ACIM Lesson 116 God’s Will for me is perfect happiness. I share God’s Will for happiness for me.
God’s Will for me is perfect happiness.
ACIM Lesson 116
Lesson 116
For morning and evening review:
1. (101) God’s Will for me is perfect happiness.
²God’s Will is perfect happiness for me. ³And I can suffer but from the belief there is another will apart from His.
And, boy, do we ever suffer from this belief that there is a will apart from His. I was trying to remember what it was like to be in deep sleep completely unaware. I know that I was sometimes happy and sometimes not. But I also know that below the surface, I was very unhappy. I sought distractions, entertainment, special relationships, different environments, drama, even chaos.
Anything that kept me from noticing the depth of my unhappiness was better than looking within. I was, for a long time, depressed and suicidal. And yet, I didn’t let myself think about it too much. At one point when it got really bad, I saw a therapist but then ran from that into another town, another special relationship.
Turning it Around
It wasn’t until I started studying A Course in Miracles that my life turned around. There was still plenty of drama but I learned to use those events to heal my mind. I learned that this alien will that I thought of as “my” thoughts, was just the ego and was not me, and actually, was not real at all. The depression disappeared and eventually, my mind cleared of the belief in another will. Everything changed at that point.
Looking back like this, it is interesting that even in the worst of my life, I didn’t realize how bad it was. The way we stay in these stories is that we sprinkle misery with pleasure. This makes it possible to lie to ourselves and to hide from the depth of our unhappiness. My life now is mostly peaceful and I have experienced true happiness. This is happiness that doesn’t turn into fear and guilt depending on what is happening in the world.
Two Opposites Can’t Both Be True
It is this contrast that made it possible for me to see how bad it really was in the past. It also helps me to understand what Jesus is telling us about the ego. If I can go within and find my Self, then the ego must be a lie. These opposites cannot both be true. The ego doesn’t give up so easily and it still tries to interest me in fear and in guilt. Sometimes I look that way but I cannot believe in it anymore. It’s like seeing through the magician’s card trick. Once seen, it loses its mystery and its appeal.
2. (102) I share God’s Will for happiness for me.
²I share my Father’s Will for me, His Son. ³What He has given me is all I want. ⁴What He has given me is all there is.
I can honestly say that I share my Father’s Will for me and that is all I want. But I can still be temporarily swayed from this if the world becomes too intrusive. For instance, this can happen if someone I love is suffering, or if my body is in too much pain. I forget for a moment or an hour that what He has given me is all there is. The world seems so real that I lose my focus on reality. But I know too much now to go back.
A Writing Meditation
When this happens, if it is more than a passing thought I look right at the belief. I will call on the Holy Spirit to look with me. I don’t hide anything from Him. I let all the feeling come up, and all the hidden thoughts and fears and we look together until they are gone. If I don’t feel complete, I write like I am doing now. I write until I receive clarity and it is like a dark cloud has moved out to let the light in. I highly recommend writing as meditation.
What Is it For
Another thing I do if I become upset about anything is to ask Jesus what this is for. For instance, I had pain in my body this morning and I saw that I was focused too much on the pain. So I asked Jesus what the pain was for. Well, for the ego, it is for keeping me in the story and distracted from the truth. It is for using the body to convince me that reality is an illusion and the illusion is the truth. After all, the pain feels very real. The ego uses pain to entice me back into the fold.
But that is not what it is for me. I know the ego’s tricks and I’m not interested. I look at this with the Holy Spirit and I release it all to Him. I know who I am and it is not the suffering body or the ego thoughts. I feel the darkness dissipating and happiness returning. Easy peasy.
3. On the hour:
²God’s Will for me is perfect happiness.
³On the half hour:
⁴I share God’s Will for happiness for me.
To enjoy the Pathways of Light Insights on ACIM Lesson 116 click here.
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