ACIM Workbook Lesson 62 – for Thursday, March 3, 2011
Affirmation: “Forgiveness is my function as the light of the world.”
Selected Passage:
“Do you not then begin to understand what forgiveness will do for you? It will remove all sense of weakness, strain and fatigue from your mind. It will take away all fear and guilt and pain. It will restore the invulnerability and power God gave His Son to your awareness. (WB104)”
Reflections:
1 – This a Favorite Passage
This is a favorite passage for students/teachers of ACIM. We may, in our lifetimes, not fully understood how important forgiveness really is. We may feel that people we have known have done such wrong things that they don’t “deserve” forgiveness. Certainly believing this is a great disservice to ourselves as well as our brothers and sisters. Repeatedly ACIM stresses that we are all innocent, that no attack has actually harmed our Self. We have simply made mistakes, which we overlook in others, and we correct in ourselves.
2 – Does Everyone “Deserve” Forgiveness?
It is a common mistake of ACIM students and even teachers that our brothers and sisters who have “done us wrong” don’t “deserve” forgiveness. But they have merely made mistakes, and those mistakes have been in illusion. They are still as God created them (a Workbook tenet). If others do not deserve forgiveness, then neither do we. And then we are really lost to salvation. We give to others what we feel we deserve ourselves. Let us recognize today that we are free, we are innocent, and we can correct the mistakes that we have made.
3 – Correcting Mistakes
How do we correct those mistakes? ACIM does not list remedies, but other inspirational writers have. This may include approaching the person that we have wronged, but if this would only make things worse, then we are not encouraged to do this. We can forgive through prayer, and sometimes this takes repeated, many repeated prayers. On some level, our “enemy” knows what we have done, that we have truly forgiven and that we have freed him/her of the effects of the mistakes.
Prayer:
Dear Father/Mother,
I know that all of us, including myself, deserve forgiveness. . .regardless. We have merely made mistakes, and if we had lived the same life as another, we would very likely make the same errors that he/she has. This is a truth that I need to carry in my innermost being. Help me to do so today.
Be with me if something happens today that leads me to think, “He/she doesn’t deserve forgiveness.” I am wrong; we all deserve forgiveness (pardon). Help me to pardon all with whom I come in contact today.
Amen.
