is, you are unwilling to move forwards, proceed, invest, commit, take action, try anything, get involved, put energy into something, express yourself, enjoy life, be free, or even do anything at all, because you are afraid and weak and alone and you are already failing and anything you do is doomed to produce suffering.
So then you do not even try, you do not even attempt to live, you do not even endeavor to share your heart, because you feel like you are hemmed in by fear and mistrust. You feel like it is not SAFE to trust. That if you were to go ahead with things you will be threatened, perhaps punished, you will fail and be abused for it, and everyone will judge you, and it will end in a catastrophic failure.
But as usual, the ego is always lying about the reasons why you are afraid. It uses deflection away from the center of fear to try to tell you, you're afraid because of external things, or what will happen in future, or what other people will do, or how they'll attack you etc. But these are not the reason for the fear.
The reason for fear is always to hide the fact that there is nothing to be afraid of. Fear ITSELF is a lie. It's a deception designed to KEEP YOU afraid, for as long as possible, so that you will not go investigate for yourself and FIND OUT that there is no reason to be afraid. It's a story that's being told, a myth, designed to keep you away from God, away from freedom and away from happiness.
The thing the ego does not want you to do, is to withdraw your trust in it, ie depending solely on your own strength, and to put your trust in God. Because if you were to do this it would in fact grant you EXTRA STRENGTH, sharing God's power, and this strength IS safety, and it would eradicate the basis for any fear and obliterate the ego.
The ego does not want you trusting God instead of it. It wants to keep you in a fearful state, hiding, withering, avoiding, procrastinating, deflecting, denying, not embracing, trying to keep your distance from the state of freedom of mind and expression. Because it knows that its lie of fear is totally bullshit and the moment you stop believing it the ego has no hold over you.
What this means is, if you are afraid to act, it is because you are NOT trusting correctly. You believe that the situation is not safe, there will be punishment or attack or danger, and you do not want to approach it. You don't want to go through with things because they might cause unprecedented reactions from others. You become afraid of judgement and not being good enough for them and you hold yourself back.
But the fact is that when you TRUST, it is an act of willingness that empowers you. When you TRUST, fear disappears. In fact we can say that fear is the absence of trust. And like all illusions, the fear disappears when its absence becomes a presence. When trust is present, you cannot be afraid. Trust makes you safe. Trust gives you strength. Trust empowers you to move forward and expressed yourself. Trust gives you freedom.
And so AS you trust, you will find yourself able to do all the things you kept avoiding in fear, because you stand in the strength of God and are fearless. And you stop defending against, blocking, resisting, avoiding, the things you want to do. And life becomes more of an effortless flow.
But you have to thus find out why you are not trusting. Why you are not letting go of your idea of past failures. Why you are holding failure against yourself and threatening yourself with a repeat. And instead of living in fear, you have to become brave and courageous and willing enough to trust that if you will take a step forward, it will be supported and will not fall through.
You will find that a lack of trust is built with ego, and is an attempt to side with ego. And trusting means moving closer to God and trusting Him. And that means you have to be willing to approach God and let go of the fear of God. And indeed you have to let go of any past stories and emotional baggage relating to the undermining of trust. Thing which seemed to happen to you to threaten you and make you feel "not safe". Because a lack of trust is a lack of safety. And without safety you will live in fear.
God is with you to empower you and strengthen you and light your way and make your way smooth and effortless and safe and danger-free. If you will trust it.
""God is the Strength in which I trust." If you are trusting your own strength, you have every reason to be apprehensive, anxious, and fearful. What can you predict or control? What is there in you that can be counted on? What would give you the ability to be aware of all the facets of any problem, and to resolve them in such a way that only good can come of it? What is there in you that gives you the recognition of the right solution, and the guarantee that it will be accomplished?"
"Of yourself you can do none of these things. To believe that you can is to put your trust where trust is unwarranted, and to justify fear, anxiety, depression, anger, and sorrow. Who can put his faith in weakness and feel safe? Yet who can put his faith in strength and feel weak?"
"God is your safety in every circumstance. His Voice speaks for Him in all situations and in every aspect of all situations, telling you exactly what to do to call upon His strength and His protection. There are no exceptions because God has no exceptions. And the Voice Which speaks for Him thinks as He does."
"Today we will try to reach past your own weakness to the Source of real strength."
"Now try to slip past all concerns related to your own sense of inadequacy. It is obvious that any situation that causes you concern is associated with feelings of inadequacy, since otherwise you would believe that you could deal with the situation successfully. It is not by trusting yourself that you will gain confidence. But the strength of God in you is successful in all things."
"The recognition of your own frailty is a necessary step in the correction of your errors. But it is hardly a sufficient one in giving confidence which you need and to which you are entitled."
"You must also gain an awareness that your confidence in your real strength is fully justified in every respect and in all circumstances. In the latter phase of the practice period, try to reach down into your mind to a place of real safety. You will recognize that you have reached it if you feel a deep peace, however briefly. Let go all the trivial things that churn and bubble on the surface of your mind, and reach down and below them to the Kingdom of Heaven. There is a place in you where there is perfect peace. There is a place in you where nothing is impossible. There is a place in you where the strength of God abides."
"Remember that peace is your right because you are giving your trust to the strength of God."