There Is Nothing My Holiness Cannot Do: If you are holy, so is everything God created. You are holy because all things He created are holy. And all things He created are holy because you are.
ACIM Lesson 38,3
If we really knew ourselves to be the holy children of God, then we would know that all wisdom and all power belong to us. If our belief that we are the holy children of God, were the size of a mustard seed, we would be able to move mountains. Since this is not the level of power we typically demonstrate, clearly our belief that we are the holy children of God is much smaller than the size of a mustard seed. Indeed we hardly believe it at all, yet we can still move mountains, granted though, it does take great effort, time, and energy, just because of our tiny wisdom and belief. But such is the power of God that can accomplish anything, for it is inherent in us and can never fully leave us even when our belief in it is the size of a subatomic particle.
So how can we increase the size of our belief? The story of the prodigal son can perhaps provide us with some insights and comfort. It is the story of a child who having received the wealth of his father left home to try making a life and name for himself, and who after some time found himself destitute. Sounds familiar doesn’t it? Concluding that his situation would be far better if he lived as a servant in his father's house, he returned home only to find his father surprisingly neither angry nor disappointed, but instead greatly rejoicing in his return, and lavishly bestowing on him all the love, honor, and appreciation of one who had accomplished great things. He was surprised by his father’s reaction because he thought himself a failure, guilty of doing wrong, foolish or “sinful” things, and was therefore unworthy of such generous praise. His father’s reaction came from the joy he felt at the return of his son, similar to the joy one feels when something of great value that was lost is found again. The son did not realize that he himself was his father’s greatest treasure, and the return of that treasure was the cause of his father’s joyful reaction.
This story offers us two important insights: the first is in recognizing that we are the children of God, our Creator, and as such we inherit our characteristics and value, our genes if you will, from Him. Being perfect, God created "His only begotten son" perfect and one. We the children of God are His only begotten, perfectly unified son-ship. We are therefore not merely valuable to our Creator, we are His most valuable treasure because we are His only treasure, made in His image and likeness. Just as all children share the basic characteristics of their parents, even though each child expresses them differently, we the children of God express His basic characteristics in unique and individual ways, but remain unified because of our common source. Even when we fail to appreciate our value, it is not lost for it is inherent. Similar to the value of a hundred dollar bill that we have misplaced, whose value is not affected when we find it again, even if we found it is crumpled, worn or dirty. We rejoice because its inherent value is unaffected. Our inherent value as children of God comes not from what we think or say or do, but from who we are, and therefore can never be lost, diminished, tarnished or changed in any way. The eyes of our Father looks joyously upon us at all times and rejoices when we return to Him.
The second, and more important insight is in recognizing the true nature of our Creator as the “ALL-That-Is", the Alpha and the Omega, the omnipresent One who pervades all existence like wetness pervades water, and like space pervades all that we perceive. Because God is omnipresent, we are not now, nor can we ever be separate form Him, for there is nothing that exists that can be outside or apart from that One Thing which is Everything. Being in everything, He exists in us and we in Him, as One, whole, and therefore holy. Because we are an inherent part of Him, we too are holy. We are and remain as God created us, holy, spirit, perfect, and free! Our existence, our very being-ness, resides in God, at-one with Him, and therefore at-one with everything that exists.
Regardless of what we may think we are (human, vulnerable, separate, etc.,) God knows us to be what He is, as part of His Self, forever established and residing in His Beingness. His ubiquitous presence is His power and His power is His ubiquitous presence. As His creation, this is who we, the holy children of God, really are, and because ‘...there is nothing the power of God cannot do,’ there is nothing we cannot do. But to demonstrated this we must re-cognize and re-member ourselves as the holy, all-powerful children who are forever at-one with their holy, all-powerful Creator. Religion by definition is that which returns us to our source, so anything that accomplishes this re-turn is by definition a religion. Like the wise prodigal son, let us make our religion be to turn away from separation and suffering, and re-turn to joyful oneness with our Father, for only in God can we be truly free, truly valued, and truly appreciated.
The beautiful simplicity of this religion or re-turn is that we can turn no where else, for God is everywhere, in everyone and as everyone, without exception. But our re-turn is simpler even than this for we can never really turn-away from ubiquity in the first place, so our re-turn is already accomplished; wherever we turn God is already there, patiently awaiting our re-cognition of Him. Our less-than-simple task is only to re-cognize Him in each other and in ourselves. He is everywhere, and appears in everything as individual, apparently separate beings. Re-cognizing the true nature of everyone and everything as a holy child of God, as God dressed in various clever disguises, we will re-cognize God in ourselves and re-member our oneness with each other and with our Creator. There is an ancient, sacred word that can help us do this:
Namaste!
(the God in me re-cognizes the God in you, and in this recognition, we are One.)
Say this word to everyone and everything, silently or out loud, to help dispel the illusion of separation, and help us re-member the true nature of our oneness with all that we perceive. Say this word to re-mind you of who you really are, and of who everyone and everything is -- one with God.
