A Course in Miracles Workbook Daily Lesson 255, Year 2022

ACIM Daily Lesson 255 This day I choose to spend in perfect peace. 1. It does not seem to me that I can choose to have but peace today. ²And yet, my God assures me that His Son is like Himself.

Lesson 255

This day I choose to spend in perfect peace.

1. It does not seem to me that I can choose to have but peace today. ²And yet, my God assures me that His Son is like Himself. ³Let me this day have faith in Him Who says I am God’s Son. ⁴And let the peace I choose be mine today bear witness to the truth of what He says. ⁵God’s Son can have no cares, and must remain forever in the peace of Heaven. ⁶In His Name, I give today to finding what my Father wills for me, accepting it as mine, and giving it to all my Father’s Sons, along with me.

2. And so, my Father, would I pass this day with You. ²Your Son has not forgotten You. ³The peace You gave him still is in his mind, and it is there I choose to spend today.

What a way to start the day!

In my mind, there is a version of the day in which I choose perfect peace. I choose that one to view today. I had a strange dream last night, and I think I had a dream hangover from it. I wasn’t feeling any emotion in particular, but I wasn’t in perfect peace either. Reading this lesson snapped me out of the fog of ego confusion. It was like a light came on in a dark room. God’s Son can have no cares, and must remain forever in the peace of Heaven.

I have been practicing forgiveness of the body, the world, and all untrue thoughts for a long time, but with an emphasis lately on watching them disappear. If I feel a headache coming on, I forgive it and watch it disappear. If I think I need to lose weight, I forgive that idea and watch it disappear. If I think someone is guilty of anything, I forgive that idea and watch it disappear.

I know that there is nothing outside me and that the body’s eyes don’t show me anything that exists. I am forgiving it all. I am watching it disappear as a reality for me. What I will be left with is my Self as God created me. I feel a shift. I guess it is the result of what I have left behind. It feels like love and happiness. It feels like serenity. I wonder if it is permanent. We shall see.

On reflection, I question the last two sentences.

Why do I wonder if it will be permanent? It is because sometimes, a shift wasn’t permanent in the past. I am re-imaging a past experience, so I am asking for the same result again. Thank you, Holy Spirit, for pointing this out. I don’t want to keep living in the past, and the future and completely overlook the only real moment: the present moment. I choose to live in that eternal moment.

I used to have many untrue thoughts every day, but not now.

Typically, I have only a few times during the day when I am aware of ego peace stealing thoughts. For the most part, I simply turn from those thoughts as untrue and unimportant. When they do attract my attention enough to be a problem, I have a solution. Three reparative thoughts help me when this happens. Any one of them will get me back to peace fairly quickly.

Here are some quick and easy ways to return to peace.

If my mind were perfectly healed, nothing would bother me, not even this. This sentence reminds me that the problem, whatever it is, is not an obstacle unless I choose to let it be so. And from there, I can question the premise on which I base my upset.

I am always upset because of a belief in my mind. I never question or doubt that this is true. It is never about the other person or the circumstances. It is always about a thought in my mind. The person or the situation might trigger the problem, but it could not trigger it if it were not already there.

The only thing that is happening here is that I asked the ego what this situation means. This one really clears my head. It is often the most helpful because it directly leads to correction. From this recognition, I can cancel out my judgment and ask the Holy Spirit what the situation means and what to do about it. This nearly always leads to peace and generally very quickly.

I have few interruptions in my peace now because I believe those three statements and practice them diligently. I have discovered for myself that peace is in my mind all the time. All I have to do is let go of what blocks it from my awareness. This day I will spend with my Father. And should anything distract me from my decision, I will simply choose again.

There was a lot of ego resistance in the past, and I had to practice diligently.

Jesus is telling me that no matter what is happening to me right now, I can be at peace. When everything is going well, this is easy to believe, and I do believe it. When everything starts falling apart, I still believe it but sometimes can’t figure out how to do it. I woke up with a worry thought, and so what a blessing this lesson is to me. “I don’t know how to be at peace today, Holy Spirit, but You know how to teach me this. I am ready to learn.”

The interesting thing about what I just thought of and wrote here is that the moment I typed it out, the mind resisted, like a dog pulling back on its leash. The ego mind wants the drama of the day, not the peace of God. The ego thought in my mind is that the world is a scary place, and there is no end to what can go wrong.

Listen to this long enough, and death seems to be a solution. This is the ego’s ultimate goal. But the ego is not me, it is just a thought system made by me for a very particular purpose, and now I am through with it. I hold to my prayer. “I don’t know how to be at peace today, Holy Spirit, but You know how to teach me this. I am ready to learn.”

Here is an entry in a past journal when I was learning to deny the denial of truth.

The other night I did not sleep well, and I did not get my full seven hours. I knew I was going to be doing things until well into the evening, so I had the thought that I was going to be tired and not enjoy myself, even that I would not do a good job today because of it. Then I remembered that I do not have to accept this interpretation of how things are.

This is the meaning I had given this situation, and I could change my mind. I had a choice. So I offered the day to the Holy Spirit. I was willing to be wrong. Just because I had decided that seven hours of sleep is optimal for me and that less has consequences doesn’t mean that it is true. It may seem to be true for me as long as I choose that belief, but that is not the same thing as truth.

This situation is a perfect example of how I often deny God’s peace.

I was not at that moment tired, but I anticipated being tired. I didn’t have anything to worry about at that moment, so I borrow from a nonexistent future. It helped me see how determined I am to be what I was not created to be, small, vulnerable, and at the mercy of every little thing in the universe.

What a sad little caricature of God’s glorious creation I have made. No wonder I am filled with unconscious guilt. The good news is the prayer that followed these thoughts. I do not have to keep the meaning I gave this situation. I have the Holy Spirit within my mind simply waiting for me to ask for a new interpretation so that He can give it to me.

Next, I noticed that the body was experiencing symptoms of lack of sleep despite my prayer. I had a headache, felt groggy and heavy, and my heart fluttered. At one time, I would have accepted this as proof that lack of sleep is the cause of these things and there is nothing I can do about it. It is a fact. Now I accept it as proof that the ego part of my mind wants to be right and wants to prove that it is wrong to think there is another way to believe.

I am reminded that I first have the thought, and the experience follows.

My thoughts are not the effect of the experience; the experience is the effect of the thoughts. Only an ego sleight of hand makes me think I am having an experience and then thinking about it. I stand with the Holy Spirit on this and wait for my body to catch up with the new program.

I look forward to a day of mind-watching. I will spend all day long practicing what I have come to call catch and release thinking. I catch myself thinking untrue thoughts; I then release them to the Holy Spirit. Like an avid fisherman who doesn’t eat fish, I am excited to be fishing and happy not to keep what I catch. Each time I notice that I am choosing to follow the ego rather than Holy Spirit and change my mind, I am bringing myself closer to the time when I spend my day in perfect peace. I choose to believe Jesus when he says this is possible. Now I just need to do my part to clear the way for it.

To enjoy the Pathways of Light Insights on ACIM Lesson 255 click here.

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