ARCIM

Daily Lesson 168 ~
June 17

Your Grace is given me, Creator. I receive It now.

The Divine speaks to us, and wills we speak to It. It is not distant. It makes no attempt to hide from us. We try to hide from It, and suffer from deception. It remains entirely accessible. It loves Its Children. There is no certainty but this, yet this suffices. The Divine will love Its Creation forever. When the minds of Its Children sleep, It loves them still. And when their minds awaken, It loves them with a never-changing Love.

When you know again the Meaning of the Divine’s Love, then hope and despair will be impossible, for Hope will be forever satisfied, and despair of any kind unthinkable. The Divine’s Grace is Its Answer to all despair, for in It resides Remembrance of Its Love. And It has gladly given you the Means by which Its Will is recognized. Its Grace is yours by your acknowledgment. And Memory of the Divine awakens in the mind that asks the Means of It whereby its sleep is done.

Today we ask of the Divine the Gift It has most carefully preserved within our hearts, waiting to be acknowledged. This the Gift by which the Divine leans to us and lifts us up, taking awakening’s Final Step Itself. All steps but this we learn, instructed by Its Voice. But finally the Divine Itself comes and takes us in Its Arms, and sweeps away the cobwebs of our sleep. Its Gift of Grace is more than just an answer. It restores all Memories the sleeping mind forgot, all Certainty of what Love’s Meaning is.

The Divine loves Its Creation. Request It now to give the Means by which this world will disappear, and Vision first will come, with Knowledge but an Instant later. For in Grace you see a Light that covers all the world in Love, and watch fear disappear from every face as hearts rise up and receive the Light as theirs. What now remains that Heaven be delayed an instant longer? What is yet undone when your forgiveness rests on everything?

It is a new and holy day today, for we receive what has been given us. Our faith is in the Giver, not our own acceptance. We acknowledge our mistakes, but It to Whom all error is unknown is yet the One Who answers our mistakes by giving us the Means to lay them down, and rise to It with Gratitude and Love.

And It comes to meet us as we come to It, for what It has prepared for us It gives and we receive. Such is Its Will because It loves Its Children. To It we pray today, returning only the Words It gave to us through Its Own Voice, Its Word, Its Love:

 

“Your Grace is given me, Creator. I receive It now.

Creator, I come to You.

And You will come to me who asks.

I am Part of your Creation, Which You love.”

 

Corresponding Text Section

 

Chapter 15: Dissolving Dissociation

 

4. Spirit-Collaborative Decision-Making

Whenever you choose to decide for yourself based on your own counsel alone, you will be wrong. You will be thinking counter-productively, therefore your thinking will inevitably not be in your own best interests. The decision will seem to hurt you because of the concept of decision that led to it. This is because it is not true that you can make decisions by yourself, or for yourself alone. No thought of any Child of the Divine can be separate, or isolated in its effects. Every decision is made for the whole Divine Family, directed in and out, and influencing a constellation larger than anything you ever dreamed of.

Those who accept Atonement are invulnerable. But those who believe they are guilty will react to guilt, because they will think that being aware of guilt is awakening, and so they will not refuse to look upon it and side with it. They believe that increasing guilt is self-protection because the more guilt there is, the more that others will be responsible for it. Of course this idea is senseless like the guilt they believe is real. They fail to understand the simple fact that what they do not want – the source of their guilt – must continue to hurt them until it is no more.

The entire guilt process arises when someone believes, either consciously or unconsciously, that what they desire isn’t good, which easily translates into being sinful or evil. Yet their true will was given to the Children of the Divine because it is holy and good, and it will bring to them all that they need, coming as naturally as Peace that knows no limits. Their will, at one with Divine Will, will provide everything that offers anything of Value. But because they do not yet understand their will, the Holy Spirit quietly understands it for them, and gives them what they will, without effort, strain, or the impossible burden of deciding alone what they want and need. And this will always be in their best interests, and will never result in guilt, but only gratitude.

It will never happen that you will have to make decisions for yourself alone and on your own. You are in the Companionship of Help beyond your understanding, and Help that knows the Answer to every question and decision that arises. Do not be content with little, which is all that you alone can offer yourself, when Spirit Who gives you Everything will simply offer you what you need. It will never question your Worthiness, or ask what you have done to make you deserving of the Gifts of the Divine. Therefore do not ask this of yourself. Instead, accept Spirit’s Answer, for It knows you are worthy of Everything the Divine wills for you.

