STRENGTH

Note: Published in Miracles magazine (Jon Mundy, publisher)

I can give you my strength until yours is as certain as mine. . . . (WOM, Part 1, Lesson 7)

You always choose between your weakness and the strength of Christ in you.  (ACIM, COA ed., T-31. IX.2:3)

I can do all things through Christ which strengthened me.  (Phil. 4:13, KJV)\

            Jesus knew stress in himself while on Earth.  The evidence is in the New Testament: indignantly overturning the moneychangers’ tables in the temple; agonizing in Gethsemane (though no one knew this because his disciples slept; perhaps Jesus told this in his appearances later on); asking God from the cross why he had been forsaken. Yes, this man was fully human—whatever else he also was.

            But he overcame, as he bids us to do.  Again, the New Testament tells us how.  From the cross, rather than thinking of himself, he thought of his mother, standing nearby.  He put her in the care of his beloved disciple, John.  He welcomed a man being crucified beside him into Paradise that very day; he knew that was where he himself was heading. 

Yes, he overcame with strength, and we are bidden to overcome also.  But we have his help.  He shares his divinity with us; he shares his Christhood.  And we are made strong thereby.

We certainly all know stress, but now we discover that we can also know strength.  In both stress and strength, we emulate Jesus.  And he is always here for us.  He promises to come upon a “single unequivocal call.” (ACIM, COA ed., T-4.V.14:10)  

            We need the strength of Christ, by which we mean not just Jesus, but us as well—all the Sons and Daughters of God.  This explanation is a mystical statement of what the term Christ really means.  Let’s put our minds and hearts to the test, to really see how we might emulate Jesus in his strength, knowing that stress can always be set aside.

We will find that our humanity can be championed—not by stress—but by the divinity—the strength—that we all share, with Jesus himself, with Christ.

An Unsheltering Home

“The ego has built a shabby and unsheltering home for you, because it cannot build otherwise.  Do not try to make this impoverished house stand.  Its weakness is your strength.  (T55)”

Affirmation:  “Do not try to make the ego’s impoverished house stand.”

Reflections:

1 – This World’s Image of the Ego

We are taught in our world that it is wise to build a strong ego.  This is a principle that we learn not only in studying psychology, but also in living our lives.  The ego is seen as the good guy.

2 – The Ego in ACIM

Not so in the Course.  The ego is a type of demon in the Course.  We learn that the ego is always being undone, and that this is what is happening as we go through our lives.  We know humiliation, and this is one of the prime ways that we know that we have been seeing through the ego.

3 – Have You Been Hurt?

When we have been hurt by anything in our world, we can know that we have allowed the ego to come into ascendancy.  This will not do.  We can, instead, recognize that in this hurting feeling, we are really needing the comfort of God.  And we can turn inward in communing with Him, sure that our mood will lighten.  Our thoughts, when we are feeling hurt, is building a “shabby and unsheltering home” for us.  And we would not have this.  We need to leave the shabbiness behind, and that always entails forgiveness of our world, ourselves, and everyone in it.  We have been mistaken in feeling the urge to retaliate, because this is only a means to reestablish the ascendancy of the ego.

4 – Once Again, Guidance

In place of the ego, with its many judgments (which always lead us astray), we are bade to turn to the guidance of the Holy Spirit.  And we are bade to keep our egos humble.  Jesus says that this is what the “meek” are all about.  Meekness is not weakness, though the ego would tell us that it is.  It is the greatest strength, because we are not trying to be something that we are not.  We are Sons (and Daughters) of God, ever loved by Him.  With this assurance, we will not hesitate to let the ego wither away.

Prayer:

Dear Father,

May I have your help to let the ego’s impoverished house fall.  May I know in my deepest building that this is what You want.  This falling of the ego’s house will bring me peace.

The ego is not the good guy in my life, despite what this world has taught me.  May I let go of egoistic thinking, and walk into the light at last.

Amen.