Lesson 214
I am not a body. I am free.
For I am still as God created me.
1. (194) I place the future in the Hands of God.
²The past is gone; the future is not yet. ³Now am I freed from both. ⁴For what God gives can only be for good. ⁵And I accept but what He gives as what belongs to me.
⁶I am not a body. ⁷I am free.
⁸For I am still as God created me.
I read in the Journey Through the Workbook by Ken Wapnick that sin is the past, guilt is the present and fear is the future. I thought that was interesting. I had not looked at it quite like that and I was especially surprised at the idea of the present as guilt. It makes sense, though, now that I think about it. I know that when I think about the past, the feelings that are triggered are akin to regret and I suppose you could call that sin.
I almost never have that experience anymore because I have forgiven the past and if regret does occur, I forgive it much more quickly and easily now. This change occurred because I had so much shame and regret about my past, and that afforded me ample opportunity to practice forgiveness. That practice paid off and without the unforgiven past, there is much less guilt in my mind in the present.
Without all that present day guilt, I find it easier to free myself from any fear of the future. For instance, there is a lot of talk and confusion about the variants of Covid right now. My children and I share a group text and they were spending a lot of time talking about this, reporting what they are reading about it, worrying about how it will affect them and our communities. I mentioned a few things I had first-hand knowledge of, but I could see that this conversation was causing more harm than good.
Finally, I responded by saying that I can’t control what happens in the world but that I can control how I react to it. My peace of mind is important to me and I’m not giving it up. No one was particularly interested in this as was evident when after a brief respite they went right back to their conversation. But who knows, maybe one of these days they will put two and two together and realize that my happiness has something to do with how I choose to react to the world.
I used to worry all the time about the future and sometimes I fall into that trap now, but not often. When I do, I notice right away because I lose my peace. I accept responsibility for my choice to do this rather than trying to justify it by blaming it on the situation. Once I accept responsibility, it is easy enough to ask the Holy Spirit for another way to see it. I remind myself that the present moment is my point of choice and that I can safely leave the future in the Hands of God be free of fear.
I do what seems reasonable about the virus, and without fear of the future clouding my mind, it is open enough to be aware of guidance. This is good because I am not depending on the thinking mind to make my decisions. As I told my daughter when I was visiting her, if I can do anything about this or any other situation, I will. But if I can’t do anything about it, I would be foolish to give too much of my attention to it and just cause myself a lot of anxiety.
I think that it makes sense to leave the future in the Hands of God, or more accurately, I am not asking the ego anything about it; I am turning to the Holy Spirit as my adviser. The Holy Spirit works in the present moment as that is the only moment there is, and so if there is something I need to do now, I will be told. And if there is something I need to do later, I will be told then.