I. Principles of Miracles, P 18
18 A miracle is a service. It is the maximal service you can render to another. It is a way of loving your neighbor as yourself. You recognize your own and your neighbor’s worth simultaneously.
Journal
When I was deciding what I wanted to take in college I thought about nursing, but only for a second because I knew that I could not do that. I thought about teaching and thought that was something I could do so I studied to be a teacher. Toward the end I realized that I didn’t want to be a teacher and so I quit. But always I wanted to be of service, even back then when I was mostly self-centered, I felt drawn to serve. That was my true Self moving me gently toward my life purpose.
I would never have been open to the idea of miracles at that time, and if I had the impulse, it would have been subverted by the ego because I needed purification first. I could not have imagined where my story would take me or even that there was something outside me guiding me to this place in my life. But in retrospect I see that this was happening. I am meant to serve and it seems that miracles are the service I am meant to perform.
I cannot know what that means in terms of what I am to do, what miracle I am to perform, and when, and that’s ok because it is not my job to make that decision. Jesus is in charge of this project and I only need to be open and willing and everything will be done through me. I don’t even need to know it happened. Through my willingness love moves through me to my neighbor and in doing so we are both uplifted and healed. Could anything be simpler?
Hi Myron, you say, “I needed purification first.” Would you share more about this concept?
Jesus tells us in Miracles Principle 7 that miracles are our right but that purification is needed first. This simply means that we need to have our thoughts purified or corrected by the Holy Spirit before we can perform miracles. So I give Him my thought for that purpose and He removes from it what is not true and returns it to me purified. Now I have a clear understanding of what I am thinking, an understanding that is in alignment with the thoughts of God.
For instance if I have the thought I want to go to my daughter’s house and help her with the new baby, that thought might also include a resentment for giving up time I wanted to use for other things. I give that thought to the Holy Spirit for purification and what I receive is the understanding that I want to surrender the idea of time and planning and goals to the Holy Spirit because I don’t know what anything is for and He does.
When I go to my daughter’s house now, I do so in perfect job and gratitude rather than with conflicted thinking. The miracle is my changed mind which offers my daughter the miracle of pure love. Either way she gets an hour or two of my effort, but this way she also receives the miracle of unconflicted love flowing freely through me to her.