ACIM Workbook Lesson 170 – for Sunday, June 19, 2011
Affirmation: “There is no cruelty in God and none in me.”
“How thoroughly insane is the idea that to defend from fear is to attack! For here is fear begot and fed with blood, to make it grow and swell and rage. And thus is fear protected, not escaped. Today we learn a lesson which can save you more delay and needless misery than you can possibly imagine. It is this:
“You make what you defend against, and by your own defense against it is it real and inescapable. Lay down your arms, and only then do you perceive it false. (WB326)”
Reflections:
This is one of the more important passage in A Course in Miracles. It emphasizes that when we defend ourselves, we actually help to create that which we would defend against. Who in their right mind would do such a thing? But we are not in our right mind, and that is the point. We are here to come into our right mind, to let the insanity go, and to go home. When we have awakened, we will not understand how we could have been so deluded so long. We will shake our heads in disbelief.
Defenses also cause delay, and the world has waited long enough to be saved. It is worn and weary (ideas from the Text), and the world needs us badly. Let us not fail to do our part to set things aright. Jesus himself, God Himself, depends on us in league with the Holy Spirit, Who gives us our guidance of what to say or do next.
When we give up defenses, we understand what this passage is trying to say. It is only in the doing that we will see the benefit of following its teaching.
Prayer:
Dear Father/Mother,
I have learned in my lifetime, since reading A Course in Miracles, that defense is a straw man, that it can only hurt and never help. Help me to recall this truth to mind when a brother or sister attacks me, and I am tempted to try to defend myself. Help me always to remember that attack is a call for help, and I do not have to defend myself at all–but to help the other as much as he or she is able to accept in that moment or later on.
Thank You for these truths. I need to remember them in my daily life, and I ask you to call them to mind when temptation to return attack for attack arises in me. I would not respond to this egoistic call, but instead use it as an instance to further let the ego wither away.
Amen.