Lesson 162
I am as God created me.
I am as God created me.
1. This single thought, held firmly in the mind, would save the world. ²From time to time we will repeat it, as we reach another stage in learning. ³It will mean far more to you as you advance. ⁴These words are sacred, for they are the words God gave in answer to the world you made. ⁵By them it disappears, and all things seen within its misty clouds and vaporous illusions vanish as these words are spoken. ⁶For they come from God.
How simple salvation is! We had a thought from which we made hell, a thought that made us different than the eternal and eternally perfect creation. Our loving Father answered this thought with these simple words; you are as God created you. And so we are. Nothing can change this or alter it in any way. We are safe, we are saved. It is done and we will know it is done when we accept God’s Word. I am reminded of my favorite Bible verse from John. In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.
2. Here is the Word by which the Son became his Father’s happiness, His Love and His completion. ²Here creation is proclaimed, and honored as it is. ³There is no dream these words will not dispel; no thought of sin and no illusion which the dream contains that will not fade away before their might. ⁴They are the trumpet of awakening that sounds around the world. ⁵The dead awake in answer to its call. ⁶And those who live and hear this sound will never look on death.
3. Holy indeed is he who makes these words his own; arising with them in his mind, recalling them throughout the day, at night bringing them with him as he goes to sleep. ²His dreams are happy and his rest secure, his safety certain and his body healed, because he sleeps and wakens with the truth before him always. ³He will save the world, because he gives the world what he receives each time he practices the words of truth.
Jesus is uncompromising as he tells us what we achieve as we practice this lesson and as we carry these words in our heart from now on. We are as God created us. This answers every conceivable problem; every doubt and fear, every sickness of the body is undone, every form of death is overcome. It is undone because this statement when believed undoes the ego. As we practice this truth in the face of all ego effects, the world shifts for us becoming the real world in which we live a happy dream until we return to God.
4. Today we practice simply. ²For the words we use are mighty, and they need no thoughts beyond themselves to change the mind of him who uses them. ³So wholly is it changed that it is now the treasury in which God places all His gifts and all His Love, to be distributed to all the world, increased in giving; kept complete because its sharing is unlimited. ⁴And thus you learn to think with God. ⁵Christ’s vision has restored your sight by salvaging your mind.
This thought of being as I was created was nearly overlooked for years as I did these lessons. I say, nearly, because my mind was changing incrementally because I did do the lessons even though this tangled mind could not accept something so simple as being the saving grace I so longed for. We have the truth in our mind where God placed it and it is our responsibility and our honor to share it with all our brothers. In doing so, our own acceptance grows. And thus we learn to think with God.
By the time my third child, Susan, came along, I was beginning my study of the Course. I listened to tapes by teachers as they became available to me and my daughter listened by necessity since she was home with me. One day, I was watching her ride her bike around and around a cul-de-sac, and each time she came around to me, I heard her repeating, “I am not a body, I am free, for I am still as God created me.” I wondered at the time if those words would take root in her and one day bloom in her heart.
5. We honor you today. ²Yours is the right to perfect holiness you now accept. ³With this acceptance is salvation brought to everyone, for who could cherish sin when holiness like this has blessed the world? ⁴Who could despair when perfect joy is yours, available to all as remedy for grief and misery, all sense of loss, and for complete escape from sin and guilt?
6. And who would not be brother to you now; you, his redeemer and his savior. ²Who could fail to welcome you into his heart with loving invitation, eager to unite with one like him in holiness? ³You are as God created you. ⁴These words dispel the night, and darkness is no more. ⁵The light is come today to bless the world. ⁶For you have recognized the Son of God, and in that recognition is the world’s.
I have a physical problem that while not serious or debilitating, is painful. I have been using this problem in my practice of the Course. Today, I will use this simple statement of release when I think of my body. When my mind accepts God’s answer to my mistaken thought, all effects are healed. The discomfort in my body is just such an effect and the solution is the healing of the mind that thought it had changed creation.