ACIM Workbook Lesson 316 – for Saturday, November 12, 2011
Affirmation: “All gifts I give my brothers are my own.”
“Father, I would accept Your gifts today. I do not recognize them. Yet I trust that You Who gave them will provide the means by which I can behold them, see their worth, and cherish only them as what I want. (WB458)”
Reflections:
1 – “Perfectly Calm and Quiet”
Jesus says that where we are headed is to be “perfectly calm and quiet” all the time. I have had a friend, a non-student of A Course in Miracles, question this. Why would anybody want to be perfectly calm and quiet all the time? My friend, I can speculate, believes that leaving out drama would not be a good thing. (She was not specific.)
2 – Leave Out Drama
Yes is leaving out drama bad? Isn’t it, after all, the drama that makes our lives turn full of conflict?
3 – Eckhart Tolle’s Response
Eckhart Tolle (The Power of Now, A New Earth) says that he and his girlfriend do not have drama in their relationship. (Eckhart is a spiritual teacher who has detailed his experience of Awakening at age 30, after years of deep depression and accompanying anxiety.) I believe that as we come closer to God, we will become quieter. We will not seek acclaim (an egoic notion) for ourselves. We will be still.
4 – Gifts of God
Quiet and stillness are gifts of God. He has many more gifts to give us as well, gifts specifically designed for what we really need and want. Our desires are very personal, as our personalities are also different. So no “one size fits all” in the universe. Let us ask God today for the gifts that He has held in waiting for each of us, the gifts that will warm our hearts and give us the blessings, material and otherwise, that He has waiting for us.
5 – God Cares about Our Material Needs
It is a misreading of God to believe that He does not care about our material and/or physical needs. They are as important as our emotional and spiritual needs. He would answer both. It is true that a big part of the answer may come from what we are guided to say and do by the Holy Spirit. But the Holy Spirit does most of the work. Our own way to God is easy and peaceful, effortless (an ACIM tenet).
Prayer:
Dear Father/Mother,
I would seek to recognize Your gifts today, knowing that I frequently am not able to understand and to appreciate those gifts as I should. Help me to go as far toward understanding and appreciation as I can go today, given my spot on the pathway back to You. I would drop drama from my list of emotions, as drama is frequently of the ego, and I would leave the ego behind. Help me to be satisfied by the calm and quiet that only You can give.
Be with me today, as I seek to walk Your world in peace. Be with me as I seek to understand what You would wish for me to have. If I have material needs, help me to know what my part is in resolving this as a problem of mine. Be with me through thick and thin, as I do know that You are.
Thank You for granting me the blessing of feeling Your presence. You are all that I want. You will see that everything that I need is graciously provided.
Amen.
