Sickness = A Form of External Searching

ACIM Workbook Lesson 203 – for Friday, July 22, 2011

Affirmation:  “I am not a body.  I am free.  For I am still as God created me.”

“I call upon God’s name and on my own.  (WB389)”

Reflections:

1 – We Are Not Bodies

We are not bodies; we are the spirit that inhabits the body, and the body itself is illusion (ACIM tenets).  The physical shell that we define, all too often, as ourselves, is not eternal, and therefore it is not “real.”  It is a shell only.  And would we dress up fancily a mere shell of the eternal spirit that is waiting for our attention inside?

2 – Madness Is Ego-Driven

Frequently in A Course in Miracles, we are led to equate God’s thinking with our own minds (when sane).  When driven by the ego, ACIM says that we are mad, and that this madness is the basis for the many insane drives that the world seems to hold for us.  We seek outside ourselves for God’s mercy, and we not find Him outside ourselves.  But we make ourselves sick, but all illness, we are told in ACIM, is a form of external searching.

3 – Don’t Demand Too Much of the Body

Let us keep our illusory bodies well and strong by not demanding too much of them (ACIM tenets).  When we reach within, we will be far more likely to keep a healthy body, because ACIM is quite factual in saying that the source of sickness is external searching.  May we look inward for our healing, inward where God resides.  This does not preclude pills, for to do so might increase fear, and Jesus tells us in ACIM that the last thing that the sick need is an increase in fear, because they are already in a fear-weakened state.  May we ask today to  be free of fear in all its insidious forms, and may we call on the name of God to heal us of any and all afflictions.  The physical may not know healing, though, but its debilitating effects will diminish as our investment in fear is lessened.  Our minds will rise above, and with this change, often the physical can be healed as well.

Prayer:

Dear Father/Mother,

I would be well today, physically and emotionally.  So I would not seek external to myself and You by trying to find solutions in a world that does not hold solutions.  Let me turn inward and find peace.  Let me find You.

Even if physical manifestations of illness remain, may I know that my true Self has not been hurt.  A healing is quite possible, though in this world sometimes it is the mind that is healed rather than the body.  May my spirit know wholeness which knows no sickness.  Be with me today as I seek to rise above any physical or emotional trouble that may seem to beset me.  I know that the real I is completely protected from harm by You.  Thank You for carrying me when trials seem to beset me on all sides.

Amen.