Commentary on ACIM Lesson 166

©2010 Rev. David Seacord

I am entrusted with the gifts of God.

A little personal truth for you today....

The way it has been going lately (as God shapes me up with this sadhana / writing process) is that I will follow my inspiration and write something, and then, once it is out the door and into the public domain, I get to eat crow, by failing to be able to live the very thing I just wrote about. Then, to stay clean, I 'get to' tell you the truth about that....

Here's my little example from today. I go out real early for an exercise-acquiring 10 mile morning bike ride with my herbal healer friend along the banks of the Colorado River, sort of. Actually it's all reed-lined sloughs and slough lakes interspersed with big irrigation canals, and it's a graded, sometimes wash-boardy, sometimes deep sand or gravel dirt road we ride on. It's beautiful in the coolish morning, and for a while I enjoy myself, even though my friend is quickly considerably out in front of me. She waits for me a couple of times, but then disappears. The long and short of it is, I fell way behind. My bike is a mountain bike, and so it has the fat tires I need, but still the ride was not being the pleasant little jaunt I had envisioned it would be. The deep sand catches my tires and wants to throw me, the wash-board is jolting, and long before I get to the 5 mile turnaround point, my back muscles are complaining, my butt is sore, and I am feeling really spent just getting this far one way, and yet, I have to also ride all the way back too. I decide to turn around short of the goal when my friend appears heading the opposite direction. She says (laughing at me and my condition because this is the reverse of our normal situation [I usually out-hike her]) "Hey, we can stop and rest up a little ways at a picnic table I rested at a few days ago [when she was out here with somebody else]. It's not too far. I'll wait up there for you." And she takes off.

I try for a while to keep close enough to see her, but that exhausts me, so I settle down to plowing through the experience. It's hot by now and there's no shade anywhere. I keep going. But after a while, boy am I complaining.... I didn't know it was going to be 10 miles, I didn't know there wouldn't be any shade, I didn't know it would be this gnarly road full of sand traps and wash-boards. And then, where was the darn picnic table? ( I never found it, and neither did she, by the way.)

Long about now, God dropped in (uninvited) and had me take a look at 'how I was being'. So? (I wanted to say). So whatever happened to the practice of 'embracing without resistance', which you so eloquently wrote about just three days ago? I was silent. That was because I wanted to cuss, but God was right there, you know....

"Well, you think about it..." God said, and took off with a fancy loopty loop. I peeled one of those amazing 'best I've ever eaten grapefruits' that God had given me a few days ago too, and got some energy from that. And then I decided to see if I could shift gears a little, and walk (I mean ride) my talk.

Sure enough, changing my head space, I started to notice the little things around me again.... dried old weeds became patterns of beauty, and somehow I started to be able to miss the sand traps a lot better. I even stopped and checked out a couple of little side roads a bit, just to see what was up. In other words, I started enjoying myself again finally... even the sun and the sweating.

My friend rescued me with her pickup, saving me from riding the last mile, but by then it didn't matter. We just had a good laugh. (And I'm glad she never heard what I had been thinking....)

So here's the moral of the story: Whenever God drops in 'uninvited', consider He knows something.

Namaste,

David

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My personal version in first person.

Lesson 166

I am entrusted with the gifts of God.

All things are given me. God's trust in me is limitless. He knows me, and that I am His Son. He gives without exception, holding nothing back that can contribute to my happiness. And yet,unless my will is one with His, His gifts are not received. But what would make me think there is another will than His?

Here is exposed the paradox that underlies the making of the world. This world is not the Will of God, and so it is not really real. Yet those who think it is real, they must still believe there is 'another will', and that one leads to opposite effects from the effects God wills. Impossible as it indeed is; but every mind that looks upon the world and judges it as certain, solid, trustworthy and true believes either in two creators; or in only one.... himself alone. But never in one God.

The gifts of God are not acceptable to anyone who holds such strange beliefs. He must believe that to accept God's gifts (however evident they may become, however urgently he may be called to claim them as his own) is to be pressed to treachery against himself. Thus compelled, He must deny the presence of God's gifts, contradict God's truth, and then suffer to preserve the world that he made.