Do not try to escape the Gifts of the Divine, which Spirit so freely and gladly offers you. It offers you only what the Divine gave to It for you. You need not decide whether or not you are deserving of It. The Divine knows that you are, which was decided at your creation. Would you deny the Truth of the Divine’s Decision, and place your current distorted appraisal of yourself in place of Its calm and unswerving Value of Its Children? Nothing can unsettle the Divine’s Conviction of the perfect Purity of Everything It created, for This is wholly pure. Decide for the Perspective of This, for, being of the Divine, It must be true.

Peace abides in every mind that quietly accepts the Plan that the Divine has set for Its Children’s awakening, relinquishing their own plans. You do not yet know of awakening, for you do not yet understand it. Therefore make no decisions about what it is, or where it is to be found, but ask everything of the Holy Spirit, and leave all decisions to Its gentle Counsel. The One Who knows the Plan of the Divine, Which the Divine would have you follow, can teach you what It is. Only Its Wisdom is capable of guiding you to follow this Plan. Every decision you undertake alone only signifies that you would define what awakening is, and what you would be awakened from. The Holy Spirit knows that all awakening is escape from guilt. You have no other “enemy,” and against this strange distortion of the Innocence and Purity of the Children of the Divine, the Holy Spirit is your Friend.

Spirit is the strong Protector of your Innocence, which sets you free. And it is Spirit’s Decision to undo everything that would obscure your Innocence from your mind. Thus Spirit would leave your mind unclouded. Let It, therefore, be the only guide that you would follow to awakening. It knows the Way, and leads you gladly on It. With Spirit you will succeed in learning that what the Divine wills for you is your will. Without Its Guidance you will think you know alone, and you will decide against your Peace, as surely as you made the wrong decision in ever thinking that awakening depended on you alone. Awakening is of It to Whom the Divine gave it for you. Spirit has not forgotten it. Remember Spirit, and It will help you choose correctly in every decision that must be made for your awakening and for the Peace of the Divine in you.

Seek not to appraise the Worth of the Divine’s Children, whom It created eternally holy, for to do so is to attempt to appraise the Worth of their Creator, and judge against It. And you will feel guilty for this imagined “crime,” which no one in the world or in Heaven can possibly commit. The Divine’s Spirit teaches only that the “sin” of self-replacement of the Majesty of the Divine is not a source of guilt. What cannot happen in Reality can have no effects to fear. Be quiet in your faith in the Divine, Who loves you, and would lead you out of insanity. Madness may have once been your choice, but is not your reality. Always remember the Love of the Divine, Who has remembered you. For it is quite impossible that the Divine could ever let Its Children drop from Its loving Mind, wherein they were created, and where their Abode was fixed in perfect Peace forever.

Only say to the Holy Spirit, “Decide for me,” and it is done. For Its Decisions are Reflections of what the Divine knows about you, and in this Light error of any kind becomes impossible. Why would you struggle so frantically to anticipate all that you cannot know, when all Knowledge is behind every decision that the Holy Spirit makes on your behalf? Learn of Its Wisdom and Its Love, and teach Its Answer to everyone who struggles in the dark. For you decide for them and for yourself. How gracious it is to decide all things through and with Spirit, Whose equal Love is given equally to all alike. It leaves no one outside yourself, alone without you. And so It gives you what is truly yours, because your Creator would have you share it with your sisters and brothers.

In everything be led by Spirit, and do not doubt or reconsider. Trust It to answer quickly, surely, and with Love for everyone who will be touched in any way by any decision. And everyone will be touched.

Would you take unto yourself the sole responsibility for deciding what can bring only good to everyone now and throughout time? Are you able to know this? You taught yourself the most unnatural habit of not communicating with your Creator. Yet through Spirit you remain in close Communication with the Divine, and with Everything that is within It, as It is within you. Unlearn isolation through Spirit’s loving Guidance, and learn of all the happy Communication that you have avoided but could not lose.

Whenever you are in doubt about what you should do, think of Spirit’s Presence in you, and tell yourself this, and only this:

 

Spirit knows the Way, which I know not, and It leads me. It will never keep from me what It would have me learn and do. And so I trust It to communicate to me all that It knows for me.

 

Then let It teach you quietly how to perceive your Innocence, which is always there.