A Course in Miracles Workbook Daily Lesson 298, Year 2022

ACIM Daily Lesson 298 I love You, Father, and I love Your Son. 1. My gratitude permits my love to be accepted without fear.

Lesson 298

 I love You, Father, and I love Your Son.

1. My gratitude permits my love to be accepted without fear. ²And thus am I restored to my reality at last. ³All that intruded on my holy sight forgiveness takes away. ⁴And I draw near the end of senseless journeys, mad careers and artificial values. ⁵I accept instead what God establishes as mine, sure that in that alone I will be saved; sure that I go through fear to meet my Love.

2. Father, I come to You today, because I would not follow any way but Yours. ²You are beside me. ³Certain is Your way. ⁴And I am grateful for Your holy gifts of certain sanctuary, and escape from everything that would obscure my love for God my Father and His holy Son.

The emphasis here today is to love God and His Son.

What we must recognize is that we cannot love God if we don’t love His Son. This doesn’t mean I love each person in the same way. I won’t love my neighbor in the same way I love my daughter. Instead, it means that the Love itself is the same. And I make no exceptions as to who I love. I know I am getting near the end of the journey because I often feel love for everyone.

What I watch for are temptations to make exceptions so that I have somewhere to project guilt or fear. Projection of guilt doesn’t happen often anymore, and when it does, I see it right away and look with the Holy Spirit so that it is forgiven. I also watch for other ego distractions.

An example would be artificial values like how I look to others. I still embrace that to some extent, and so when I notice, I look with Holy Spirit. I want that forgiven, and it is lessening a lot, but it is a surprisingly stubborn desire. On the other hand, I am certain that I will succeed, and that was not always clear to me in the past.

Pain and sickness are also temptations.

I know this is just guilt making itself known to me, and I appreciate that so that I can look with the Holy Spirit. On the other hand, I sometimes feel frustrated that I will not allow that buried guilt to show itself more clearly. When frustration occurs, I remind myself that discovering and forgiving guilt is why I am here. I am just doing my job, completing my mission, as it were. This reminds me that there is nothing to be concerned about. It’s OK to just relax and allow my desire to go Home to propel me forward.

In the second paragraph, Jesus mentions gratitude. I have discovered the power of gratitude. When I feel frustrated, I often shine the light of gratitude on the situation. In other words, instead of fighting against myself, I let myself feel gratitude for my determination. And also, as Jesus states here, I remember how grateful I am for God’s gifts. Above all, I am grateful for the certainty that, in the end, I will leave the illusion behind, and all will be revealed. I will know my Self and my God.

This morning I woke up to a scattered mind.

I kept bringing myself back to the present moment only to get lost in my thoughts again. They were not even interesting thoughts, just meaningless chatter. I had to read this simple lesson three times before I could get through it without my mind wandering off. I need to do a meditation, and I know that it would be useless with this going on, so I decided to write. Writing is like meditation to me. It settles my mind and brings me back to this one moment in which I exist.

As I began to write, all my concerns fell away, and I remembered that I love God, and I love His Son. I felt gratitude wash through me. Oh, yeah, I really do want only to follow in His way, and I see that only this brings me peace. For a long time now, I have known that the peace of God is everything I want. I can be distracted from that sometimes, but I always come back to it.

I read this from Cate Grieves this morning. Cate awakened through ACIM.

Someone had asked this question. I have chosen you to be my teacher. What helped you awaken?

Cate: Thank you for choosing me as a teacher. The Holy Spirit is your true teacher but I can be used by HS as well.

Some crucial first points are to make sure you get quiet times where you can meditate without interruption. Try for at least half an hour to an hour a day. Twice a day if you can. Morning and night.

Then read Lesson 185, (and Lesson 205) I want the Peace of God. Focus on the willingness to let all else go. Be willing to have all desires for anything else leave. Actively give all other desires to the Holy Spirit. Surrender. Feel in your heart that your only desire is for “the peace of God.” Feel it 100%. Mean these words with every part of you.

There is nothing complicated about this; it is really so simple. I am at peace now and filled with gratitude. I remember what matters, and I remember that my mind is not my ruler. And so, I don’t have to follow these senseless thoughts. I can disregard them completely. It is kind of like watching the sun come out from behind a dark cloud.

Regina’s Tips

NTI Matthew, Chapter 11, says:

The search for truth is not truth itself, so do not stop there. Many have heard the call to search and have accepted it, but then they have stopped, thinking themselves complete. You are not complete until you are Truth, so do not stop at the call. It is your beginning, but it is not your end. To find the truth, you must walk until your end.

Today’s lesson is the recognition that “senseless journeys” are futile. The only meaningful journey is the journey toward Self-realization, and the end of that journey is sure.

Following are two entries from the past. Here is the first one.

