What Am I? Accept Atonement and You Will Know

“I will accept Atonement for myself. Here is the end of choice. For here we come to a decision to accept ourselves as God created us. And what choice except uncertainty of what we are? There is no doubt that is not rooted here. There is no question but reflects this one. There is no conflict that does not entail the single, simple question, ‘What am I?” (WB-139)”

We fail to sustain our Awakening when we allow self-doubt to walk into our minds. This is the all-important secret, the reason that accepting Atonement as a reconciled child of God is so important.

We have long wondered about what we really are. This quotation makes this clear, though we know if also from our personal experience. This quotation also recommends that we leave this uncertainty behind. If we accept Atonement, accept the correction that we need, what is there to be uncertain about?

Nothing. We are home free at last.

Uncertainty Is Now an Echo from the Past

“Uncertainty will not now come to teach you lessons you have already learned but will only visit you as an echo from the past. It is a habit, a pattern of the old thought system. All you must do is not listen to it. Its voice will not be gentle or full of love. Its voice will hold the unmistakable edge of fear. (Treatises of A Course of Love: Treatise on the Personal Self, 10.11)”

Affirmation: “I will avoid listening to any echoes from the past.”

Reflections:

1 – Fear

When we feel the unmistakable edge of fear, we know that we are thinking amiss, not listening to our heart. And uncertainly, Jesus seems to say here, is a symptom of fear. To be sure! That is what we want now. And that is what we can have.

2 – Personal Interpretation

We are leaving the old thought system behind. How can we do that? There are indications, though the ones that I mention now are not all spelled out in A Course of Love nor even in A Course in Miracles. First and foremost, we can learn to live with ourselves better. We no longer chastise ourselves for our mistakes, but we acknowledge those mistakes and seek to correct them, promptly. We pray a great deal, though this prayer may take the form of fragmentary prayers for others and ourselves. And we thank God for His many blessings, for gratefulness keeps His abundance flowing to us. We use affirmations, scriptural passages from the Bible, ACIM, or ACOL—words that help us to keep on the right path.

3 – Warm Hearts

With regimens like these in place, we walk a surer path. We are uncertain no longer, for our hearts are warmed by the experiences which we encounter. If we remember, from ACIM, that the solution is always with the problem, we will know that whatever uncertainty emerges is easily rectified. We do not have to wait for an answer most of the time, but we wait patiently when the answer does appear to be slow in coming. Probably our own mind is interfering with receiving God’s Answer.

4 – We Just Know

Listen to your heart. We do not need the proofs of God’s favor that the mind would ask to have. We do not need proof of God at all when we are listening to our heart. We just know, and we know in a way that is unmistakable.

5 – Uncertainty

Continuing to live in uncertainty is thus an echo from the past, an echo lodged in fear. And we would be free of fear. We need to walk into the future with confidence, and we can do so. The farther along we walk, the more confident, and the more certain, we become. Thank God for these blessings.

Prayer:

Dear Father/Mother,

When I stay close to You during the day, I walk a certain pathway. Things work out well. But when I let You drop from my mind, I walk a turbulent path. I would walk a smooth path today.

Help me to avoid uncertainty. Uncertainty brings on insomnia, and I would be free of that. May I take the steps toward living with myself well. And when I live with myself well, I am living with You well.

There is no better to spend a day than to spend it in fellowship with You. Let me remember this if anything goes awry today.

Amen.

Our Hatred of Uncertainty

“Since you live in a world of such extreme uncertainty, one of your highest requirements of those you have relationships with is a mode of behavior that allows you to know what to expect.  (A Course of Love, 31.36)”

Affirmation:  “I will not have expectations of my loved ones today.”

Reflections:

1 – The Dilemma

The passage for today highlights a very human predicament.  Because the world is uncertain in that we never know what to expect next, we try to impose certainty by having expectations of our significant others.

2 – Do Expectations Work?

But does this ever–ever–work?  I don’t know of any case in which it works consistently.  Our loved ones are not here always to do our bidding.  And even when they are willing to do so, the flesh is weak, and we cannot always depend on them to be there when we need them.  Nor can we depend on loved ones to do for us what only we can do for ourselves, we in conjunction with the Divine.