For here is the only home he thinks he knows. Here is the only safety he believes that he can find. Without the world he made he is an outcast; homeless and afraid. He does not realize that it is here that he is afraid indeed, and homeless, too; an outcast wandering so far from home, so long away, he does not realize he has forgotten where he came from, where he goes, and even who he really is.

Yet in his lonely, senseless wanderings, God's gifts go with him, all unknown to him. He cannot lose them. But he will not look at what is given him. He wanders on, aware of the futility he sees about him everywhere, perceiving how his little lot but dwindles, as he goes ahead to nowhere. Still he wanders on in misery and poverty, alone, though God is with him, and not knowing the treasure that is his is so great that everything the world contains is valueless before its magnitude.

He seems a sorry figure; weary, worn, in threadbare clothing, and with feet that bleed a little from the rocky road he walks. No one but has identified with him, for everyone who comes here has pursued the path he follows, and has felt defeat and hopelessness as he is feeling them. Yet is he really tragic, when you see that he is following the way he chose, and need but realize Who walks with him and open up his treasures to be free?

This is a picture of my ego-chosen self, the one I made as a replacement for reality. This is the self I have savagely defended against all reason, every evidence, and all the witnesses who came with proof to show me this is not me. In the past, I have heeded them not. I have gone on my own appointed way, with eyes cast down lest I might catch a glimpse of truth, and be released from my self-deception and set free.

I would cower fearfully lest I should feel Christ's touch upon my shoulder, and perceive His gentle hand directing me to look upon my gifts. How could I then proclaim my poverty in exile? He would make me laugh at this perception of myself. Where is my great self-pity then? And what becomes of all the tragedy I sought to make for myself, for whom God intended only joy?

My ancient fear has come upon me now, and justice has caught up with me at last. Christ's hand has touched my shoulder, and I feel that I am not alone. I even think the miserable self I thought was me may not be my Identity. Perhaps God's Word is truer than my own. Perhaps His gifts to me are real. Perhaps He has not wholly been outwitted by my plan to keep His Son in deep oblivion, and go the way I chose without my Self.

God's Will does not oppose. It merely is. It is not God I have imprisoned in my plan to lose my Self. He does not know about a plan so alien to His Will. There was a need He did not understand, to which He gave an Answer. That is all. And I who have this Answer given me have need no more of anything but this.

Now do I live, for now I cannot die. The wish for death is answered, and the sight that looked upon it now has been replaced by vision which perceives that I am not what I pretended to be. A Holy One walks with me Who gently answers all my fears with this one merciful reply, "It is not so." He points to all the gifts I have each time the thought of poverty oppresses me, and speaks of His Companionship when I perceive myself as lonely and afraid.

Yet He reminds me still of one thing more I had forgotten. For His touch on me has made me like Himself. The gifts I have are not for me alone. What He has come to offer me, I now must learn to give. This is the lesson that His giving holds, for He has saved me from the solitude I sought to make in which to hide from God. He has reminded me of all the gifts that God has given me. He speaks as well of what becomes my will when I accept these gifts, and recognize that they are my own.

The gifts are mine, entrusted to my care, to give to all who chose the lonely road I have escaped. My brothers do not understand they but pursue their idle wishes. It is I who teach them this now. For I have learned of Christ that there is another way for all of us to walk. I will teach them by showing them the happiness that comes to those who feel the touch of Christ, and recognize God's gifts. I will not let sorrow tempt me to be unfaithful to my trust.

My sighs will now betray the hopes of those who look to me for their release. My tears are theirs. If I am sick, I but withhold their healing. What I fear but teaches them their fears are justified. My hand becomes the giver of Christ's touch; my change of mind becomes the proof that who accepts God's gifts can never suffer anything. I am entrusted with the world's release from pain.

I will betray it not. I will become the living proof of what Christ's touch can offer everyone. God has entrusted all His gifts to me. I will be witness in my happiness to how transformed the mind becomes which chooses to accept His gifts, and feel the touch of Christ. Such is my mission now. For God entrusts the giving of His gifts to all who have received them. He has shared His joy with me. And now I go to share it with the world.

Amen.