ACIM 5. VI. Time and Eternity, P 1, 2. God in His knowledge is not waiting, but His Kingdom is bereft while you wait.

VI. Time and Eternity

¹ God in His knowledge is not waiting, but His Kingdom is bereft while you wait. All the Sons of God are waiting for your return, just as you are waiting for theirs. Delay does not matter in eternity, but it is tragic in time. You have elected to be in time rather than eternity, and therefore believe you are in time. Yet your election is both free and alterable. You do not belong in time. Your place is only in eternity, where God Himself placed you forever.  

This is pretty straightforward, but two things stand out to me. First, all the Sons of God are waiting for my return, and evidently, I feel the loss of them as well, even though I am the one who left. Since I don’t remember this leaving, and I don’t remember what it was like to be in eternity, I could say that it seems like they are missing from me.  

I don’t miss them in the same way that I miss my son, who lives several hours away. Missing the other Sons of God is more of an unidentified longing. The ego mind offers me one reason after another for this longing. I feel like I need more money, more friends, better health, and a more attractive body. Then I stay forever busy trying to get these things, and even when I do, I still feel unsatisfied. These are just distracting substitutes to keep me from answering the real source of my longing. I cannot be kept from God, though, and as I am waking up, I am asking the Holy Spirit to remove the thoughts that block my awareness of the Kingdom and my place in it.  

Tragic in Time

One might argue that since the world is not real, the stories do not matter, so we may as well just enjoy them. But that brings up the second thing that caught my attention and why I am tired of delaying my inevitable return Home. “Delay does not matter in eternity, but it is tragic in time.” It is tragic because I believe in time, and I believe in what I made. I believe in war, hatred, and attack. I believe in rape and assault and murder. I believe my heart can break and that death can tear love from me.  

Because I believe in these things, they are true for me, so the delay from the release of this nightmare existence is tragic. For me. While I believe I am here. My release is simple. I stopped believing in this existence. My belief has imprisoned me, so the key to my release is believing in something else. What I believe in is You, God. I believe in Your promises. I believe in my Divinity. And I believe I belong, not here in time, but with You in eternity. Please heal my unbelief.

2 VI. Time and Eternity, P 2

² Guilt feelings are the preservers of time. They induce fears of retaliation or abandonment, and thus ensure that the future will be like the past. This is the ego’s continuity. It gives the ego a false sense of security by believing that you cannot escape from it. But you can and must. God offers you the continuity of eternity in exchange. When you choose to make this exchange, you will simultaneously exchange guilt for joy, viciousness for love, and pain for peace. My role is only to unchain your will and set it free. Your ego cannot accept this freedom, and will oppose it at every possible moment and in every possible way. And as its maker, you recognize what it can do because you gave it the power to do it.  

I used to feel very guilty for not being a good mother. My children assured me I was a good mother, but I knew better. I knew of every awful mistake I made. I knew that I often put my own desires before the needs of my children. I could not hide from my own inadequacies. Because I was so filled with guilt, I expected my children to abandon me, perhaps literally, and certainly to abandon loving me.  

My Expectations Became My Reality

Because I fully expected this, I frequently interpreted their actions and words to prove this was happening. They would remark about something I said, and I would think it meant they didn’t love me or they didn’t respect me because they knew my secret shame. If they failed to visit, it must be because they were glad to be free of me, and if they did visit, it was because they felt guilty for not visiting.  

Eventually, I would resent this perceived unloving behavior and feel angry about it and at them. I would reason that they were unfair, judgmental, and harsh. I would reason that I made mistakes but did so much for them and tried hard to make up for my errors. In so doing, I made them guilty for how I felt. Then, I would feel guilty for doing this. And so, the cycle continued.  

The ego loves this kind of reasoning, this harsh self-judgment, and this defensiveness. It loves the cycle that seems unbreakable because it guarantees the continuation of the ego. But the ego is mistaken. The cycle can be broken. As my mind began to heal, I looked at these special relationships and saw how sick they were. I asked for healing, and slowly, over time, I accepted that healing. The Holy Spirit simply removed those mistaken and disordered thoughts from my mind because I asked Him to and wanted to be free more than I wanted to be guilty.  

Learning About Responsibility

It was hard for me while the exchange was going on because my ego opposed it at every turn. The ego kept showing me my errors and insisting I take responsibility for them, which in ego language means that I must remain guilty for them forever. The Holy Spirit showed me another way to be responsible. He showed me that I was responsible for recognizing they were not truth, and I was responsible for allowing Him to undo them.  

The last sentence in this paragraph is very important. It says, “And as its maker, you recognize what it can do because you gave it the power to do it.” The ego could torture me with the past because I gave it the power to do so. I am learning that all stories of guilt and shame are in place as long as I want them, and only that long. I can notice the story at any time and decide I don’t need it anymore.  

What Am I Without My Stories?

I don’t need the story of being a bad mom. It has disappeared from my mind. Now, their remarks are just remarks. They call when they want to, and they don’t call when they don’t want to, and it doesn’t mean anything either way. I gave the ego its power to torture me with the past to ensure the future would be the same. I changed my mind, so now the ego doesn’t have that power.  

The ego insists that without my stories, there will be nothing left of me, that the very fabric of my being will come undone, and the world will dissolve all around me and me with it. I suspect that it is right about the world I see. And it is right about the little ego me coming undone. But I will remain because I am not the ego or its stories. I simply am. I have all power over the ego because I made it, so I can unmake it. But I did not create myself, so I cannot affect that Self.  

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