ACIM Workbook Daily Lesson 235, Year 2022

ACIM Daily Lesson 235. God in His mercy wills that I be saved.

Lesson 235

God in His mercy wills that I be saved.

1. I need but look upon all things that seem to hurt me, and with perfect certainty assure myself, “God wills that I be saved from this,” and merely watch them disappear. ²I need but keep in mind my Father’s Will for me is only happiness, to find that only happiness has come to me. ³And I need but remember that God’s Love surrounds His Son and keeps his sinlessness forever perfect, to be sure that I am saved and safe forever in His Arms. ⁴I am the Son He loves. ⁵And I am saved because God in His mercy wills it so.

2. Father, Your Holiness is mine. ²Your Love created me, and made my sinlessness forever part of You. ³I have no guilt nor sin in me, for there is none in You.

Salvation Is Releasing Guilt

I notice how often when Jesus talks about salvation, he reminds us that we are innocent. It is the belief in guilt we need to be saved from. The ego is the belief in guilt and fear, so we cannot expect help from that quarter in releasing those beliefs. But if we keep asking the Holy Spirit to look with us at guilt, we will free ourselves. By doing this, we are instructing the mind to see guilt differently, to recognize it as unreal and unwanted.

Guilt was a huge part of my life for many years. I felt intense guilt for even the smallest of transgressions. As a result, I saw others as guilty as well. These days, as a result of vigilant practice in releasing these stories of guilt, this doesn’t happen often, and when it does, I find it easy to let it go. Somedays, however, are exceptions.

God Wills I Be Saved From This

I think this time it started when I went shopping. This happened last year when the wearing of masks was fiercely debated. I started noticing who was wearing a mask and who wasn’t and from there began noticing other separating things, and the ego was off and running. I found it so uncomfortable that I just wanted to go home and hide out in my sanctuary, where I would be isolated from all these triggers.

But hiding out doesn’t heal anything. Avoiding triggers doesn’t get rid of them. Asking the Holy Spirit to show me a different way to perceive things is the solution. Jesus gives us a simple statement in this lesson to get to that true perception. He tells us to say to ourselves, “God wills that I be saved from this,” and merely watch them disappear. He tells us to say this with perfect certainty. We can afford to be certain because seeing guilt is seeing an illusion. Who could be guilty when we are still and always will be as God created us. We are innocent.

From: What Is Salvation?

The Thought of peace was given to God’s Son the instant that his mind had thought of war.

The Thought of peace is the Holy Spirit. The moment we had a thought of war, that is, a conflicted mind, the Answer was given to us. Just as we made up all the stories of separation that could possibly occur, the Answer corrected all those stories. There exists in our mind the script that we are living and the script that represents the Holy Spirit’s correction of it.

On that shopping trip, I watched the script version that represented Myron’s belief in guilt. I had to make a decision that brought me back to the truth of our innocence. This shifted me to the Holy Spirit’s version of the life of Myron, a happier dream of Myron. I also listened to A Course in Miracles all night while I slept, and I dreamed of portions of it being applied to some dream story. Listening to the Course like that sort of resets my mind when it loses its way temporarily. I woke up feeling happy and peaceful again.

What if I Am not Saved from This?

I am certain that everyone who has read this lesson has also had the experience of not being saved from what seems to hurt them. I think that this is because we ask to be saved from the effects of our wrong-minded thinking. We need to ask that we are saved from the thoughts that cause the effects.

That is why I stay vigilant for my thoughts. It is why I release dark thoughts as they come to my attention. It is why I rest in God during the day and invite the spiritual forces working on my behalf to heal my mind. This is how I am saved. As my mind has been corrected, my life has become more peaceful because I don’t have so much darkness in it.

One day when I was feeling uncertain, I asked the Holy Spirit how it is I could believe what Jesus says here. How is it that I am sinless forever and part of God and yet still not have that experience? This is what He gave me.

INSIGHTS FROM HOLY SPIRIT

You do hold in your mind the thought that you are created by Love as Love. You can understand logically that this means you are like God and therefore could not be sinful or suffer the effects of sin. However, that is not the only belief you hold in your mind. You also hold the belief that you did indeed sin against God and that you deserve punishment. Therefore, sin is born anew in your mind each time that idea is brought into awareness. You don’t notice that this is what is happening because the thought seems to take other forms.