3 – Asking Too Much

We are asking too much of our loved ones with unrealistic expectations.  It is expectations, ironically, what cause the breakdown of many relationships.  “Don’t lean on me, for you will knock me over.”  I once heard internally these words in regard to a particular significant other in my life.  We do not want to displace our burdens on already burdened human beings.  They may not be able to sustain us.  And, moreover, sustaining us it not their business.  We need to be whole human beings, secure within ourselves, with God’s help, who form a healthy bond to another.  Do not our secular psychologies say much about co-dependent relationships?

4 – Can Never Predict

We can never predict accurately what our loved ones will say or do in any meaningful way, even when we know them well.  And this is asking too much of them, as I have implied.

5 – Depend on the Self/Christ

Then we cannot choose amiss, though we will still make mistakes that are eminently correctable.  We can always choose again if a given day goes badly.  Our main choice, for God, has been made, and we are, if intellectually certain, ready to walk a green earth under such conditions.

Prayer:

Dear Father/Mother,

I would not get uptight today due to uncertainty, for I would depend upon my Self/Christ, and God to give me the guidance to live in an uncertain world.  There is no other way to live dependably.

Be with me as I walk in this uncertain world today.  You and You alone can heal me, can allow me to know what to do to choose the Self/Christ within, and the guidance that comes from such a choice.

Help me to choose once again, if this day should go awry.  I can always start the day again, if things do go awry.  But I do pray that this day will proceed easily and peacefully, Your way.

Amen.

Overcoming Bitterness and Uncertainty

“Bitterness and uncertainty are replaced by hope.  Hope is the condition of the initiate, new to the realization of having a home within the embrace.  It is the response that says to all you have just read, ‘Ah, if only it were true.  If only it could be true.’  (A Course of Love, 20.36)”

Affirmation:  “hope”

Reflections:

1 – Three Thoughts

There are three distinct trains of thought in the passage for today.  Let’s take them in order.

2 – Bitterness and Uncertainty Left Behind

First, we see that, as progress in reading A Course of Love, we leave bitterness and uncertainty behind.  Bitterness is a state of mind that was not a focus of A Course in Miracles, but is important to ACOL.  We are seen to be bitter about many of the things that have happened to us on our pathway through life.  And we hold this feeling of bitterness, this grievance against God, close to ourselves.  We cannot live this way in peace.  We must and will choose a better way.  And hope is the answer.  Even when life seems to go against us, because we have, like a mirror, attracted bad things to ourselves, we can recognize that this state of affairs does not have to be permanent.  We can choose again, and in the next choice, we can reach the tipping point of above 50 percent, which changes everything–if we hold firm to this concept of what we wish to see in our lives.  (Ideas are adapted from Rhonda Byrne’s The Secret trilogy.)

3 – Hope

We enjoy hope when we accept the embrace of Jesus as what we want, as we realize that he is serious about offering us the total, unconditional love that we crave.  And he soothes us, for we are much in need of comforting.  This the embrace does for us.  We imagine that Jesus is enfolding us in his arms, and we instantly feel justified.  We feel accepted by God as well as by Jesus.  And we accept ourselves, knowing that regardless of how many mistakes we have made, we are loved.

4 – The Embrace

The final sentence in the passage for today is the central hope of the embrace.  If only it could be true that I am forgiven!  If only it could be so simple to feel the peace that I want to feel!  This is the promise that hope brings to us.  And if we accept the indications of our heart, we will know peace, serenity, and we will also know happiness.  Jesus’s embrace can and will do all of this for us.

5 – Forgive Self

So let us drop our own unforgiveness toward ourselves.  We will even continue to make mistakes, for we are human (as well as divine), and we are living in this world, where there are many temptations.  But we need not feel that all is lost, that there is no hope.

6 – Hope Will Take Us Home

This passage tells us that there is hope.  And this hope will take us home to God, while we continue to walk this world.

Prayer:

Dear Father/Mother,

The solution is always with the problem, and when we have articulated precisely the problem, and just as precisely turn that problem over to You, the solution appears–and quickly.  Your time is not ours, but more often than not the time is soon, even within our timeframe.  This gives us hope, which we are studying today.  And of course any lingering bitterness about what life has dealt us, or any uncertainty about what to do in the future, dissipate.  We always know the next right step, when we have taken the time to ask with sincerity.  Thank You.

Be with me today as I seek to solve the pesky problems that have married my mornings recently.  I feel anxious in the morning, and You would not have it so.  I feel on the verge of a breakthrough, and I have hope that this is a certainty.  I do ask for help with sincerity.

Thank You for listening to my prayer.

Amen.