[acimlessons_list] Lesson 186 - July 5A

[Sue Roth]

Lesson 186 - July 5

SALVATION OF THE WORLD DEPENDS ON ME

PRACTICE INSTRUCTIONS

PURPOSE: To go past both your self-made roles and your doubts about your
worth and adequacy, and hear and accept your assigned role in God's plan for
salvation. This will unify your scattered energies behind a single goal.

MORNING/EVENING QUIET TIME: At least five minutes; ideally, thirty or more.
Today's practice consists of listening to the Holy Spirit, asking for Him to
tell you what your role in His plan is (this is similar to Lesson 135). To
really listen, you will need to set aside your notions of your roles in
life, realizing how shifting they are and how much they scatter your
energies. You will need to open your mind to the fact that you have an
essential role in the Holy Spirit's plan for the salvation of the world.
Don't let your ego tell you that such an idea is arrogant, that you cannot
possibly be worthy, that you are not strong enough, wise enough, or holy
enough. Banish this arrogant chatter from your mind. Let go of all words.
Open your mind and listen in genuine humility. Let the Voice for God reveal
to you what He would have you do in His plan. Trust that the role He has
selected for you suits you perfectly, that you can do it, because He knows
you better than you know yourself. If the role you hear sounds beyond your
capabilities, ask yourself who is more likely to be right: your ego's voice
or God's Voice?

If you hear nothing, keep repeating your question with genuine desire. And
keep setting aside the ego's chatter as it intrudes. Know that you are at
the very least drawing closer the day when the answer will be yours.
End the practice period by trying to genuinely <accept the function given
you> (10:1). If you have received a sense of what it is, try to accept that
as your role in life. If you haven't received anything, try to accept your
role in advance.

HOURLY REMEMBRANCE: One or two minutes as the hour strikes (reduce if
circumstances do not permit).

Suggestion: Thank God for His gifts to you in the hour gone by. Then let go
of your notions of your role in the coming hour, and ask God's Voice what
role He has selected for you in that hour.

COMMENTARY

Our individual salvation and our happiness depends on our accepting what
this lesson teaches: the salvation of the world depends on us. Our function
is to save the world, to bring the light and joy and peace of God to every
mind within our reach - which is a far greater number than we imagine.

The lesson is not simply saying that it would be a good idea for us to
accept this thought. 
It is saying that acceptance is imperative to our own personal freedom:

There is one way, and only one, to be released from the imprisonment your
plan to prove the false is true has brought to you. Accept the plan you did
not make instead.(5:1-2) 
The Course is often so uncompromising: <one way, and only one.> If we want
to experience our own wholeness, if we want to find our Self, we MUST accept
that salvation of the world depends on us. Why? Because the nature of Who we
are demands it. If I am an extension of God, and if Love, which created me,
is what I am, then how can I possibly accept that fact and NOT accept that
my function is to give myself to the world? Giving is what Love does!

To take our place among the saviors of the world is not arrogance, if we are
as God created us. It is merely accepting what has been given to us by our
Creator: <We did not establish [our function]. It is not our idea> (2:2-3).
In fact it is arrogant NOT to acknowledge this as our function. The
self-image we make in arrogance pictures us as weak, ignorant, and helpless
(6:3-4). It seems humble, but it is mountainous arrogance masquerading as
humility. This self-image thumbs its nose at the Creator and says, <I am
what I make of myself, and not what You created me to be.>

The last week or so I have frequently been finding myself feeling at loose
ends. I seem to drift from one task to another, and to have a great deal of
difficulty concentrating on anything. The description in 10:4 seems to
describe me exactly: <The functions which the world esteems are so uncertain
that they change ten times an hour at their most secure.> And as I read this
lesson I recognize that I have been trying to define my function for myself,
instead of simply accepting the one God gave me. I have been fighting my
function. Yet when it is accepted, it is so unambiguous that life simply
straightens out, and all the confusion is gone: <In lovely contrast, certain
as the sun's return each morning to dispel the night, your truly given
function stands out clear and wholly unambiguous> (11:1).

So then, let me today stop resisting my function. Let me stop listening to
my self-made image, which trembles as God speaks to me of my true function,
sensing that the basis of its existence is being cut away (7:1-2). Let me
simply let go of my plans for myself and surrender to the plan I did not
make, trusting that everything I need to fulfill it has been given me;
trusting that I am worthy to be counted among the saviors of the world;
trusting that all my needs are answered by God, even though He does not see
them, in whatever form is most useful at the moment (13:4-5).

Salvation of the world depends on you who can forgive. Such is your function
here.(14:5-6)