Principle Thirty-One of A Course in Miracles

Miracles should inspire gratitude, not awe. You should thank God for what you really are. The children of God are holy and the miracle honors their holiness, which can be hidden but never lost (T-1.I.31:1-2).

Miracles are natural expressions of love; they remind us that we are one with God, and that our brothers and sisters are also one with God. Because of this, conflict is impossible. Peace and happiness no longer come and go but stay with us because they are us. The way that we live in the world changes when we stop resisting what is true.

Gratitude is the natural response to this new way of living. Thankfulness arises without effort because it is merely another word for love.

Love makes no comparisons. And gratitude can only be sincere if it is joined to love. We offer thanks to God our Father that in us all things will find their freedom. It will never be that some are loosed while others still are bound. For who can gain in the name of love? (W-pI.195.4:2-6).

If we feel awe before the miracle then we are confused. Awe implies inequality, and the miracle establishes our total equality. What is one is not comprised of many parts, some greater and some lesser, but only what is the same. Miracles are not supernatural; they are not cosmic transgressions. They are confirmations of our shared underlying goodness, and invitations to remember that this goodness is all there is.

Miracles support us; they do not undermine us. They remind us of what we are, not what we were once upon a time nor what could be in the future. We don’t thank God for what we get; that is not what miracles are about. We don’t thank God for what changes, one way or the other.

We thank God for what we are, because all the miracles does is establish what is true about us. All they do is restore to our awareness what we are in truth. God has only one child and we are it. If God is love then we are love; if God is peace then we are peace; if God is merciful and just then we are merciful and just.

Our gratitude is our connection to God and to our brothers and sisters in God. That is how we remember what we are. We work out salvation in relationship.

All of God’s children are holy because all of Creation is holy. Holiness is not a behavioral attribute that some of us have and others don’t. It is not something we have in degrees. It is that which is innate and unchangeable in each of us, without consideration of our actions or beliefs. It cannot be performed.

Miracles honor that holiness. They recognize holiness at that level and they honor it. They reflect holiness throughout Creation, like a light endlessly extending brilliant rays of love, peace and happiness. Our holiness can be hidden – it can be forgotten – but it cannot be lost. It cannot be injured or impaired in any way.

What is true about us is what saves us because it reestablishes in us the truth of our identity. When we know who we are, then we know who all our brothers and sisters are as well. We know them as our brothers and sisters and, in doing so, come home at last to the One Who created us equal.