ACIM Workbook Lesson 129 – for Monday, May 9, 2011
Affirmation: “Beyond this world there is a world I want.”
Selected Passage:
“This is the thought that follows from the one we practiced yesterday. You cannot stop with the idea the world is worthless, for unless you see that there is something else to hope for, you will only be depressed. Our emphasis is not on giving up the world, but on exchanging it for what is far more satisfying, filled with joy, and capable of offering you peace. Think you this world can offer that to you? (WB235)”
Reflections:
Here we see that this world has never really satisfied us. Elsewhere we read in ACIM that no joy has not been bought with tears. The only real happiness that we have ever known here has been the “happy dreams the Holy Spirit brings” (a Text quotation). These happy dreams may have come also before we discovered A Course in Miracles. It does not matter. The Holy Spirit has shadowed us all our lives.
But the happy dreams of the Holy Spirit are only a transition, a transition made necessary because otherwise we would be too fearful to welcome Awakening (a Text tenet). We might even become depressed unto suicide if our illnesses were cured prematurely; we have come to depend on the unhappiness that we say we want to rid ourselves. We are calmed by the happy dreams from the Holy Spirit. We learn what I have stated so often, that the goal is “perfect calm and quiet” all the time. We learn that drama is not what we want after all. We are being prepared for Awakening.
Then, at the perfect time, God leans down and draws us to Himself in Awakening. We would do well to surrender and resurrender to Him, but not to try to rush Awakening. We cannot anyway. It is all God’s doing.
Prayer:
Dear Mother/Father,
Help me today to find the world beyond this one that I really want. This is the “real world,” in which all the dreams are happy, and as our reality turns happy, we are made ready for You to take the next step and to awaken us. I would move closer to that great blessing today.
Help me to be kind to my brothers and sisters today. Give me patience with their foibles, and give me patience with my own as well. We need Your guidance, and whether this guidance is purely internal, or an intuition prompted by what seems to be external to me, I do not choose. I leave it all up to You.
Amen.
