Quote of the Week: June 5th 2011

If you are wholly willing to leave salvation to the plan of God
and unwilling to attempt to grasp for peace yourself,
salvation will be given you.

ACIM Text:15,III,11

This quote reminds us that our path is quite simple but we must first humbly acknowledge that we do not know how to get to God.  We know this acknowledgment is true simply because we don't really know ourselves (always trying to “find ourselves”) so it must follow that we really don't know God either, and therefore we cannot possibly know how to get to God.  Yet this quote opens the door to this awareness in two easy steps, first be wholly willing to leave salvation to the plan of God, and second, be unwilling to attempt to grasp for peace yourself.  Just these two steps and salvation will be given you.

Though these two steps seem simple in theory, they are not at all trivial for we who are so certain that we know how to bring about our own salvation, or to find our own peace.  We are pretty certain of it, or if we're not, we know someone (a friend, relative, teacher, celebrity, etc.) who knows the way and who fortunately has a plan, and we certainly are willing to follow that plan to the best of our ability.  Furthermore, we are so habituated to striving and suffering and sacrificing in the name of reaching our goal that we spend precious little time questioning if we truly understand the magnitude of the goal, what it requires for completion, or at least some basic principles upon which the plan for accomplishing this goal is formulated, so that we can be confident that it is a viable plan.  Instead we busy ourselves, sleeves rolled up, bent over, nose to the ground, shoulder to the grinding stone executing “the plan” weather we understand it or not.

But, fortunately, we have a plan, given to us by God, that is at last infallible, for God’s creations are complete in all ways, so there is no need for contingency plans or reactive measures.  His plan for our salvation was created at the moment of our creation and remains with us.  It was designed to handle every possible wrinkle or nuance that could ever arise in our experience, so there can be no doubt about its viability, or its ultimate success.  His plan is simplicity itself, it asks us in a word to simply, BE; to relinquish all other plans and activities we have formulated in the name of finding salvation.  It asks us to give up any notion that any plan we could ever formulate is going to work, if for no other reason than the very obvious fact that we just don't know who we are; we are clueless.  So give it, give it all up.  No more efforting to get to God, no more grasping, grunting, striving, struggling, and sacrificing.  Just release all that “busy work” and humbly and willingly, just “Be still.”  For the very act of calming ourselves down, slowing down and eventually stopping the endless activity in the execution of “our” plan, leaves us without any activity, and the best description we can give for that state of being, is stillness.  And in that stillness, all that you could ever desire and more will be given you!   I don't think it gets simpler than that folks!