Lesson 100

Lesson 100

My part is essential to God’s plan for salvation.

Just as God’s Son completes his Father, so your part in it completes your Father’s plan. Salvation must reverse the mad belief in separate thoughts and separate bodies, which lead separate lives and go their separate ways. One function shared by separate minds unites them in one purpose, for each one of them is equally essential to them all.

God’s Will for you is perfect happiness. Why should you choose to go against His Will? The part that He has saved for you to take in working out His plan is given you that you might be restored to what He wills. This part is as essential to His plan as to your happiness. Your joy must be complete to let His plan be understood by those to whom He sends you. They will see their function in your shining face, and hear God calling to them in your happy laugh.

You are indeed essential to God’s plan. Without your joy, His joy is incomplete. Without your smile, the world cannot be saved. While you are sad, the light that God Himself appointed as the means to save the world is dim and lusterless, and no one laughs because all laughter can but echo yours.

You are indeed essential to God’s plan. Just as your light increases every light that shines in Heaven, so your joy on earth calls to all minds to let their sorrows go, and take their place beside you in God’s plan. God’s messengers are joyous, and their joy heals sorrow and despair. They are the proof that God wills perfect happiness for all who will accept their Father’s gifts as theirs.

We will not let ourselves be sad today. For if we do, we fail to take the part that is essential to God’s plan, as well as to our vision. Sadness is the sign that you would play another part, instead of what has been assigned to you by God. Thus do you fail to show the world how great the happiness He wills for you. And so you do not recognize that it is yours.

Today we will attempt to understand joy is our function here. If you are sad, your part is unfulfilled, and all the world is thus deprived of joy, along with you. God asks you to be happy, so the world can see how much He loves His Son, and wills no sorrow rises to abate his joy; no fear besets him to disturb his peace. You are God’s messenger today. You bring His happiness to all you look upon; His peace to everyone who looks on you and sees His message in your happy face.

We will prepare ourselves for this today, in our five-minute practice periods, by feeling happiness arise in us according to our Father’s Will and ours. Begin the exercises with the thought today’s idea contains. Then realize your part is to be happy. Only this is asked of you or anyone who wants to take his place among God’s messengers. Think what this means. You have indeed been wrong in your belief that sacrifice is asked. You but receive according to God’s plan, and never lose or sacrifice or die.

Now let us try to find that joy that proves to us and all the world God’s Will for us. It is your function that you find it here, and that you find it now. For this you came. Let this one be the day that you succeed! Look deep within you, undismayed by all the little thoughts and foolish goals you pass as you ascend to meet the Christ in you.

He will be there. And you can reach Him now. What could you rather look upon in place of Him Who waits that you may look on Him? What little thought has power to hold you back? What foolish goal can keep you from success when He Who calls to you is God Himself?

He will be there. You are essential to His plan. You are His messenger today. And you must find what He would have you give. Do not forget the idea for today between your hourly practice periods. It is your Self Who calls to you today. And it is Him you answer, every time you tell yourself you are essential to God’s plan for the salvation of the world.

 

Journal

“One function shared by separate minds unites them in one purpose, for each one of them is equally essential to them all.”

Here in the world of time and space we think that we are separate and have separate thoughts and separate goals. This leads to competition and blame and loss. But there is one way we can undo this belief in separation. We can accept our function in God’s plan for salvation. This will be enough to restore a sense of union and will be a great relief and happiness.

“God’s Will for you is perfect happiness.”

Happiness is a yardstick I use to measure how well I am listening to the Voice for God as opposed to asking the ego for advice. Sometimes, especially if I am involved in the story too deeply, it is not clear to me which voice I am listening to. But if I am unhappy, then I know for sure that I have believed an ego lie and I can change my mind. The ego might offer me temporary pleasure, but is not interested in my unwavering happiness. For example, when I think I have won, I might get that adrenaline rush that feels like pleasure, but it won’t last. If I decide on love rather than being right, I feel happy and that happiness will stay unless I choose otherwise.

“You are indeed essential to God’s plan. Without your joy, His joy is incomplete. Without your smile, the world cannot be saved. While you are sad, the light that God Himself appointed as the means to save the world is dim and lusterless, and no one laughs because all laughter can but echo yours.”

I so love the language of this lesson, the beauty, and poetry. More importantly, is the message. Without my joy, God’s joy is incomplete. When we remember that we are in God and part of God it is understandable that we affect God. God is by definition Wholeness, Oneness, Joy, and Peace. Since we are part of God, we cannot complete Him if we are not what He is.

Does this mean that we should go around pretending to be happy? Well, since it is not possible to be anything God did not create, we are going around pretending to be unhappy, so in a way, this would be a solution. Trade the belief of unhappiness for the belief in happiness. Another way to do this is to let go of the thoughts that make us unhappy. If I am worried about my child, I can release that thought and replace it with the thought that my child is having exactly the experience he came here to have and that the Joy that is God is also my son. If joy is what he is, then joy is always available to him as it is to me.

