I give my life to God to guide today.
The efficacy of this lesson hinges on the understanding that we are giving all our thoughts and all our actions to God. We are keeping nothing for ourselves; we are holding nothing back from the totality of our giving.
Today we have one Guide to lead us on. And as we walk together, we will give this day to Him with no reserve at all. This is His day (W-233.2:1-3).
Most of us rebel here, overtly or otherwise. We’ll give some of our thoughts and some of our actions to God, but we’re going to keep some of them for ourselves. Maybe a little shame, just to keep the familiar cycle going. Maybe a little hating on the neighbor who, let’s face it, kind of deserves it for using a gas-powered leaf blower at seven a.m.. Maybe we’ll indulge this or that addiction because, hey, we deserve it.
But when we insist on holding back even a thread of our own privilege, we are back in as deep as we can go. Ego only needs a thread to keep going. And ego’s “keep going” is our suffering and the world’s. “The Atonement is a total commitment” (T-2.II.7:1).
So this lesson owns a kind of dual function. First, we actively practice surrending our will – in mind and body – so that we can remember that in truth we share God’s Will, which is the only Will there is.
And second, realizing how hard that it is, and how secretly we don’t really want to surrender, we can ask why. We can look at resistance, identify its function, and ask if it truly serves our goal of remembering our shared innocence.
Resistance, says the Course, is the ego’s “last defense” (P-2.I.2:3).
“Resistance” is its way of looking at things; its interpretation of progress and growth. These interpretations will be wrong of necessity, because they are delusional. The changes the ego seeks to make are not really changes (P-2.I.2:4-9).
Our experience of resistance is really a symbol of our unwillingness to open our hearts and minds to the radical creativity of Love. We don’t want to be transformed into agents of atonement. We want to be happier, but on terms WE choose. We think being happy means getting what we want. And that, says the Course, is the whole problem.
Before you make any decisions for yourself, remember that you have decided against your function in Heaven, and then consider carefully whether you want to make decisions here. Your function here is only to decide against deciding what you want, in recognition that you do not know (T-14.IV.5:1-2).
When I resist giving my thoughts and activity to God, then I have chosen to continue pretending that I am the author of the universe and that all life must conform to my desires. But this is the fantasy of a child who has forgotten her mother and father. And while it may be understandable in the child, it is not understandable in us. We only have to look at the world to see what happens when we refuse to grow up and accept our rightful inheritance.
Salvation is not a form of rescue but of empowerment to think as God thinks and to create as God creates.
Your Self does not need salvation, but your mind needs to learn what salvation is. You are not saved from anything, but you are saved FOR glory. Glory is your inheritance, given you by your Creator that you might extend it (T-11.IV.1:3-5).
So I am grateful for those minutes that pass happily because I have given my thoughts and my activity to God. But I am also grateful for the insights into this internal resistance to giving my life to God. Little by little I am learning that there is nothing I want to keep, and that it is only by giving everything away that I can remember – with you – the “joy of living with our God” (T-14.IV.5:6).
Discover more from Sean Reagan
Subscribe to get the latest posts sent to your email.
