Quote of the Week
Your Grace Is Given Me. I Claim It Now. It is a new and holy day today, for we receive what has been given us. Our faith lies in the Giver, not our own acceptance. We acknowledge our mistakes, but He to Whom all error is unknown is yet the One Who answers our mistakes by giving us the means to lay them down, and rise to Him in gratitude and love.
ACIM Lesson 168,5
God being who He is has given us everything; everything! While this seems to be an outrageous statement, it is absolutely True and logically consistent. Being unlimited, infinite and eternal, His gifts must share these characteristics, just as a millionere or a “poor” man gives gifts that reflect the character of their finincial status. If we feel any lack, it must be because we have not fully received all that He has given us, for His gifts and His giving is complete, so the onus lies only on us and our ability to receive what has already and eternally been given.
When we understand this, the only question that remains is: “How can we better receive the gift of God’s grace?” The answer is to place our faith “in the Giver, not our own acceptance.” Our only mistake is that we believe ourselves to be separate from God, and this leads in turn to a sense of lack which opens the possibility that we may be unable to fulfill all our desires. This fear of failure leads us to place (or more accurately to misplace) our faith in hording and defenses instead of trusting in God. Misplaced trust cause us to lean more on judgments as the means to fulfill our desires, to be safe, and to succeed in our endeavors. But the use of judgment comes with a price, that being the fear that we too will be judged, which in turn leads to condemnation, and a sense of superiority among those who seem to have better judgment or a better position from which to judge.
The single solution to all this is simply to know God. Knowing God allows us to trust God and trust in His love for us. Trusting God allows us to love God. Loving God allows us to embrace God. Embracing God allows us to use the gift of God’s grace. And by using God’s grace, we are helping ourselves to more of God, and this is how we can most effectively thank God. Thankfulness puts us into a state of grattitude in which we are appreciating all that we have been given, and therefore all that we are. This is the state of being that we want to be in at all times, for it is from the state of being that we can experience all that we truly are.
These steps* also work in reverse: Being thankful engenders helpfulness, which in turn engenders the use of God’s gifts to us. Using God’s gifts means that we are using God to help us help ourselves. If we are using God’s gifts, we are embracing God. If we are embracing God then we are certainly loving God, and if we are loving God, then we are knowing God for sure. This is how we claim and therefore receive God’s gifts.
* For more information about these steps, see: Friendship with God by Neal Donald Walsh.
