ACIM Chapter 12. II. The Way to Remember God, P 7-10

ACIM Chapter 12. II. The Way to Remember God, P 7-10

II. The Way to Remember God, P 7

7 A little while and you will see me, for I am not hidden because you are hiding. I will awaken you as surely as I awakened myself, for I awoke for you. In my resurrection is your release. Our mission is to escape from crucifixion, not from redemption. Trust in my help, for I did not walk alone, and I will walk with you as our Father walked with me. Do you not know that I walked with Him in peace? And does not that mean that peace goes with us on the journey?

I read, “I will awaken you as surely as I awakened myself,” and I just sat and cried awhile. It was tears of joy but also tears of longing. It’s kind of a mixed bag, but that is where I am right now. Kind of mixed up. I know what I never knew before, but I also become confused, still. I also cry tears of gratitude that I cannot stay in this mixed-up place forever because I do not walk this path alone.

Jesus is very real to me now. I know that on some level I have not reached yet, this is not exactly accurate. He is me, and I am him, and we are not separate in any way, nor are we separate from God. But right here, right now, in this place and state in which I know myself, Jesus is my brother, and I walk with him in complete trust. I turn to him in my fear and my guilt and my confusion, and just as he promised, he takes my hand and walks me through it.

II. The Way to Remember God, P 8

8 There is no fear in perfect love. We will but be making perfect to you what is already perfect in you. You do not fear the unknown but the known. You will not fail in your mission because I did not fail in mine. Give me but a little trust in the name of the complete trust I have in you, and we will easily accomplish the goal of perfection together. For perfection is, and cannot be denied. To deny the denial of perfection is not so difficult as to deny truth, and what we can accomplish together will be believed when you see it as accomplished.

What I understand from this paragraph is that I am perfect, and all that is being done now through this study and through my acceptance is that I am choosing to know this perfection. My desire to know is my part and my practices feed my desire and my willingness. I cannot fail in my mission to awaken because Jesus did not fail in his. What is accomplished through him is accomplished in us all. This is done.

All that is left is that I accept that it is done through my desire that it be done and through my willingness that it be done. So, I continue to do the lessons, to read the Text, to allow the Holy Spirit to heal my mind. I continue to be vigilant for my thoughts and willing to be corrected when they are not in alignment with the truth. And I continue to do these things as long as is needed until perfection is seen as accomplished. I trust Jesus, and in that trust, I have come to trust myself as well.

II. The Way to Remember God, P 9

9 You who have tried to banish love have not succeeded, but you who choose to banish fear must succeed. The Lord is with you, but you know it not. Yet your Redeemer liveth, and abideth in you in the peace out of which He was created. Would you not exchange this awareness for the awareness of fear? When we have overcome fear—not by hiding it, not by minimizing it, and not by denying its full import in any way—this is what you will really see. You cannot lay aside the obstacles to real vision without looking upon them, for to lay aside means to judge against. If you will look, the Holy Spirit will judge, and He will judge truly. Yet He cannot shine away what you keep hidden, for you have not offered it to Him and He cannot take it from you.

As Jesus tells us often, we are only pretending to abandon love because it cannot be done. What can and must be done is that we abandon fear. We will do that because the Lord is with us. We can be aware of this rather than aware of fear. The way we do this is simple. We overcome fear when we stop hiding, denying, and minimizing. Trying to use the ego mind to rid ourselves of it in some way is how we keep it.

We must give our fear thoughts to the Holy Spirit to judge for us.

And He will always judge them as false. To give them to Him, we must do more than say the words. There must be a willingness to really see the fear, to acknowledge the impact it has on us. That means feeling the fear.

This is an example from a past journal.

I have something that must be done at work, and so far, I have not succeeded. I started getting anxious about that. Then, I was talking to my son on the phone, and he was describing his efforts to get his finances in order. This brought up mine, and I told him how my plans to retire are coming along. Then I told him I had not yet added up my basic costs to see if my income would cover everything. I knew that I was avoiding this out of fear.