Yesterday you allowed a memory to come up for healing. You thought about a time when you were younger, and you were very unkind to your mother. Do you remember how you felt when you reviewed the incident in your mind? You said just thinking about your unloving behavior made you feel like throwing up. You felt very strong guilt, and it seemed to be about your behavior toward your mom, but this is just the mind replaying the sin of betraying God. All of the relationships in your life are opportunities to choose again to decide for ego or for God.

The Guilt Was Intense

You were holding guilt so intense that the thought of it made you feel physically ill. That guilt seemed to be about your mom, but that was just the form it took. The content is always the same; you think you sinned, and so you think you are no longer part of God. This is the source of your guilt, your anger, your fear, and all things that seem to hurt you.

Now I want you to look at something else. There is a voice in your mind that tells you God is the source of your guilt and that God is angry with you and disappointed in you. This voice says that you hurt God with your behavior and that he is going to punish you. In your mind, God becomes the source of all your fears.

Consider this Instead

God has no part in any of this convoluted thinking of the egoic mind. God did not accuse you of anything. He does not care that the body of Myron was mean to the body of Mom. God does not even know the dreams of this illusion. He created His Son perfectly free. So His Son can play in a dream world and pretend to live and die and have dramas in between. And God says yes, play away! But He does not become delusional about the dreams; God does not believe in them. Why then would He call you sinful because you dreamed an unkind drama with your mom?

Who Then Is the Source of Your Fear?

It can only be yourself. You source all that happens to you. Please consider this thought carefully: You source all that happens to you. If you feel guilty, it can only be you who made yourself feel guilty, and therefore it can only be you who forgives. That is why forgiveness of yourself is the first step in forgiving someone or something else. Forgive yourself for your projections onto others. Just as you have projected the guilty thoughts in your mind onto your loving Father, you are also projecting them onto the dream figures in your illusion. Forgive yourself for doing this; there will be nothing within you to project.

My dear child, you have no idea of the beauty of God’s children without your projections to darken your view of them! As you continue your practice of allowing guilty thoughts to rise into your awareness and then forgiving yourself for your projections, you will begin to see a different world, and you will wonder how you could ever have thought your brother sinful. And as you allow your thoughts to be forgiven, you will be astounded at your own beauty as well. You are created in the image of God. Did you think you could be anything but beautiful?

GRATITUDE

This was such an important message for me. I eventually gave up all that guilt, and these words from Spirit helped direct me to that moment of release. I am so very grateful!

REGINA’S TIPS

God in His mercy wills that I be saved.

Sometimes we experience resistance and frustration with the spiritual path and with ourselves as spiritual students. The superego (the self-criticizing part of the ego) is always ready to tell us how poorly we are doing on this path. It whispers that we will never awaken; we are not good enough to awaken.

The idea that we will never awaken is called “doubt.” Doubt is an ego preservation strategy because if we believe doubt, we won’t fully dedicate ourselves to spiritual practice. Doubt, when it is believed, holds us back.

Ramana Maharshi said, “Realization is our true nature. It is nothing new to be gained. … Therefore, there is no need to be doubting whether we would gain or lose the Self.” He recommended looking to see who or what doubts. When we look carefully, we notice the mind (the ego) doubts.

With right-reason, we can see that doubt benefits the ego. It is in our best interest to disregard doubt and continue with spiritual practice.

The Ego Fights to Regain Control

Doubt seems strongest when the ego is loud in our mind. That is when the superego is eager to tell us that we are spiritual failures. Interestingly, that is also when the ego is most vulnerable. That is when we have the best opportunity for healing the mind and transcending the ego. In other words, the ego attacks loudest when it feels itself losing control of our attention. It is fighting to “regain command and control.” (NTI Acts 14)

It has always been helpful for me to realize that when I appear to be failing, I am about to reach a break-through. The break-through will come if I do not give in to the ego voice. During the midst of the ego’s struggle, I choose to stick with my spiritual aspiration and with spiritual practice to the best of my ability (which seemed better on some days than others).

Today’s lesson says, “I need but look upon all things that seem to hurt me, and with perfect certainty assure myself, ‘God wills that I be saved from this,’ …”

That faith can be very important when the ego gets loud. We are not alone. The Self, with all of its knowledge, wisdom and love, is right here supporting us in our efforts to awaken to our Self.

MY THOUGHTS

I agree with Regina that when my challenges seem the biggest, I have the greatest opportunity to transcend the ego. That is when I remember that all things are lessons God would have me learn and that everything is in my best interest. And it is the time to be perfectly certain that God wills I be saved from this…

Contemplation 2025

To enjoy the Pathways of Light Insights on ACIM Lesson 235 click here.

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