Salvation = Game that Happy Children Play

“Realize that this game of chance [tension between desire and accomplishment] is a pattern of the old thought system that needs to be replaced by certainty. If you have enjoyed the game of chance, play a real game and have fun doing it. Do not bring this attitude into your new thought system or your new life. If you are tired of the old, be willing to be done with the old. (Treatises of A Course of Love: Treatise on the Personal Self, 22.15)”

Affirmation: “There is no challenge in reality.”

Reflections:

1 – No Challenge to the Advanced Teacher of God

The passage for today indicates that there is no challenge—to the advanced teacher of God (from A Course in Miracles). To my mind, the tension between desire and accomplishment IS challenge. And we do not want to reinforce this attitude. We want to be done with the old.

2 – Guidance

According to the Manual of A Course in Miracles, there is no challenge to the advanced teacher of God because he/she follows guidance. He/she chooses for all humankind at the same time as choosing for the self. He/she makes no mistakes (be careful for this, for we oscillate in and out of favor), because his Guide (in ACIM, the Holy Spirit) is sure. He/she knows that his/her decisions are based on knowledge that is far beyond anything that he/she can comprehend alone.

3 – Certainty

If we are tired of playing this game of chance, in that some things turn out well and others don’t, know that we can be through with this particular game. Instead, let us play the happy game of salvation, a “game that happy children play” (from ACIM). Let us choose what we say and do with the certainty that has been denied us previously. We can know certainly only by following guidance, and, with A Course of Love, this guidance is the word coming from the inner Self, Christ. We make no mistakes when we are on the beam with this. But we have to realize that we are not perfect in this world, and mistakes will still happen. This keeps us humble, and this also keeps us listening to the inner voice of guidance.

4 – Glimpses of the Real World

Are we weary of this world? There is a way out, and it is not death. We can, most of us, catch glimpses of the real world before Awakening turns out life aright all the time. The first turning is by grace of God, but there are things that we can do to increase glimpses once they have begun. Prayer, study, and communion with God—all increase the likelihood that these glimpses will increase qualitatively and quantitatively.

5 – A Prayer

May we know more today than yesterday, and may we know more tomorrow than today. Always, though, living in the present.

Prayer:

Dear Father/Mother,

I would be cognizant today of taking part in a real game, not a game of conflict and disaster. I would see salvation as a game that happy children play, knowing that the lighthearted touch is best.

Be with me to clue me in to the right way to proceed. And thank You for Your presence, which always brings a feeling of warmth and a feeling of being loved.

Amen.

Accord Mercy

 

ACIM Workbook Lesson 191 – for Tuesday, July 10, 2012

Affirmation:  “I am the holy Son of God Himself.”

“You who perceive yourself as weak and frail, with futile hopes and devastated dreams, born but to die, to weep and suffer pain, hear this:  All power is given unto you in earth and Heaven.  There is nothing that you cannot do.  You play the game of death, of being helpless, pitifully tied to dissolution in a world which shows no mercy to you.  Yet when you accord it mercy, will its mercy shine on you.  (WB364)”

Reflections:

1 – No Longer an “Imprisoned Will”

“Mercy” is not often mentioned in ACIM, though it is frequently taken for granted.  In today’s passage, we see our way to happiness.  We see our way out of an “imprisoned will” (quotation from ACIM).  We learn that we have been writing scripts that we live out, and in which we find ourselves lonely and in dire straits.

2 – Choose Happy Dreams

This does not have to be.  We can as easily choose happy dreams, “the happy dreams the Holy Spirit brings” (from the Workbook).  We are the scriptwriters, and our ego writes sad and demoralizing scripts.  We need not cooperate with this game any longer.  And “game” is what it is.  We need to play better, and A Course in Miracles shows us how.

3 – The ACIM Ideal Mode

“There is nothing that you cannot do.”  This sentence sounds patently false, but it is simply, from my interpretation, an instance of when ACIM is to be lived in the “ideal” mode.  In the best of all possible worlds, we would seek guidance frequently, and we would ask for those things that are appropriate for ourselves.  This will not lead to “pie in the sky” thinking or doing.  This will lead to sanest good sense.  We will ask what we are suited for, not for those wisps of melody that are not our “song.”  We all know intuitively when we are praying for a blessing that is not the right blessing, not the blessing that God would bestow on us.  We need only look within, in simple honesty, to recognize when we are in an internal fight with God for what we want that He does not think is in our best interests.  Would we pray for something that will bring us ill, under these conditions?

4 – Let Go and Let God

Let go and let God, as we have often read.  Let Him direct our prayers through the medium of the Holy Spirit.  Then we will add our thoughts and actions, and we will find the silver lining in our daily lives for which we have often wished.

Prayer:

Dear Father/Mother,

I would not see myself today in any sense as weak or frail.  You are always here for me, and You know what I can do.  You will guide me through the Holy Spirit.  Thank You for the confidence that You have placed in me.

Let me open to Your will.  May I recognize that Your Will and my will are actually identical.  May my day go smoothly, in Your grace.

Amen.