Introduction
1. We now review again. ²This time we are ready to give more effort and more time to what we undertake. ³We recognize we are preparing for another phase of understanding. ⁴We would take this step completely, that we may go on again more certain, more sincere, with faith upheld more surely. ⁵Our footsteps have not been unwavering, and doubts have made us walk uncertainly and slowly on the road this course sets forth. ⁶But now we hasten on, for we approach a greater certainty, a firmer purpose and a surer goal.
We are being asked to become more strongly committed to our path now. We are getting closer to our goal and we can reach it faster if we work more consistently and with more determination. Jesus started out being deliberately casual with the study so as not to cause us to feel coerced and thus set up opposition, but now, we have seen, that this practice is in our best interests and so we are motivated to continue and to do so with greater determination.
Here is something from The Rules for Decision that helped me. He suggests that we notice that we don’t like the way we feel now and so hope we have been wrong. He then says:
This works against the sense of opposition, and reminds you that help is not being thrust upon you but is something that you want and that you need, because you do not like the way you feel. (ACIM, T-30.I.9:3)
We are on this path because we were called to it. We stay on this path because we realize that the path we had been on was not making us happy. Watching our feelings is an excellent way of catching ourselves before we get too far off the path that leads to Heaven.
2. Steady our feet, our Father. ²Let our doubts be quiet and our holy minds be still, and speak to us. ³We have no words to give to You. ⁴We would but listen to Your Word, and make it ours. ⁵Lead our practicing as does a father lead a little child along a way he does not understand. ⁶Yet does he follow, sure that he is safe because his father leads the way for him.
3. So do we bring our practicing to You. ²And if we stumble, You will raise us up. ³If we forget the way, we count upon Your sure remembering. ⁴We wander off, but You will not forget to call us back. ⁵Quicken our footsteps now, that we may walk more certainly and quickly unto You. ⁶And we accept the Word You offer us to unify our practicing, as we review the thoughts that You have given us.
This is my favorite prayer in the Course. When I say these words, I am strengthening my commitment and I am asking for the help I need to stay true to it.
4. This is the thought which should precede the thoughts that we review. ²Each one but clarifies some aspect of this thought, or helps it be more meaningful, more personal and true, and more descriptive of the holy Self we share and now prepare to know again:
³God is but Love, and therefore so am I.
⁴This Self alone knows Love. ⁵This Self alone is perfectly consistent in Its Thoughts; knows Its Creator, understands Itself, is perfect in Its knowledge and Its Love, and never changes from Its constant state of union with Its Father and Itself.
It is the goal of this Course to take us as far as learning goes. God is but Love, and therefore so am I is what we are learning. Everything else in the Course is to help us undo all that keeps us from accepting this simple truth, a truth that is in our mind and never leaves. I am what God is and God is Love so I am Love, too. Love is an abstract idea, it is not physical. Nor is it an idea in opposition to Love. Therefore, I cannot be a body nor can I be any form of fear.
5. And it is this that waits to meet us at the journey’s ending. ²Every step we take brings us a little nearer. ³This review will shorten time immeasurably, if we keep in mind that this remains our goal, and as we practice it is this to which we are approaching. ⁴Let us raise our hearts from dust to life, as we remember this is promised us, and that this course was sent to open up the path of light to us, and teach us, step by step, how to return to the eternal Self we thought we lost.
Do you want to shorten the time it takes to awaken? Then remember the goal, remember what awaits you at the journey’s end, eternal joyful life. I don’t think about the lesson and my purpose when I wake up only to forget it while I interact with the world. I carry it with me all through the day. I live my purpose.
6. I take the journey with you. ²For I share your doubts and fears a little while, that you may come to me who recognize the road by which all fears and doubts are overcome. ³We walk together. ⁴I must understand uncertainty and pain, although I know they have no meaning. ⁵Yet a savior must remain with those he teaches, seeing what they see, but still retaining in his mind the way that led him out, and now will lead you out with him. ⁶God’s Son is crucified until you walk along the road with me.
Our Brother is walking this path with us, aware of what we feel, our uncertainties, our pain, and yet knowing they have no meaning. He is our savior and so he must remain with us without forgetting who he is and remembering the path out. We are not alone. He is helping us each step of the way.
