[acimlessons_list] Lesson 233 - August 21

[Sue Roth]

Lesson 233 - August 21

"I give my life to God to guide today."

Practice instructions

See complete Part II practice instructions. 
A short summary:

* Read the commentary paragraph slowly and personally.

* Pray the prayer, perhaps several times.

* Morning and evening: Repeat the idea and then spend time in Open Mind
Meditation.

* Hourly remembrance: Repeat the idea and then spend a quiet moment in
meditation.

* Frequent reminders: Repeat the idea often within each hour.

* Response to temptation: Repeat the idea whenever upset, to restore peace.

* Read the "What Is" section slowly and thoughtfully once during the day.

Practice suggestion: I find that it helps to make the idea more specific by
saying, <"I give this situation to God to guide today.">

Commentary

One thing I find very interesting about the Course is that it is not
persnickety about its theology. There are places in the Course that make it
quite clear that God does not hear the specific words of our prayers
(although He <does> hear the prayers of our heart, of which words are only
symbols, see M-21.1-2), and that, knowing only the truth, He does not know
the details of our errors (He simply knows we are asleep [T-6.V.1:5-8]; the
content of our nightmares, being false, is unknown to Him because He knows
only truth). <Technically>, then, if we wanted to be theologically correct,
prayer ought to be addressed to the Holy Spirit or to Jesus, who are
specifically spoken of as intermediaries between truth and illusion, or as
bridges between us and God. Yet, here in the second half of the Workbook, we
have 140 lessons, each of which contains a prayer addressed to "Father."

In today's lesson, the Father is asked to guide us. Yet elsewhere, being
Guide is defined as the function of the Holy Spirit. So I get the feeling
that Jesus (the author) isn't particularly concerned with strict theological
correctness. I think he is a good example for all of us to follow. Would he
be teaching us to pray to the Father if it were some sort of substandard
spiritual practice?

If we gleaned nothing more from the Course than the practice of daily giving
our lives over to God's guidance, we would be quickly taken home. We can ask
Him to replace our thoughts with His own, and to direct all our acts during
the day, all we do and think and say. To act or think on our own is,
literally, a waste of time. His wisdom is infinite, His Love and tenderness
are beyond comprehension. Could we ask for a more reliable Guide?

The first step in following God's guidance is a stepping <back>, releasing
our tight hold on our lives and deliberately placing them under His control.
The guidance will come. Sometimes, perhaps rarely, we will hear an inner
Voice. In my personal experience this is very rare. Other times, things will
happen around us that make our way plain. Or an inner conviction will build
for no apparent reason. We will "just happen to notice" something someone
says, or a song on the radio, or a line in a book. If we are <listening> for
it, we will hear it.

Another key is giving our day to Him "with no reserve at all" (2:2); that
is, holding nothing back. Sometimes we are so fixated on what we think we
want or need that we are not willing to hear any guidance to the contrary.
And if we aren't willing to hear it, we won't. We're like a broken shopping
cart that always wants to steer left or right; we just don't respond well to
guidance. We have to be willing to let go of all our preferences, all our
investment in the outcome, and become completely malleable, completely open
to whatever direction He wants to give to us. An old Christian hymn says:

Have Thine own way, Lord,

Have Thine own way.

Thou are the potter,

I am the clay.

Mold me and make me,

After Thy will,

While I am waiting,

Yielded and still.

That is what stepping back means. That is how we give our lives to God to
guide. He guides. We follow, without questioning (1:7).

WHAT IS SALVATION?

Part 3: W-pII.2.2:1-3

The Thought of peace that is our salvation "was given to God's Son the
instant that his mind had thought of war" (2:1). No time intervened at all
between the thought of war and the Thought of peace. Salvation was given
instantly when the need arose. In a beautiful image, the Text says that "not
one note in Heaven's song was missed" (T-26.V.5:4). The peace of Heaven was
completely undisturbed. And having been answered, the problem was resolved
for all of time and all eternity, in that timeless instant.

Our discovery of salvation, however, takes time. Or at least seems to. A
poor analogy: Imagine that you are suddenly burdened with a ten thousand
dollar tax bill for a hitherto unexpected reason, but at that very instant,
someone deposits one million dollars into your checking account. You could
spend a lot of time trying to raise the needed money if you didn't know
about the deposit, but actually all you need to do is nothing, because the
problem is already solved. Your only need, then, is to stop trying to solve
the problem, and learn that it has already been answered.

Before the thought of separation (or war) arose, there was no need for a
"Thought of peace." Peace simply <was>, without an opposite. So in a certain
sense we could say that the problem created its own answer. Before the
problem, there was no answer because there was no need of one. But when the
problem arose, the answer was already there. "When the mind is split there
is a need of healing" (2:3). It is the thought of separation that makes the
thought of healing needful, but when the healing is accepted, or when the
thought of separation is abandoned, healing is no longer needed. Healing is
a temporary (or temporal, related to time) measure. There is no need of it
in Heaven.

As the Course says of forgiveness, because there is an illusion of need,
there is need for an illusion of answer. But that "answer" is really simple
acceptance of what has always been true, and always will be. Peace simply
is, and salvation lies in our acceptance of that fact. Salvation, as the
Course sees it, is not an active divine response to a real need. It is,
instead, an apparent response to a need that, in truth, does not exist.

This is why the Course calls our spiritual path "a journey without distance"
(T-8.VI.9:7) and, indeed, "a journey that was not begun" (W-pII.225.2:5).
While we are in it, the journey seems very real, and often very long. When
it is over, we will know that we never left Heaven, never traveled anywhere,
and have always been exactly where we are: at home in God. The journey
itself is imaginary. It consists in learning, bit by bit, that the distance
we perceive between ourselves and God is simply not there.