May Heaven Be Restored to Us

ACIM Workbook Lesson 252 – for Friday, September 9, 2011

Affirmation:  “The Son of God is my Identity.”

“My Self is holy beyond all the thoughts of holiness of which I now conceive. . . .Its strength comes not from burning impulses which move the world, but from the boundless Love of God Himself.

“Father, You know my true Identity.  Reveal It now to me who am Your Son, that I may waken to the truth in You, and know that Heaven is restored to me.  (WB420)”

Reflections:

We would have Heaven restored to us, and the sense in which the prayer for today encourages this, is the sense that Heaven can begin while we are still in this world.  We can indeed know “Heaven on earth,” though this may not be a constant state.  We will return to “lowly paths of learning” (an ACIM quotation), but we have been to the heights.  A Course of Love carries this understanding a step farther.  We are led to a mountaintop experience, and we are told that we are not meant to take this climb repeatedly.  Some of us, I would intuit, are never satisfied when we are not yet perfect.  Jesus says in A Course in Miracles that he stands at the end, to correct the mistakes that we ourselves could not correct.  A Course of Love makes plain that he is our equal (by this time), and that our learning time is over.  A Course in Miracles, as the first set of books, does not go this far.  (A Course of Love is seen by some as a sequel, channeled by Jesus to Mari Perron, to help us farther along the pathway.)

Our holy Self is not something that we can understand fully.  We do not know the Self because we are too caught up in the little self that thrives and also despairs in this world.  But we would move to knowledge (not perception) of this Self by communion with God in these Workbook lessons.  We are coming closer to God’s Way.  We will soon be out of the woods of the ego’s wily ways.

Prayer:

Dear Father/Mother,

Help me to respond to You and to others in this world with love and understanding of where all of us are coming from.  May we listen to You through Your Universal Inspiration, the Holy Spirit.  May we live today the compassion for others that you would have us exhibit.

I would do nothing today that I would regret later on.  Help me to see evermore frequent glimpses of the Heaven on earth that You intend for us.

Amen.