7. My resurrection comes again each time I lead a brother safely to the place at which the journey ends and is forgot. ²I am renewed each time a brother learns there is a way from misery and pain. ³I am reborn each time a brother’s mind turns to the light in him and looks for me. ⁴I have forgotten no one. ⁵Help me now to lead you back to where the journey was begun, to make another choice with me.
8. Release me as you practice once again the thoughts I brought to you from Him Who sees your bitter need, and knows the answer God has given Him. ²Together we review these thoughts. ³Together we devote our time and effort to them. ⁴And together we will teach them to our brothers. ⁵God would not have Heaven incomplete. ⁶It waits for you, as I do. ⁷I am incomplete without your part in me. ⁸And as I am made whole we go together to our ancient home, prepared for us before time was and kept unchanged by time, immaculate and safe, as it will be at last when time is done.
Jesus is emphasizing that he is with us each step of the way. He says that he has forgotten no one. This can feel like a lonely journey because even as we study with friends, each path is unique. How I apply what is given me in the Course will be different than how someone else does it. I find it helpful and reassuring to remember that he is reviewing these thoughts with me and together we are devoting our time and effort to them. He is also reminding us that we must go together. His journey is not complete until ours is. And ours is not complete until all our brothers have completed theirs.
9. Let this review be then your gift to me. ²For this alone I need; that you will hear the words I speak, and give them to the world. ³You are my voice, my eyes, my feet, my hands through which I save the world. ⁴The Self from which I call to you is but your own. ⁵To Him we go together. ⁶Take your brother’s hand, for this is not a way we walk alone. ⁷In him I walk with you, and you with me. ⁸Our Father wills His Son be one with Him. ⁹What lives but must not then be one with you?
It is through us that Jesus saves the world. We will be his voice. We will take our brother’s hand and walk with him as we are led. All through the Course, Jesus tells us that what we learn we must teach, and where we go, we must go with our brothers. Once I started to notice this, I began to see how important this message must be that he repeats it over and over. We are one with all that lives, and one with God.
10. Let this review become a time in which we share a new experience for you, yet one as old as time and older still. ²Hallowed your Name. ³Your glory undefiled forever. ⁴And your wholeness now complete, as God established it. ⁵You are His Son, completing His extension in your own. ⁶We practice but an ancient truth we knew before illusion seemed to claim the world. ⁷And we remind the world that it is free of all illusions every time we say:
⁸God is but Love, and therefore so am I.
Jesus is offering us a new experience if we will take these reviews seriously and do them with devotion. He is offering us a chance to remember our Self. Are we willing to do this one simple thing to be saved and to save the world? Are we willing to honor his request and begin our practice with these words? ⁸God is but Love, and therefore so am I.
As I say them now, I notice that I am just stringing words together and so I stop and allow myself to feel the great need of the Sonship for my help. I let myself feel Jesus saying them with me, gently encouraging me to realize what it means to be what God is and to devote myself to accepting this idea. I had to stop and let my mind and heart open to this.
11. With this we start each day of our review. ²With this we start and end each period of practice time. ³And with this thought we sleep, to waken once again with these same words upon our lips, to greet another day. ⁴No thought that we review but we surround with it, and use the thoughts to hold it up before our minds, and keep it clear in our rememberance throughout the day. ⁵And thus, when we have finished this review, we will have recognized the words we speak are true.
12. Yet are the words but aids, and to be used, except at the beginning and the end of practice periods, but to recall the mind, as needed, to its purpose. ²We place faith in the experience that comes from practice, not the means we use. ³We wait for the experience, and recognize that it is only here conviction lies. ⁴We use the words, and try and try again to go beyond them to their meaning, which is far beyond their sound. ⁵The sound grows dim and disappears, as we approach the Source of meaning. ⁶It is Here that we find rest.
Ah, I see now why I had to stop and let the words sink into my mind. I yearn to go past learning to the experience that learning leads me to. I was feeling that yearning and wanting to fulfill it. It is interesting to me that I must desire this strongly but that the attainment isn’t something I do or make happen. It is something I allow and accept. So I relax and become still and remind myself that God is but Love and therefore so am I and then I wait with that desire in my heart.