Miracles are habits, and should be involuntary. They should not be under conscious control. Consciously selected miracles can be misguided (T-1.I.5:1-3).
Since miracles are expressions of Love, they are not personal. Any attempt to make them a thing that we do or that somebody else does reinforces the very confusion in identity that miracles are given to correct.
Miracles have no “goals” other than reestablishing our identity in and as extensions of Love. When we commandeer them for our own interests, our own ends, we obscure their healing potential because in truth we have no personal interests. We have no needs. Only ego subscribes to the illusion of needs; only ego could need a miracle to be personal.
Here is what A Course in Miracles has to say about our habit of taking everything personally (which always produces goals for us, rather than for all).
Another way of describing the goals you now perceive is to say that they are all concerned with “personal” interests. Since you have no personal interests, your goals are really concerned with nothing. In cherishing them, therefore, you have no goals at all. And thus you do not know what anything is for (W-pI.25.3:1-4).
Choice and decision – or any form of conscious direction – have no place in the application of miracles. Miracles are natural and involuntary, like sneezing or blinking. We don’t resolve to do these things; they simply happen. We barely notice them.
Can we see the miracle in a similar light?
The fifth miracle principle suggests that the extension – which includes the reception – of miracles should be just that habitual. When we forget the body and the illusion of separate interests and simply adhere to Love’s non-dramatic nudges, then miracles are the natural result. And they always facilitate a condition in which additional miracle-minded thinking becomes more fluid and effective. Everybody wins and nobody loses. There are no separate interests.
In a sense, this principle recognizes the ego’s objective of making everything about itself. Ego loves the idea of miracles so long as they reinforce the separation from God upon which its existence depends. Ego recognizes scarcity – whether it takes the form of relationships that treat us poorly or the inability to find a parking space – and is happy to apply miracles to those problems.
But miracles are not given to amend or improve on ego’s illusory world. They may appear to have affects there – and they may not – but improving on illusions is not their domain. They are not given to solve problems. They are given to make clear the impossibility of separate interests and thus unite us with our brothers and sisters in love.
Thus, when we consciously choose the circumstances under which we want to give or receive a miracle, the risk is that we are heeding ego rather than spirit. We are overthinking the situation. And remember: ego is happy to be subtle. It has no aversion to our being “spiritual” so long as the fundamental goal does not threaten ego’s existence.
Expressions of love are natural. They don’t need to be forced. They aren’t “chosen.” Or rather, they were already chosen, but by God in Creation. They mean life, not death. All the miracle does is remind us over and over that we remain as God created us, capable only of extending love, and worthy of receiving nothing less.
