Faith Concludes the Journey

Reason takes us so far; faith finishes the journey.

Faith is in the nature of assent, a quiet yes offered internally. It is like reason delivers us to the desert’s edge, but faith is what sustains our first steps into that apparently dangerous wilderness. This is why A Course in Miracles teaches us that “[w]here learning ends, God begins . . .” (T-18.IX.11:4)

Love is not learned. Its meaning lies within itself (T-18.IX.12:1-2).

What then are we learning? We are learning to offer to the Holy Spirit that which we would withhold from God, the fragment of reality we think we stole and now rule in shadows and uncertainty. That part of us which cherishes darkness and separation and its own will is all that must be brought to light.

This is the little part you think you stole from Heaven. Give it back to Heaven. Heaven has not lost it, but you have lost sight of Heaven (T-18.IX.1:6-8).

This giving back (or bringing to light) is a symbolic gesture. It s important to see this. We are not actually returning a stolen piece of Heaven to Heaven. God, like Heaven, is indivisible. What never happened need not be fixed or repaired. But because we believe it happened – and because this belief is the separation – we need to mimic the amends.

In this sense, healing is simply the recognition that sickness never was.

We heal in this way by offering all the apparent symptoms of separation to the Holy Spirit: our fear that our bodies are the wrong size or shape, our anger at our parents, our frustration with money, our dissatisfaction with work, the injustice of war and poverty, the crossword puzzle we can’t complete, our headaches, stubbed toes and cancerous lesions . . .

All of these are merely symptoms – or symbols – of our belief in separation. They are in the nature of idols whose sole purpose is to obscure the unchangeable fact of our oneness with God. They are illusions and thus bound to failure.

Beyond all idols is the Thought God holds of you. Completely unaffected by the turmoil and the terror of the world, the dreams of birth and death that here are dreamed, the myriad of forms that fear can take; quite undisturbed, the Thought of God holds of you remains exactly as it always was (T-30.III.10:1-2).

Yet the question is never will illusion prevail, but rather how long will we postpone our celebration in God that illusions are not real? For the separation from God continues only so long as we insist it must.

Reason is what guides us through the text and workbook of A Course in Miracles. Reason teaches us that the myriad forms of fear we perceive are not separate problems in need of separate solutions but rather symptoms of the only problem we have. Reason persuades us that we need a Teacher to show us the other, the better way, which is accomplished by showing us that “[y]our one central problem has been answered, and you have no other” (W-pI.80.1:2).

Faith is what allows us to accept that all our problems have been solved, that peace is inherent, and that joy is now. Faith stands on the foundation reason built and leaps. Its gratefulness is akin to wings. It is not afraid so much as eager. It is ready to learn that the final lesson was what we expected all along it would be: We remain as God created us and God’s Will is done. Perfect wholeness abounds.