LESSON 186
July 5
"Salvation of the world depends on me."
PRACTICE SUMMARY
Purpose: To go past your self-made roles and hear the Voice for God tell you of your part in the salvation of the world. To go beyond words and images to experience. This will intensify your motivation and strengthen your commitment.
Morning/Evening Quiet Time: 5 minutes - at least; 10 - better; 15 even better; 30 or more - best
Relinquish the roles and functions you gave yourself and listen to the Voice for God telling you your part in His plan. Do not doubt your adequacy to His plan, do not think what He says is impossible. Such false humility is arrogance. Trust that He knows you better than you do; your strengths, your wisdom and holiness. Do not cling to words and self-made images, but be willing to go beyond them to experience. Experience the Holy Spirit telling you that salvation needs your part and that you have the strength to fulfill it, that you are not weak, ignorant, helpless or sinful, but are God's Own Son.
Hourly Remembrance: as the hour strikes more, for than 1 minute (reduce if circumstances do not permit)
(Suggestion) Do a short version of morning/evening exercise.
Frequent Reminder: (Suggestion) Repeat idea, remembering that the Holy Spirit knows your function and that your function is to forgive.
Response To Temptation: (Suggestion) When something tempts you to see yourself as weak or unworthy, repeat the idea, and hear God's Voice urging you to remember Him.
COMMENTARY
Our individual salvation and our happiness depends on our accepting what this lesson teaches: that the salvation of the world depends on us. That our function is to save the world, to bring the light and joy and peace of God to every mind within our reach - which is a far greater number than we imagine.
The lesson is not simply saying that it would be a good idea for us to accept this thought. It is saying that acceptance is imperative to our own personal freedom. "There is one way, and only one, to be released from the imprisonment your plan to prove the false is true has brought to you. Accept the plan you did not make instead" (5:1,2). The Course is often so uncompromising: "one way, and only one." If we want to experience our own wholeness, if we want to find our Self, we must accept that salvation of the world depends on us. Why? Because the nature of Who we are demands it. If I am an extension of God, and if Love, which created me, is what I am, then how can I possibly accept that fact and not accept that my function is to give myself to the world? Giving is what Love does!
To take our place among the saviors of the world is not arrogance, if we are as God created us. It is merely accepting what has been given to us by our Creator: "We did not establish [our function]. It is not our idea" (2:2-3). In fact it is arrogant not to acknowledge this as our function. The self-image we make in arrogance pictures us as weak, ignorant and helpless (6:3-4). It seems humble, but it is mountainous arrogance masquerading as humility. This self-image thumbs its nose at the Creator and says, "I am what I make of myself, and not what You created me to be."
The last week or so I have frequently been finding myself feeling at loose ends. I seem to drift from one task to another, and to have a great deal of difficulty concentrating on anything. The description in 10:4 seems to describe me exactly: "The functions which the world esteems are so uncertain that they change ten times an hour at their most secure." And as I read this lesson I recognize that I have been trying to define my function for myself, instead of simply accepting the one God gave me. I have been fighting my function. Yet when it is accepted, it is so unambiguous that life simply straightens out, and all the confusion is gone: "In lovely contrast, certain as the sun's return each morning to dispel the night, your truly given function stands out clear and wholly unambiguous" (11:1).
So then, let me today stop resisting my function. Let me stop listening to my self-made image, which trembles as God speaks to me of my true function, sensing that the basis of its existence is being cut away (7:1-2). Let me simply let go of my plans for myself and surrender to the plan I did not make, trusting that everything I need to fulfill it has been given me; trusting that I am worthy to be counted among the saviors of the world; trusting that all my needs are answered by God, even though He does not see them, in whatever form is most useful at the moment (13:4-5).
"Salvation of the world depends on you who can forgive. Such is your function here" (14:5-6).
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Arizona, USA.
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