ACIM Chapter 7. I. The Last Step, P 5, 6, 7. I gave only love to the Kingdom because I believed that was what I was.
ACIM Chapter 7. I. The Last Step, P 5, 6, 7
I. The Last Step, P 5
5 I gave only love to the Kingdom because I believed that was what I was. What you believe you are determines your gifts, and if God created you by extending Himself as you, you can only extend yourself as He did. Only joy increases forever, since joy and eternity are inseparable. God extends outward beyond limits and beyond time, and you who are co-creator with Him extend His Kingdom forever and beyond limit. Eternity is the indelible stamp of creation. The eternal are in peace and joy forever.
One morning, I woke up at 3:00, and my mind was filled with ego fear thoughts. I don’t know why it is that sometimes when I am tired, all the unhealed thoughts come up for me to look at. At first, I felt a little of the old vulnerability as I started following the fear thoughts down the rabbit hole. But even in that half-asleep state, I knew I didn’t want to go there.
I lay there asking for another way to see. I listened to the Course at night, playing softly in my sleep, and suddenly I focused on what was being said. He was talking about fear. I lay there and listened to the soothing and helpful words. At first, there was a sense of struggle as the ego continued its litany of “what if” thoughts. I steadfastly refused to turn my attention back to the ego fear thoughts, and my willingness to hear the Voice for God won out.
I looked into my mind for the thoughts I think with God.
It is not God’s Will that I suffer. I remembered that the future does not exist and returned my mind to the present moment where all is as it should be. I lay there in that rather nice hotel room with the comforting words of Jesus softly filling the room. What else could I have wanted right that moment? What was there to fear?
I can find fearful thoughts only if I leave the moment and project myself into some imagined experience in an uncertain future. Why would I choose to do that? Right now, right this moment, I am choosing love over fear, and in so doing, I am healing the Sonship of the belief in fear. I am safe in God, where I have always been and will always be. God loves me, and I love Him. Ahh. The true thoughts are right there in my mind. Why choose to focus on the ego fear thoughts instead? No good reason.
Jesus gave only love because that was all he believed about himself. If I hold onto the belief in fear, the gift I have to share will be fear. I will share love sometimes, but at other times, I will share fear, and what I give to others, I give to myself. As I teach fear, I learn fear. Do you see the closed cycle?
There is a way out of it, though, and it begins with a little willingness.
At one time, I had a little willingness to remember who I am and a little willingness to let go of my separate will. As I practiced that willingness, it grew and continues to grow. One day, my desire to be only the love I am in truth will be so great there will be no room for fear. That morning at three o’clock, I made another decision for God, and the day I knew myself as only love got another step closer.
I must succeed at changing my perception because I am as God created me. The experience of being less than love and joy is an illusion. It must be an illusion because I can only be what I am created to be. I dream of being less than creation, but I cannot be that. These passages that remind me of the truth are important. The world cannot tell me what I am, only the Holy Spirit can do that. God’s Voice speaks to me all through the day. I only need to listen to that Voice rather than to the ego.
I. The Last Step, P 6
6 To think like God is to share His certainty of what you are, and to create like Him is to share the perfect Love He shares with you. To this the Holy Spirit leads you, that your joy may be complete because the Kingdom of God is whole. I have said that the last step in the reawakening of knowledge is taken by God. This is true, but it is hard to explain in words because words are symbols, and nothing that is true need be explained. However, the Holy Spirit has the task of translating the useless into the useful, the meaningless into the meaningful, and the temporary into the timeless. He can therefore tell you something about this last step.
We are getting into the unexplainable. I remember how frustrated I used to get when the Church said in answer to my questions, “It’s a mystery.” Well, I don’t know if the last step is a mystery, but certainly, we will be left without an explanation that the ego will find satisfactory. I doubt the words exist to explain God. We have closed our minds off from the Divine and the eternal. It is like we have built a little room that keeps the light out, and we have existed in darkness for so long that we no longer remember light. Now we want someone to explain it to us.
What can happen is that we can desire the light, and then we will be led to take down the walls of our little room and enter the light. This is what A Course in Miracles is doing for us. One carefully planned step at a time, we are being guided to uncover our true desire for the Light and instructed in the dismantling process.
What I can see now in retrospect is that my awakening has been very carefully planned.
I often don’t see the circumstances and the lessons as part of the overall plan. In fact, I have often thought they were just mistakes I had made. Missteps on my way to Heaven. In actuality, it turns out they were perfect steps on my path. They led me out of the darkness and into the light.
Through reading the Text, which introduced me to the idea I had a path and drew me toward it; through doing the lessons, which began the process of changing my mind and increased my willingness for something else; and then through vigilance in watching my mind for wrong-minded thoughts and accepting the Atonement for them, I have begun to dismantle my little room.
Light has entered my mind, and while I have not invited it into every dark corner yet, I know something of light, and I so my desire for light increases daily. My anticipation grows as I remove more obstacles to the light. And now I watch eagerly as my Guide directs me to the next dark place and waits for permission to shine light into it.
I. The Last Step, 7
7 God does not take steps, because His accomplishments are not gradual. He does not teach, because His creations are changeless. He does nothing last, because He created first and for always. It must be understood that the word “first” as applied to Him is not a time concept. He is first in the sense that He is the First in the Holy Trinity Itself. He is the Prime Creator, because He created His co-creators. Because He did, time applies neither to Him nor to what He created. The “last step” that God will take was therefore true in the beginning, is true now, and will be true forever. What is timeless is always there, because its being is eternally changeless. It does not change by increase, because it was forever created to increase. If you perceive it as not increasing you do not know what it is. You also do not know Who created it. God does not reveal this to you because it was never hidden. His light was never obscured, because it is His Will to share it. How can what is fully shared be withheld and then revealed?
I don’t know what to say about this.
God is not something I can put into words or even understand. My mind is too firmly rooted in time and space right now. What I can say is that God does not hide Himself from me and that He is always available. It is I who is hiding from Him. I continue to remove the blocks in my mind that keep me from knowing what is clearly meant to be accessible to me.
The Course tells us that God takes the last step and then tells us that God does not take steps. The last step taken by God is just a way that we can understand. It is using words to describe something we cannot understand through words. I accept that now because I no longer have a strong desire to use my ego mind to work things out.
I’m okay with not understanding in the usual way. I am willing to wait until I am ready for the thoughts of God to be revealed to me, knowing from experience that I don’t have to do anything to make this happen. When I am ready for a truth, it will simply be there.
“Jesus, is there anything you want me to know about this?”
Jesus: While you are not God, the Prime Creator, you are like God in every other way. You are all that God is, and you have all the creative power that God has. You are part of God and in God. That is all that I can tell you about your relationship with God at this time. What is important for you to know is that while you are identical to God, God is First. He created you, but you cannot create Him. This is the difference, and it is a most important difference to you at this time because this is a point of confusion for the separated ones. To see themselves as separate, they must necessarily believe that they created themselves.
When I say “you” are like God in every way, I am not speaking of the ego personality self that you most closely identify with, even now. I am speaking of the “you” that is one holy Self. It is the We, the Christ, that I speak of. But that is you, and you will know that as yourself when you are no longer confused, just as I know my Self now. At that time, you will understand what I am saying to you without the limitation imposed by words. In the meantime, it is useful for you to know that what you understand now stands somewhere between wrong and woefully incomplete. Be satisfied with that little bit of understanding. Continue to follow Guidance until you are out of the wilderness of your confused thinking.
Me: Thank you. I can do that.
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