ARCIM

Daily Lesson 47 ~
February 16

The Divine is the Strength in which I trust.

If you are trusting your own strength, you have every reason to be apprehensive, anxious, and fearful. What can you predict or control? What is there in you alone that can be counted on? What would give you the ability to be aware of all the facets of any problem, and to resolve them in such a way that only good could come of it? What is there in your own strength that gives you the recognition of the right solution, and the guarantee that it will be accomplished?

Of yourself you can do none of these things. To believe that you can is to put your trust where trust is unwarranted, and to justify fear, anxiety, depression, anger, and sorrow. Who can put their faith in weakness and feel safe? Yet who can put their faith in true Strength and feel weak?

The Divine is your Safety in every circumstance. Spirit’s Voice speaks for the Divine in all situations and in every aspect of all situations, telling you exactly what to do to call upon Its Strength and Protection. There are no exceptions because the Divine has no exceptions. And the Voice that speaks for the Divine thinks as It does.

Today we will try to reach past your own weakness to the Source of real Strength. Four five-minute practice periods are necessary today, and longer and additional ones are recommended as you are able to practice them. Close your eyes and begin as usual by repeating today’s idea. Then spend a minute or two in searching for situations in your life that you have invested with fear, dismissing each one by telling yourself,

“The Divine is the Strength in which I trust.”

Now try to slip past all concerns related to your own sense of inadequacy. It is obvious that any situation that causes you concern is associated with feelings of inadequacy, for otherwise you would believe that you could deal with the situation successfully. It is not by trusting your own strength that you will gain confidence. But the Strength of the Divine in you is successful in all things.

The recognition of your own strength’s inadequacy is a necessary step in the correction of your errors, but it is hardly a sufficient one in giving you the confidence you need and to which you are entitled. You must also gain an awareness that your confidence in your real Strength is fully justified in every respect and in all circumstances.

In the latter phase of the practice period, try to reach down into your mind to a Place of real Safety. You will recognize that you have reached It if you feel a sense of deep Peace, however briefly. Let go all the trivial things that churn and bubble on the surface of your mind, and reach down and below them to the Divine Realm. There is a Place in you where there is perfect Peace. There is a Place in you where everything in accord with the Divine’s Will is possible. There is a Place in you where the Strength of the Divine abides.

Repeat the idea for today often. Use it as your response to any disturbance. Remember that Peace is your right because you are giving your trust to the Strength of the Divine.

 

Corresponding Text Section

 

Principle of Miracles 47

The miracle is a learning device that decreases the need for time. It has the unique property of abolishing time by rendering the amount of time needed to learn the lessons the miracle offers unnecessary.

Commentary

The instantaneous shift in perception from the horizontal comparison perspective to the vertical realization perspective that the miracle entails introduces a time interval from which the miracle assister and receiver both emerge much farther along in time than they would otherwise have been. There is thus no relation between the time a miracle takes and the furtherance of the Atonement in time that it covers. It facilitates learning that might have taken thousands of years from the horizontal perspective. It does this by the underlying Recognition of perfect Equality and Holiness between assister and receiver on which the miracle rests.

A miracle is unstable from the perspective of the amount of time that might be expected for the learning that it facilitates. That is, it does not occur predictably across time, and it rarely occurs in comparable forms. But within itself each miracle is perfectly consistent. Since it contains nothing but an acknowledgment of perfect Equality and Worth, all parts are equal. This establishes the prerequisite for Validity.

The miracle abolishes time by a process of collapsing it. It thus abolishes certain intervals within time. It does this, however, within the larger temporal sequence that inexorably leads to the completed Atonement. The Validity of the miracle, then, is predictive, though not logical, within the greater temporal arrangement. It establishes an out-of-pattern time interval which is not under the usual laws of time. Only in this sense is it timeless. By collapsing time, it literally saves time, rearranging the distribution of Light that is characteristic of the vertical perspective.