ACIM Daily Lesson 363 This holy instant would I give to You. Be You in charge. For I would follow You, certain that Your direction gives me peace.
This holy instant would I give to You. Be You in charge.
Photo by John Gardiner of Whangarei, New Zealand
Lesson 363
This holy instant would I give to You. Be You in charge. For I would follow You, certain that Your direction gives me peace.
1. And if I need a word to help me, He will give it to me. ²If I need a thought, that will He also give. ³And if I need but stillness and a tranquil, open mind, these are the gifts I will receive of Him. ⁴He is in charge by my request. ⁵And He will hear and answer me, because He speaks for God my Father and His holy Son.
And if I need a word to help me, He will give it to me.
So many times, I have asked for a word or many words when I didn’t know how to respond. The words always come from Him when I ask. Thank you, God, for that. If I speak from my ego mind, I am not going to be helpful. On the contrary, I will just add to the illusion. Over time, I have learned to ask and accept those words even if I want to resist them. Not that I never make a mistake, but even if I do, I can choose again by making a decision for God. As Jesus tells us in Chapter 5, it is easy to do this.
⁵Your part is merely to return your thinking to the point at which the error was made and give it over to the Atonement in peace. ⁶Say this to yourself as sincerely as you can, remembering that the Holy Spirit will respond fully to your slightest invitation:
⁷I must have decided wrongly, because I am not at peace.
⁸I made the decision myself, but I can also decide otherwise.
⁹I want to decide otherwise, because I want to be at peace.
¹⁰I do not feel guilty, because the Holy Spirit will undo all the consequences of my wrong decision if I will let Him.
¹¹I choose to let Him, by allowing Him to decide for God for me.
If I need a thought, that will He also give.
When I am dealing with a guilt thought, I ask for His thoughts to help me see it differently. Sometimes the thoughts come quickly to mind, sometimes, they come through someone else. Or I might be guided to a place in A Course in Miracles that clarifies the situation for me. If I am stuck in some thought pattern, I will ask Him to give me His thoughts, and then I will start writing. In this way, He can expand on the answer without the ego hijacking it before it is complete. Above all, I trust Him to answer always.
And if I need but stillness and a tranquil, open mind, these are the gifts I will receive of Him.
Ahh. This is the end result of whatever He gives me, words or thoughts. But sometimes, it seems, I don’t need words or thoughts. What I receive is just the end result, a still and tranquil mind. It can happen miraculously, in which case I go from chaotic thinking to peace in a breath. Or it can happen in gentle steps. What is needed from me is the desire for healing, and I receive whatever is helpful to me at that moment. I can only say thank you, thank you, thank you.
All I have to do is step away from the problem.
Then I can let the answers come to me rather than trying to figure it all out myself. One thing I have noticed about the Holy Spirit is that It is always in the present moment. I talked about the time I decided to become a minister, and it is funny to think of it that way because I didn’t decide, really.
One day I had a thought that I should study the Course in a more structured way. At that time, I thought that was my idea. A little time later, I bought a computer. I thought that was my idea, too. Later still, I decided to see what I could find on the internet about A Course in Miracles. I thought that was just an idle thought, a way to learn how to use the computer.
This was the first time in my life I had ever used a computer, and I knew nothing about them or even what the internet was. The second place I went on the computer brought me to was Pathways of Light and I saw that they offered courses on A Course in Miracles. And I thought how neat it was that I wanted a structured way to study the Course and, look here, I found it.
After I took a couple of those courses, I realized something.
If I continued to take these courses, I would be a minister. At that moment, I felt a resounding yes in my heart. I didn’t understand that, and my ego argued against it, but it was too real to ignore, so I just accepted it. I then understood that none of this was an accident and that these great ideas I had were actually the Voice for God speaking to me.
The Holy Spirit has continued to guide me one step at a time in many ways in my life. He didn’t tell me that I was to spend the rest of my life walking this path and that I needed to get a computer and learn to use the internet and that I would need to find Pathways of Light and become a minister. And yet, each step of the way, I was guided to what was needed at that moment and only at that moment.
Regina’s Tips
Spiritual students sometimes lose all clarity when it comes to politics or pet political issues like the environment, women’s rights, minorities’ rights, etcetera. They may argue that their emotional involvement is coming from compassion, but there is a distinct difference between compassion and the political ego.
Compassion comes from the right-mind. Compassion can move us to become involved in world-issues in some helpful way, but it is humble in feeling and non-judgmental in thought. It accepts the world as it is, does not pick one side over another, and acts with right-action too. This is a balance the ego cannot maintain.
