October 31st 2014 Lesson 226
Part II Introduction
We will continue spending time with God each morning and night and at each waking hour, using all future lessons as introductions to the times in which we leave the world of pain, and go to enter peace, calling to God when we have need of Him as we are tempted to forget our goal. During these holy times, we will say some simple words of welcome, and expect our Father to reveal Himself to us, as He has promised that He would when we invited Him.
This is how our times with Him will now be spent: we say the words of invitation that His Voice suggests, and then we wait for Him to come to us. Sit silently and wait upon your Father. He has willed to come to you when you have recognized it is your will He do so. We need only call to God, and all temptations disappear. Instead of words, we need but feel His Love. Instead of prayers, we need but call His Name. Instead of judging, we need but be still and let all things be healed.
Our lessons will now be preceded by a theme of special relevance that we should review before each lesson until another is given us. They should be slowly read and thought about a little while, preceding one of the holy times we sit in silence and wait for God to reveal Himself to us. The first of these special thoughts follow and are relevant to lessons 221 - 230:1. What is Forgiveness
Forgiveness recognizes what you thought your brother did to you has not occurred. It does not pardon sins and make them real. It sees there was no sin. And in that view are all your sins forgiven. What is sin, except a false idea about God's Son? Forgiveness merely sees its falsity, and therefore lets it go. What then is free to take its place is now the Will of God.
An unforgiving thought is one which makes a judgment that it will not raise to doubt, although it is not true. The mind is closed, and will not be released. The thought protects projection, tightening its chains, so that distortions are more veiled and more obscure; less easily accessible to doubt, and further kept from reason. What can come between a fixed projection and the aim that it has chosen as its wanted goal?
An unforgiving thought does many things. In frantic action it pursues its goal, twisting and overturning what it sees as interfering with its chosen path. Distortion is its purpose, and the means by which it would accomplish it as well. It sets about its furious attempts to smash reality, without concern for anything that would appear to pose a contradiction to its point of view.
Forgiveness, on the other hand, is still, and quietly does nothing. It offends no aspect of reality, nor seeks to twist it to appearances it likes. It merely looks, and waits, and judges not. He who would not forgive must judge, for he must justify his failure to forgive. But he who would forgive himself must learn to welcome truth exactly as it is.
Do nothing, then, and let forgiveness show you what to do, through Him Who is your Guide, your Savior and Protector, strong in hope, and certain of your ultimate success. He has forgiven you already, for such is His function, given Him by God. Now must you share His function, and forgive whom He has saved, whose sinlessness He sees, and whom He honors as the Son of God.
Lesson 226
My home awaits me. I will hasten there.
- If I so choose, I can depart this world entirely. It is not death which makes this possible, but it is change of mind about the purpose of the world. If I believe it has a value as I see it now, so will it still remain for me. But if I see no value in the world as I behold it, nothing that I want to keep as mine or search for as a goal, it will depart from me. For I have not sought for illusions to replace the truth.
- Invitation Prayer: Father, my home awaits my glad return. Your Arms are open and I hear Your Voice. What need have I to linger in a place of vain desires and of shattered dreams, when Heaven can so easily be mine?
Insights/comments:
- I am always at home in God! This is the eternal truth, but I am usually not aware of it and so feel alone and lost in the make-believe dream world of forms and perceptions. Yet, the Truth is true and remains true even when I am not aware of it. My challenge then is only to remember what is true and who I truly am, especially when I feel alone or unhappy, for it is in such lost moments that I need most to remember: Remember that I am a holy sinless child of God, for God created me perfect, Spirit, free; and God's creations cannot diminish; remember that I am never really alone, for God is always with me, even as I perceive myself within this dream world; remember that I always have access to God's invincible wisdom and power that can harmonize any situation. Only this remembrance then is really needed. What then can I do to help myself remember that I am eternally safe and in the loving arms of my Father? Be still! Be still. Be still, and step, from time to time, away from this dream world, to rest in the silence within myself, opening my awareness to God's eternal presence.
I and my Creator are One.
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