Choose Peace to Have a Divine Experience

“This is temptation. The temptation of the human experience. This is what you continue to choose over the Peace of God. This is not a right or wrong choice but it is a choice. It is your free will to continue to make this choice.

“You used your free will to choose the human experience. Now are you willing to use it to choose the Peace of God instead? Can you wholeheartedly choose peace? Can you choose peace long enough to become accustomed to joy without sorrow? If you cannot, you will continue to create hell as well as heaven and will continue the separation between the divine and the human. Is heaven worth enough to you to give up hell?” (ACOL, 10.4 – 10.5)

When we want to cling to the highs and lows of the human experience, we choose what can never bring us satisfaction. But this is not a “right or wrong” choice; it is simply a choice. And the rightness or wrongness of our decision is not at stake. We do have free will.

We can choose hell for ourselves. While this is never God’s choice for us, He knows that we have made a veritable hell in this beautiful world. And if we don’t alter our decisions, the hell we have experienced on earth in the past will continue right into the future. Would we really choose this because we don’t want to heal the separation from God?

If we experiment a little, we will see that the Peace of God is infinitely preferable to the highs and lows of dramatic thoughts and actions in this world. Choose this day to BE perfectly calm and quiet, to turn over the hassles of the day to the One Who knows how to untangle our affairs. And at the end of the day, look back and meditate a bit on what has transpired. We won’t have let a perfectly calm and quiet day, but, if we gave it some thought and some prayer, we will have let a more peaceful life than is our custom. And are we happier? Do we feel more at ease with our Maker? Do we see the benefit in choosing heaven, in choosing the peak experiences that can be ours, purely without the drama of an egoic high?

Today is a good day to experiment. See if you want a “Zen” day. This is an Eastern concept, but Eastern concepts have made their way into the mainstream of our culture. A Zen-like day is one that is lived lightly, with egoic seriousness gone from our activities. Living a Zen day will mean that we do choose to be perfectly calm and quiet more often than not. And Zen will encourage us to turn to God when things threaten to become rancorous once again.

Create a good day by turning to God first in the morning. Ask Him to guide our steps. He always answers, and the Answer we receive today, being in His Will, will prepare us for the unfolding of a better present and future.

Prayer

I would be Zen today, perfectly calm and quiet, resting in Your peace and Your love. Nothing avails so much as Your love, and if I am careful to extend the love that You have given to me, I will be extending the best that I have in me to my brothers and sisters on earth. I would extend love today. I ask that You give me the forbearance to stifle anger and attack, and give outwardly only love.

The peace that I feel when I am in league with You is greater than any rancor that might mark my day. Being One with You is a great blessing. Knowing that I am One with You is a great blessing.

May my words reach people’s hearts today.

Amen.