In contrast, the political ego is typically aggressive in some way. Its thought system is filled with judgment and attack.
Also:
The political ego is not as concerned with helping the world as it pretends. Its primary interest is taking a stand. In its own way, it wages war from its point of view.
To be moved by compassion without taking a stand is an aspect of humility. A stand, regardless of what the stand is, is the ego’s way, not salvation’s way.
My Thoughts
I wobbled a bit on this when certain things occurred that triggered my fears. I became embroiled with my political ego and felt justified in doing so. Then I would come to my senses and realize that I was judging and attacking. I would then do some root cause inquiry to find the fear that was driving this behavior.
I would forgive that and be good for a while, then be back in it again. Finally, I have come to my senses, hopefully, to stay there. I see things very differently now. I still help where I can, and I will vote in the next election according to what feels most loving to me. But I am done with judging other opinions and other people. The peace of God is everything I want.
A Message I received from the Holy Spirit when I asked for one.
Holy Spirit: Let this be a day of surrender. Do not write on this day what you would have it be even though you are certain you know what needs to be written there. Surrender this day to Me. Trust Me. Many times today, I am going to ask you to empty your mind of all meaningless thoughts. I will not ask that you do anything you cannot do. I will not ask that you keep your mind empty, only that you be willing to rest in quiet for moments at a time. Give me these brief moments of silence and hear what I say to you.
Me: Yes.
2017
How interesting that I should have awakened to worry thoughts. This used to happen a lot, but it has been a while since that was the case. I might have a worry thought in my mind occasionally, but it is usually quickly dispelled. This morning it was like someone left the floodgates open, and with one worry came many. I felt a moment of panic. I mean, who wants to go back to living like that? But I kept talking to the Holy Spirit about what was happening and about releasing it to Him. When I opened my journal and began reading the past entries, I smiled.
I loved seeing the message from the Holy Spirit, and right away, the stress fell away. Then I laughed to see what the other writings had to say. This morning my stress was about things over which I have no control, and trying to gain control by making plans on my own was upsetting me. As I made plans, I began to feel more upset because it was clear that nothing I did would make a real impact on the problems. By the time I had finished reading my journal, my prayer became one of trust, surrender, and gratitude. All I really want is the peace of God and peace is mine as soon as I turn to God rather than to my ego mind for help. Never mind, ego. I have no questions for you. I choose the Holy Spirit as my guide and my healer.
2015
I have been fighting the urge to plan and to decide on my own what must be done this week. I have the week off, and I have a list of things that seem very important to me that I want to do. This anxiety about finishing my list is robbing me of the joy of the moment. It is, more importantly, robbing me of my freedom. The ego says freedom is making plans and deciding for myself, but Holy Spirit says that freedom is quite the opposite.
As I surrender all of this to Him, He shows me what real freedom is. I feel uplifted and safe and absolutely invulnerable. I feel the strength that is God flowing through me. I feel happy and unlimited. Now Jesus is saying that I should return to my little self and contrast these feelings. In this way, I can make the only sane choice, and this choice will be meaningful because I have looked at both options.
But I don’t want to let this feeling go. I don’t want to feel the ego in my mind anymore. “Hey, Brother, I remember what that feels like, the ego anxiety, guilt, anger, stress, and all that. I have lived in it for far too long. I want only to awaken.” Now he is asking me about specific areas of my life that I have clung to as if they were my salvation. I am sitting in quiet for a moment as I try to be honest about this…
Ok, I’m back.
One of the things he showed me is that there is strong resistance to giving up choices, but he also stayed with me as I realized that there is only one choice, and that is for God. Everything else is an illusion of choice and leads only to pain and suffering. I saw this and felt it in my mind; this is what he meant by contrasting the two feelings. There is still a pretty strong belief that surrender is losing and that multiple choices are valuable.
It is not true, though. The more choices the ego mind tempted me with, the more anxiety I felt. Anxiety is not freedom, it is imprisonment. That is what I am to learn. The ability to choose fear and guilt is not freedom but imprisonment. I am meant for joy and beauty and perfect peace, and choosing something else is not freedom.
As I realize this, the ego mind insists that this is going to be very hard, and I have thoughts of what I will have to do to maintain my freedom, but Jesus reminds me that I have only one thing to do; my only function is to accept what I am, to desire this reality. He asks only that of me that I desire to surrender the toys of war and walk unencumbered by illusions of pain and suffering into the arms of my loving Father.
Contemplation 2025
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