How to Overcome Uncertainty

“Uncertainty of any kind is doubt about your self.  This is why this Course aims to establish your identity, for from it all the rest will come.  (A Course of Love, 12.8)”

Affirmation:  “My identity is my Self.”

Reflections:

1 – How Often?

How often are we uncertain?  I would venture to guess that this state of mind happens very frequently.  We don’t know which way to turn.  If we have been students of A Course in Miracles, we know to turn to the Holy Spirit for guidance.  Now that we are studying A Course of Love, we know to turn inward to the Christ/Self within.  But do we yet believe that the inner self is really the inner Self/Christ?

2 – Christ Within

Probably not.  And that is what brings on the doubt.  We don’t really believe that we are good enough to hold Christ within us.  It is true that he is hidden from us when we are obstreperous, attacking, and angry–but we are (are we not?) learning to move beyond such undesirable states of mind and heart.  We are listening to our heart, something that we have done sporadically all of our lives.  We are listening to our heart if we are following the recommendation of ACOL.

3 – Perfection

The doubt that we are good enough to hold the Christ inside will fall away as we accept the good news that Jesus is telling us.  He assures us that we do not have to be perfect.  We only need to identify which character traits we would relinquish, and then it is done for us.  The intention is all.  And then the doubt will fall away.  We know that all of our brothers and sisters, likewise, hold Christ within.  We are not unique.  This assurance will help us to realize that we are not lost in grandiose dreams.  We are instead encouraged to accept the grandeur of our being, the grandeur that God welcomes us as His children, eventually as co-creators with Him.  And when the Self who is within, the Christ who is within, is accepted fully, we will not have any sense of false humility, not any false humility that is actually arrogance that we cannot be as good as God has created us.

4 – Accept Others

When we establish our identity as the Self/Christ that we are within, we will reach out with more acceptance of other people.  We frequently act badly because of a poor self-image, and this poor self-image will vanish in the glory of recognizing who we really are.  Then our Self will move to create the elevated Self of form, and we will not be quite so ready to denigrate the physical in our lives.  Yes, the physical is an illusion, but the illusion is quite solid to us, and to deny this fact is a particularly unfortunate type of denial.

Prayer:

Dear Father/Mother,

May I move closer to a full acceptance of the Christ/Self within me, as he/she is within all of us.  May I not feel that to think this way is arrogance, but actually not to think this way is arrogance.  Would we deny what we are learning about who we really are?  Who Jesus is teaching us that we really are?

Jesus has told us that we are the same as he.  And yet we find this difficult to accept.  May we seek forgiveness for our stubborness, a forgiveness that we need to grant ourselves, for God does not condemn and therefore does not need to forgive us.  We do not need to condemn ourselves either.  

Be with me today as I ponder these deep truths from A Course of Love.  There is little doubt that I can attract whatever I wish, and today I wish for Your mercy.  Be with me as I seek to reach for the stars, even as all of us reach for the stars.  This is not arrogance or grandiosity, but the sanest sense.  Thank You for leading Jesus to guide us to this knowledge.

Amen.

Rejoice! Doubt Is Gone.

 

“How can you not rejoice when doubt is gone and love fills all the space that doubt once occupied?  No shadows linger when doubt is gone.  Nothing stands between the child of God and the child’s own Source.  There remain no clouds to block the sun, and night gives way to day.  (A Course of Love, 4.5)”

Affirmation:  “Night gives way to day.”

Reflections:

1 – Night Gives Way to Day

What a wonderful promise:  “Night gives way to day”!  This is where A Course of Love says that we are heading, where there are no shadows, doubt is gone, and we recognize that as a child of God, He is our Source and One with us.

2 – Grandeur – Not Grandiosity

We must not let the ego latch onto these statements and make grandiosity out of them.  There is grandeur here, certainly, but it is a grandeur that is of God, and our personal selves would never know how to act if it weren’t for the grace of God to show us what to do.  The same goes for what we say, and even what we think.  When we enthralled by love, we are well on the way to our home in God, with no division in our minds and hearts.  There is no separation, the separation that we once believed in.  There is no need to think that in order to experience everything, we need to imagine ourselves separate from our Creator.

3 – Does God Know of Us?

And there is no reason to think that we are less because we communicate with God.  There is thinking among us that God does not know about us, because we are caught in illusion, and He is does not enter illusion.  But this is not my experience, and therefore I do not try to teach this lesson.  We need, however, to accept from ACIM what speaks to our hearts, and we need not to divide from each other.

4 – Reincarnation

The same desire to avoid controversy is present when the subject of reincarnation comes up.  In A Course in Miracles, Jesus says that our teaching and learning should be acceptable to all–to those who believe in reincarnation and to those who don’t.  Any stand on this question is best left alone.  We need to teach and to live only what can enhance the message of Jesus.  And controversial issues, including theological ones, are not the “practical” that ACIM (and, by extension, ACOL) seeks to teach.

5 – Vision Will Return

May we enjoy the light of the day today.  May we know that night is only a rotation of the earth, and not a constant state.  And if our own lives comes to seem dark, may we know that vision can and will be returned to us when we turn to God in whatever way He seems most real to us.

Prayer:

Dear Father/Mother,

I thank You for this glorious day, another day to live in a world that can become vivid in its joy.  I am grateful for my many blessings, and foremost is my good state of mind.  You have found a place in my heart that nobody else fulfills.  And thank You for filling my heart with Your love.

May the love that I feel when I sense Your “felt Presence” be especially keen with me today.  May I watch my moods, and turn aside from any dark ones that seem to descend upon me from nowhere.  They are not worthy of my attention.

Be with me throughout the rest of the day.  And thank You for taking good care of all of my brothers and sisters.

Amen.