“God’s messengers are joyous, and their joy heals sorrow and despair. They are the proof that God wills perfect happiness for all who will accept their Father’s gifts as theirs.”

I had a boyfriend once who was a delight to all who met him. Just being in his presence was uplifting and one of the reasons was because of his quiet happiness. He didn’t go around laughing and telling jokes. He was just quietly happy and loving. Everyone I introduced him to felt this in him. It made people want what he had.

This is the person I want to be, someone who awakens a longing for the joy and happiness that is available to them as it is to me. Working on it. Working on it by not accepting unhappiness as a possibility. Working on by releasing the thoughts that lead to unhappiness. I have had a lot of success. There was a time before the Course when I could not imagine being happy all the time. I was surprised by happiness, not expectant. Now I am surprised when I am not happy.

“Look deep within you, undismayed by all the little thoughts and foolish goals you pass as you ascend to meet the Christ in you.”

The Christ will meet us because we are essential to His plan. We can depend on that. When I attempt to meditate, I often feel discouraged by all the thoughts that pop into my mind, so many of them are untrue and simply distracting. Here, Jesus tells us not to be discouraged by these thoughts. I wonder if I could just see them as objects on my path and just walk around them.

Regina’s Tips

Along the way to Self-realization some people may have some tremendous experiences that seem to be proof of something divine, but to me the simplicity of genuine happiness is the greater boon. To be happy no matter what appears to occur or not occur is a sure sign of detachment from the world and detachment from thought. It is a sure sign of awakening to realization of one’s real nature.

Happiness, openness, and confidence are the true miracles of awakening. When one isn’t feeling happiness, openness and confidence, something has gone wrong. An untrue thought has gained attention.

Today, regardless of what you experience, contemplate the fact that happiness is natural, and unhappiness is the sign that you are believing something that isn’t true. This is always the case. When we accept this as true, we begin to respond to unhappiness appropriately. The appropriate way to respond to unhappiness is to look, uncover and release an untrue idea.

Past Entries

The following is an experience I had in the past. This kind of thing doesn’t happen to me anymore, at least not to this extent. I do have upsets but they are briefer and not so dramatic. Thank you, Jesus, for this Course and all the help I receive. It really is working for me and my gratitude is boundless!

We made the world we see and it is our job to save it. We save it through forgiveness, that is, recognizing that because this world represents the opposite of creation, nothing was actually done, and so we are innocent. We are saved. Today, we are reminded that we are essential to God’s plan for salvation and His plan is that we be happy. I noticed something that had not penetrated before. Jesus is saying that because the problem is the belief we are separate, the solution is that we join in the single purpose of saving the world and in that joining we return our awareness to oneness. How absolutely perfect.

Today, my goal is to be happy. My happiness will heal the world. My smile will heal the world. This should be a goal that I eagerly embrace and I do, but not before I sat with this lesson for my first five minutes. I didn’t go to sleep happy, and I didn’t wake up happy. I have had some back pain and leg pain, the first time in a long time, and I have ignored the idea of healing.

My brother who is in prison is sick and has asked me to make calls to the prison on his behalf to get the treatment he needs. It has not been going smoothly. I have more to do at work than ever, and I have to get everything ready for the conference. This morning, I realized that I need to make plane reservations and other plans for a workshop I will be doing shortly after the conference.

A lot has changed at work and I am having to adjust to the changes. The most discouraging and upsetting of all is that I am aware that I have been resisting some of these lessons. I have been doing them, and I have received a lot of benefits, but I have also been resistant. I hate when this happens because it feels like I am at war with myself. How can I win if I am my own enemy?

The strongest resistance occurred the other day while doing one of the lessons. I had great success. I experienced something that was not an effect of the ego thinking, something the ego-self could take no credit for. It was a small thing not lasting but a few moments, but it was wonderful, and it was important. It represented my desire to awaken. The ego mind went from suspicious to vicious in less than a minute.

That is when everything became a problem I couldn’t solve. Looking at it this morning after the meditation, I see that I brought into this story of Myron all sorts of problems and upsets and distractions. Anything that would stop this spiral toward awakening that was scaring the ego mind. So when the lesson said that my goal was to be happy today, I felt like it was the one more thing that was just too much and I couldn’t do it.

But I am not alone in this. I do have much Help. My Help whispered in my heart to just do the meditation as suggested, and not to worry about it. I sat there with my hand on my heart and I called for help. I poured out all my fears and disappointments and discouragements. And as I did so, I realized that I was sinking past these thoughts as I named them. I remembered that peace and joy are in me because God put them there, so how could I fail to find them?

Again, there were no bright flashes of lights or fanfares of any kind, but it was like the sun had come from behind a cloud and illuminated my thinking. I saw how all my problems were just thoughts in my mind, and that everything is fine. I saw the confusion in my mind unravel and everything became clear and simple.

Happy, happy, joy, joy! I can’t help but smile and laugh now. Nothing had really happened except that I let the ego mind lead me back into its darkness, into fear and guilt and doubt. And now I have returned to reality because it is my desire to take my part in God’s plan for salvation, and nothing can thwart the desire of a Son of God.