ACIM Lesson 251 I am in need of nothing but the truth. 1. I sought for many things, and found despair. ²Now do I seek but one, for in that one is all I need, and only what I need.
I am in need of nothing but the truth.
Lesson 251
I am in need of nothing but the truth.
1. I sought for many things, and found despair. ²Now do I seek but one, for in that one is all I need, and only what I need. ³All that I sought before I needed not, and did not even want. ⁴My only need I did not recognize. ⁵But now I see that I need only truth. ⁶In that all needs are satisfied, all cravings end, all hopes are finally fulfilled and dreams are gone. ⁷Now have I everything that I could need. ⁸Now have I everything that I could want. ⁹And now at last I find myself at peace.
2. And for that peace, our Father, we give thanks. ²What we denied ourselves You have restored, and only that is what we really want.
Sometimes I think I need more money or a thinner body.
Sometimes I think if only I had a healthier body, I would be happy. Maybe I think I need to be right, and the other person needs to admit it. There is actually an endless and endlessly changing list of what I have thought I needed. But what I really ever need is the truth. I need to remember who I am and who I am to my brothers and to God. As this memory returns to me, I discover that I don’t need anything else to be happy.
To decide with God, I must let go of the insane idea that I am not as God created me.
When I contemplated this the first time, I felt like it was almost impossible. It felt like these ideas of weakness and sin are so strongly reinforced in me that I would continue to return to them. But each time I chose God, I became stronger in my faith in God’s Word, and the easier it was to turn from ego beliefs.
Now it feels so much easier, and my focus is on how very true this meditation is. I cannot be outside God because there is no outside God to be in. My mind is powerful because God is powerful, and my mind holds only what I think with God. My identity is God because that is how He created me, to be part of Him for eternity.
Sometimes, I still slip into ego thinking, but the truth is so much stronger in me that I don’t stay there.
I realize that I have equal access to my holy mind and that who I am, my true Self, answers for me if I choose that. Occasionally, I briefly feel like I’m stuck in my ego thinking, but I also know that I can extricate myself through my desire for the truth.
That is my point of choice, and it is incredibly powerful. I might feel like I am pulling against a great force, but if I persist, I see that it loosens, and I am free. That happened to me recently. I was concerned about my son, and I felt myself falling into his story. I wanted out. At first, it felt like I was glued to that story and I had no control, but I knew that couldn’t be true. I kept my mind moving toward God, and thoughts came to me that helped. Pretty quickly, I was at peace.
Lesson 167. 2:6-7 All sorrow, loss, anxiety and suffering and pain, even a little sigh of weariness, a slight discomfort or the merest frown, acknowledge death. And thus deny you live.
I wrote this one year while I was still struggling sometimes but also moving closer to the truth.
I say I want only the truth, but then I negate that desire as I give my attention and my belief to what denies the truth. The truth is I have chosen to be where I am, doing what I am doing, and having the experience I am having. But when I don’t care for my choices, I still sometimes blame others for them. I forsake myself and then ask God why He forsook me.
I occasionally still choose to suffer and then direct my anger and disappointment at whoever is playing the supporting role in my little drama of the moment. And I don’t really care, as long as I have someone on whom I can project the blame. Anytime I see blame in myself or anyone else, I have chosen to believe sin is real.
In projecting the blame, I deny the truth that I am the maker of my dream world. I deny my power and my magnificence. As I blame my brothers and sisters for my unhappiness, I deny the truth that we are one. I blind myself to their power and magnificence as well. So all along, I say I need only the truth, and then I ask for something else.
“How long, O Son of God, will you maintain the game of sin?”
Not long now, because I have become willing to see what I am doing, and I have become willing to be healed. Each time I notice that I am asking for sin instead of truth and then change my mind, my mind opens a little more to reality and I move us all nearer the Kingdom.
I have finally reached the point that I don’t deny the truth in these ways all the time. Actually, I seldom do this anymore. I have learned to be very vigilant for those times that I do, and I am very quick to change my mind. What I notice now are the quick automatic judgments that I quickly release. However, there is still doubt in my mind that I am holy and powerful or even that I am a good and faithful student and teacher.
I know this is the ego mind planting doubts and uncertainties, but I have believed in the vulnerable and weak ego self for so long that it is strange to think of myself differently. Every lesson, however, brings me closer to the truth. I am beginning to see myself detached from the character I play in this story of Myron, and so, I am beginning to see myself detached from the ego.
I had a strange experience this morning.
For some reason, this morning, as I sat at my computer reading the lesson for the day, I was plagued with thoughts of discontent. This hasn’t been happening lately, and so it was a surprise. Perhaps it was an ego response to the thought that I would want only the truth. It was a simple thing. I was wishing I was done with a project and on to something else I like better.
This kind of discontent, this belief that I need something n the world to change for me to be happy, is like an insidious disease that spreads quickly throughout the day. it robs me of the peace and the joy I normally find in everyday activities. It makes me feel like a victim, weak and vulnerable. Before you know it, I am living in fear as nothing seems to go right, and I forget all about the truth as I just try to survive the day.
But this isn’t going to happen now. I have come too far, learned too much. I felt the touch of freedom and sweet release as I stopped listening to the ego’s interpretation of life and asked the Holy Spirit to be my guide. So, I am accepting today just as it appears to me. I will watch my mind for any backsliding, and when I find it, I will do a quick restorative and return to sanity.
I am God’s Son, part of the Christ, and loved and cherished by my Creator.
My mind is powerful, and I am very holy. My holiness envelops the world, and there is nothing my holiness cannot do. I deny anything not of God the power to affect me. I place myself in Your capable hands, Holy Spirit, and accept Your Voice as the only voice I will hear today. Because I want nothing but the truth, so it is.
Contemplation 2026
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