“You do not need to give your effort to this calling. You do not need to struggle to create the new world you are called to create. You do not need to have a plan and you do not need to know precisely what this new world will look like. You simply need to be willing to live by the truth. (Treatises of A Course of Love: Treatise on the Personal Self, 16.2)”
Affirmation: “I will cease ‘effort’ and struggle today.”
Reflections:
1 – Striving
Most of us think that we have to strive to get anywhere in life, and sometimes that somewhere is an ego-driven goal. This is a long-held notion of human beings, and here Jesus says that we are thinking awry. To believe that we don’t need to struggle, to make an “effort,” but just to relax in the truth, is a welcome thought indeed. We are told that we can create the new world that is asked of us just by living the truth.
2 – Truth
The “truth” is a slippery concept for those still influenced by ego. Many people in this world have done disastrous things in the name of their truth. Harmful things, even things that they think are sanctioned by religion. Even those of us who have never been violent have fallen prey to the ego-oriented struggle for material goods and security. There is nothing wrong with safety and security, but our God is the only certain means of either.
3 – Perfectly Calm and Quiet
What does Jesus’s “truth” entail? These are interpretations, but surely his truth entails the calm and quiet toward which we are going. We will be “perfectly calm and quiet” all the time. Our dramas will be gone when we live by the truth, and, honestly, many of us aren’t sure that we won’t to live without drama. The truth is gentle and produces peace. It does not call for elaborate sacrifices on our part (and this will be a welcomed idea). Jesus’s truth is, in both A Course in Miracles and A Course of Love, a place that we would want to visit and then decide to live. He takes away the effortful struggle that we have associated with salvation; this attitude partook of our still strong ego.
4 – ACIM vs. ACOL
What a blessing to know that we don’t have to make effortful attempts at creating a new world. What we are to do will occur to us at the time of action, whether the action be mental or physical. We will be told all that we need to know. In ACIM, the means of guidance is the Holy Spirit; and in ACOL, the means of guidance is turning to our inner Self/Christ. Both are parts of God, for God is the All.
5 – Peace
May we find peace and contentment in contemplating the passage for today from ACOL.
Prayer:
Dear Father/Mother,
I sometimes find myself struggling to write this blog, and that is a notion that I need to give up. Help me to give up this notion. Give me Your peace and contentment, knowing that the right words will come when I get myself out of the way so that those words can come through me.
May I enjoy the cessation of striving. While I know that this isn’t a license for laziness, the cessation of striving is a welcome thought. Help me to know what it means, all in Your will.
Thank You.
Amen.
MIRACLES EACH DAY 
Trust and surrender is sometimes difficult because my ego wants to make things happen. I have learned to live my truth and allow the Holy Spirit to create. When I try to make things happen because I so badly want something, it never comes out as perfectly as when the Holy Spirit guides the way with his loving miracles.
So true! I go along rapidly getting things done, and I get a “stop” that sometimes I am reluctant to make. But the Holy Spirit (ACIM), or the inner Self (ACOL), always knows best. We need to be able to turn on a dime, and then we get into a flow that makes all things go smoothly.
Thank you for commenting.
Most cordially, Celia
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