LESSON 228
August 16
"God has condemned me not. No more do I."
PRACTICE SUMMARY
(See Part II Practice Summary, and also Part II Introduction)
COMMENTARY
It takes great courage to let go of our self-condemnation. We are so afraid that if we stop condemning ourselves we will go berserk, the evil in us will be unchecked and will break out in some terrible disaster. But what if there is no evil in us? What if God is right? Is it so very likely that He is wrong and we are right? What God knows, the lesson says, makes sin in us impossible; "Shall I deny His knowledge?" (1:2)
The lesson is asking us, quite simply, to "take His Word for what I am" (1:4). Who knows what something or someone is better than its Creator? And what does God know about me? "My Father knows my holiness" (1:1). Every time I read such statements I watch my mind struggle to oppose the idea, cringing in a pseudo-humility that cries out, "Oh, no, I can't accept that about myself." If I dare to ask myself, "Why not?", my mind immediately comes up with a whole list of reasons. My flaws, my lack of total dedication to the truth, my addiction to this or that pleasure of the world. Yet every one of those things, brought into the light of the Holy Spirit, can be seen as nothing more than a misdirected prayer, a cry for help, a veiled longing for God and for Home.
"I was mistaken in myself" (2:1). That is all that has happened. I forgot my Source, and what I must be, coming from that Source. My Source is God, and not my dark illusions. My mistake about myself is not a sin to be judged but a mistake to be corrected; it needs not condemnation, but the healing of love. "My mistakes about myself are dreams" (2:4), that is all, and I can let these dreams go. I am not the dream; I am the dreamer, still holy, still a part of God.
Today, as I still my mind in God's Presence, I open myself to receive His Word concerning what I am. I brush aside the dreams, I recognize them for what they are, and let them go. I open my heart to Love.
Copyright © 1996, The Circle of Atonement, Sedona,
Arizona, USA.
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