When I went to bed, these worries were on my mind, and I couldn’t sleep. I tried to put them aside, but they kept coming back. I wanted to reassure myself that it would all work out and thought about solutions to the problems. But I could feel myself getting more and more anxious. So, I stopped the runaway fear thoughts by reminding myself of what matters.

I reminded myself that the peace of God is everything I want.

I did this several times. There is a little card above my desk that says, “Holy Spirit, I’m listening.” I thought about that card each time the ego tried to drag me back into the fear. “I’m listening, Holy Spirit.” He told me that I am loved and safe and that the peace of God is mine. He reminded me that I am not a victim of my thoughts. That was very helpful.

I know that the ego mind will try to engage me in fear and guilt thoughts until the desire for them is completely gone. It is not surprising that it happens at times, and each time it does, I look with the Holy Spirit and make a choice. There was a time when it would have taken me days to let my fear go. There was a time when the fear would have consumed me and left me shaking and crying.

Now, I notice fearful thoughts and turn to the Holy Spirit immediately. I am not afraid of the thoughts, and I am not willing to keep them. Last night, I was anxious and began to obsess about these problems, but I am used to peace now, and I can’t maintain this kind of anxiety. I miss peace as soon as I give it up, and I want it back.

Yes, sitting in fear was uncomfortable, but I can’t give it up unless I look at it with Spirit, feel it, and acknowledge its effect on me. By doing that, I can then truly decide if I want to keep it or let it go. When I asked the Holy Spirit to take these thoughts from me, I knew what I was asking and was certain of my decision. And it was done.

II. The Way to Remember God, P 10

10 We are therefore embarking on an organized, well-structured and carefully planned program aimed at learning how to offer to the Holy Spirit everything you do not want. He knows what to do with it. You do not understand how to use what He knows. Whatever is given Him that is not of God is gone. Yet you must look at it yourself in perfect willingness, for otherwise His knowledge remains useless to you. Surely He will not fail to help you, since help is His only purpose. Do you not have greater reason for fearing the world as you perceive it, than for looking at the cause of fear and letting it go forever?

I notice that I have a couple of areas in my life that I seem determined to defend against God’s Love. Even though I have let so much go, some problems remain. I am tempted to think of them as harder or more important or proof that not all healing is possible. But the truth is, I don’t have different problems; I have one problem. It just shows up in different forms.

One of those forms that I have not allowed the Holy Spirit to correct for me is this. I make choices not to do certain things, and then I do them anyway. For instance, I decide not to eat sugar, and then before the day is out, I have succumbed to the desire for a pastry. Then I feel guilty and weak and helpless against my own compulsions. Very ego of me, isn’t it?

And that is the point.

The only problem I have is that I think I separated myself from God. That belief makes itself known in the world of time and space as this situation in which I seem to prove over and over that I cannot be part of God because, obviously, I am weak and helpless. Failing to stop eating sugar is just a representation of the desire to remain separate. Eating or not eating sugar is not, in itself, important in any way. It is just a symbol of my fear of Love and my determination to keep it blocked.

When I fail to live up to a commitment I make, the guilt builds for a while, and then, one day, I feel depressed about it. I feel hopeless as well as helpless. I think I will never do this and that even the Holy Spirit has given up on me. And the endless, disheartening cycle continues. Fortunately, while my mind is still split, I am more in touch with the right mind than I used to be, and so I don’t let myself get sucked down into this scary place for too long before I make another choice.

I long for this cycle to be completely broken, and I know it will, just as other projections have been healed. I am reminded that a characteristic of God’s teachers is patience. So, I rest in God for a moment and let my soul be soothed and comforted. I embrace patience, knowing this, too, shall pass, and there is no possibility of failure, so I can indeed afford to be patient. One day, I will let this illusion go forever. Every day as I practice turning to the truth rather than the ego, that time gets closer.

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