Once again, I slept for a couple of hours and then woke up. So here I am, God. If I am going to be awake, I want to spend that time with You. I read this lesson, and I know in my heart that it is true. I know that I am drawing near the end of senseless journeys and I am so filled with gratitude that it is so.

Someone dear to me is in the hospital, and I felt my feet turning down that old familiar path of ego worry and fear. But instead, I realized that I didn’t have to do that anymore. I opened my heart to whatever needed to be felt, and then I told the Holy Spirit that I wanted to be free now. He heard my earnest request and answered me.

He showed me that my fear was of an uncertain future, and then He showed me that this present moment is all I need it to be. I know He has guided me to that understanding before, but this time His message seemed crystal clear to me. Move into the future, and I suffer. Stay in the moment, and I don’t. I went back and forth with it a few times as I took in what He was demonstrating for me. And yes, it was true every time.

I felt my heart lighten, and the worry and fear evaporated like water on a hot surface, and it was gone. I went through fear to meet my Love. More than ever before, I choose to follow only His Way. I accept your gifts, my Father, and I gladly give them to each of your children that you send my way.

This is the second one. I’m not sure when either of these happened.

Jesus says that what I need to return Home are gratitude, forgiveness, and acceptance. It took a while, but I finally realized what it means to forgive. I recognize that nothing was done that needs forgiveness. Here is an example of this. My co-worker seemed to be attacking me. If I told the story, many would agree that, obviously, she is a mean-spirited and devious person.

In a state of forgiveness, I recognize that this personality is not her but just a character she is dreaming of. In her dream, she wants to be happy but is confused about what will make her happy. I understand this because it is often true for me. Also, in my dream, I see her as mean-spirited and devious, and through the process of forgiveness, I recognize those qualities. They were once in me and sometimes still are. I am projecting onto her. That shouldn’t be a surprise, but somehow it is.

I also recognize that she can’t hurt me unless I agree to be hurt.

If she says something unkind, in order for that to hurt me, I must, at some level, believe what she says is true. So it is my thoughts and beliefs that hurt me, not what she says. This can be useful to me because she is reflecting back to me what I believe and what can be undone for me if I ask and accept the answer.

If she were to get me fired with her words, I would watch my thoughts for anger and fear and ask for the Atonement for them, and I would look with anticipation to see where Spirit would have me next. Again, I see that she does nothing to me except trigger a response that lets me know what still needs to be healed in my mind. This is what it is like to live in a state of forgiveness.

I fully understand acceptance as well.

The Holy Spirit guides me all through the day, but sometimes I am not willing to follow. I don’t accept His words as true, or I don’t accept that He has my best interests in mind. When this happens, it is because I think there is some value in not forgiving, and I am afraid to let go of the grievance I believe it is my salvation.

The co-worker I spoke of before is an example. At first, she seemed like a real threat to my happiness, and I resented her and was angry with her and with my boss for hiring her. I was in a nearly constant state of stress and blamed her for that, making her guilty and thus reinforcing the belief in guilt in my own mind.

I was very unhappy with the state of things but having worked with the Course for a long time, I knew exactly what to do. First, I had to question my belief that I needed my grievance. I then asked the Holy Spirit to show me another way to see this. I asked Him to heal my mind of my unforgiving thoughts. And since I asked, I was answered.

The next step required that I accept the answer, which took a little time. I felt a sense of relief immediately and thought I was done with it. Sometimes, that does happen, but not this time. This time I had to look at my thoughts over and over, each time asking for another way to see, asking to be relieved of the burden of my judgment. Eventually, I began to feel a real shift in my feelings about this person. I was able to see her as my sister and my beloved.

Gratitude was harder for me, and I don’t know why.

I just didn’t see the benefit. I mean, gratitude is a nice feeling but didn’t understand why it is important, even necessary. And yet, Jesus talks about gratitude a lot, so I knew I must have been missing something. I saw that it was impossible to make myself grateful, and so I trusted that gratitude would make an appearance when I removed what was blocking it.

I continued to do the work that showed up for me, watching my mind, paying attention to my feelings, and asking the Holy Spirit to help me change my mind. So, I did this consistently and learned not to be afraid of my reactions and to be patient with myself.

And one day, I realized that I was so grateful. I was grateful for my forgiveness opportunities, for my friends, my family, and for the stranger on the street. And I was grateful to feel this connection that seemed to be evolving into a feeling of unity, then oneness.

I was grateful for nearly everything that showed up in my life, and when I was more afraid than grateful, I asked for help, and I was grateful when I received it. Another thing that helped immensely was a Pathways of Light course in gratitude that I took. Gratitude was becoming my natural response to life.

Then another remarkable shift occurred, and I began to feel gratitude show up for no reason at all. Like love, it was just there, revealing itself to me. This is still not a constant state for me, but it becomes so more and more, and I did nothing to make this happen. I simply learned to desire and accept it when my desire was answered.

Contemplation 2025

To enjoy the Pathways of Light Insights on ACIM Lesson 298 click here.

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