How to Be Safe

ACIM Workbook Lesson 244 – for Thursday, September 1, 2011

Affirmation:  “I am in danger nowhere in the world.”

“Your Son is safe wherever he may be, for You are there with him.  He need but call upon Your Name, and he will recollect his safety and Your Love, for they are one.  How can he fear or doubt or fail to know he cannot suffer, be endangered, or experience unhappiness, when he belongs to You, beloved and loving in the safety of Your Fatherly embrace?

“And there we are in truth.  No storms can come into the hallowed haven of our home.  In God we are secure.  For what can come to threaten God Himself, or make afraid what will forever be a part of Him?  (WB415)”

Reflections:

We are a part of God.  And many others have explained a metaphor of God and His universe as a hologram.  We find God within, and we project the world of illusions without, making it clear, from a theoretical point of view, that we are in control of our destiny.  ACIM also makes this point in slightly different context, assuring us that we are in control, in the center of things, and that we cannot blame another for our plight.

The prayer above is an example of a level of understanding A Course in Miracles for which all individuals are not ready.  It takes great learning to realize that our suffering is all illusion, as is our unhappiness.  We seem to live in a very real world, though we are told that most of us inhabit an illusion of a world.  We find the real world when we come closer to union with God (an interpretation, not stated in ACIM).  Until we know salvation more intimately, we must see these words in the prayer as a goal toward which we reach.  We must not fall into dismay if we are not ready.  ACIM says this, in slightly different words.  If we fight the words of ACIM, we are not ready (a Text tenet).  We are told in the Text not to “fight” ourselves.

The embrace of God (in this passage, above) is akin to the embrace of Jesus in A Course of Love, which some view as a sequel to ACIM.  Both are comforting in the extreme.  We are not meant to wallow in our misery, but to ask for help, and to know, ahead of time, that that help will be forthcoming.  We may experience pain, but we do not have to experience suffering.  Learning through pain is temporary, Jesus tells us, and only learning through rewards is lasting.  Let us ask for the way to learn through rewards today.

Prayer:

Dear Father/Mother,

I would be safe today.  I would think of Jesus often, for he gives no indication in the New Testament that he was ever afraid, despite the horrendous end to his earthly life.  Help me to recall Jesus’s example, and to feel and to act on my own safety.

May I reach inwardly to You frequently today.  Doing so allows me to feel Your presence, and is there a better way to spend a day?  Help me to spend today wisely, with calm, serenity, peace, and tranquility.

Amen.