I Will Forgive

Today's lesson of our Course In Miracles is lesson 193, "All things are lessons God would have me learn."

That lesson offers the end of conflict, for why would I need to continue to choose between this or that when all things are lessons God would have me learn? Or let me do the choosing. There is no loss, because all things are lessons God would have me learn. I can't escape the lessons I need to learn. So, how do I learn?

"God does not know of learning. Yet His Will extends to what He does not understand, in that He wills the happiness His Son inherited of Him be undisturbed; eternal and forever gaining scope, eternally expanding in the joy of full creation, and eternally open and wholly limitless in Him. That is His Will. And thus His Will provides the means to guarantee that it is done."

How do I learn? I do not only need to accept the goal of learning, but also the means, coming from Him. Trying to set up my own curriculum will guarantee failure. But if the goal is possible, the means to accomplish it, must be possible as well. Insisting on doing it my way could only mean my wanting of God's purpose has been shaken.

"God sees no contradictions. Yet His Son believes he sees them. Thus he has a need for One Who can correct his erring sight, and give him vision that will lead him back to where perception ceases. God does not perceive at all. Yet it is He Who gives the means by which perception is made true and beautiful enough to let the light of Heaven shine upon it. It is He Who answers what His Son would contradict, and keeps his sinlessness forever safe."

God does not see what we see. Contradiction is alien to Him, as well as perception. Talk about the depth and insanity of our condition. Everything about it, everything about us is false. God does not know of it. God does not know of our limited self-identity. Yet our perception is being used for a new purpose; the purpose of healing.

"These are the lessons God would have you learn. His Will reflects them all, and they reflect His loving kindness to the Son He loves. Each lesson has a central thought, the same in all of them. The form alone is changed, with different circumstances and events; with different characters and different themes, apparent but not real. They are the same in fundamental content. It is this:

Forgive, and you will see this differently.

Certain it is that all distress does not appear to be but unforgiveness. Yet that is the content underneath the form. It is this sameness which makes learning sure, because the lesson is so simple that it cannot be rejected in the end. No one can hide forever from a truth so very obvious that it appears in countless forms, and yet is recognized as easily in all of them, if one but wants to see the simple lesson there.

...

This is the lesson God would have you learn: There is a way to look on everything that lets it be to you another step to Him, and to salvation of the world. To all that speaks of terror, answer thus:

I will forgive, and this will disappear.

To every apprehension, every care and every form of suffering, repeat these selfsame words. And then you hold the key that opens Heaven's gate, and brings the Love of God the Father down to earth at last, to raise it up to Heaven. God will take this final step Himself. Do not deny the little steps He asks you take to Him."

How easy. All I need to do is forgive. It makes no difference, whether "someone else" or "me" is sick. It is all my perception, and I need to forgive it. In my forgiveness does the problem disappear. How simple. What a simple way to tell whether I have learned my lesson. When I have forgiven, it is gone, it has disappeared. If I still remember the problem, I haven't forgiven. That is also what Emerson wrote in his essay called "Circles":

"People say sometimes, 'See what I have overcome; see how cheerful I am; see how completely I have triumphed over these black events.' Not if they still remind me of the black evens, - they have not yet conquered. Is it conquest to be a gay and decorated sepulchre, or a half-crazed widow, hysterically laughing? True conquest is the causing the black event to fade and disappear as an early cloud of insignificant result in a history so large and advancing."

So, I will forgive. I don't want to hold onto my grievances. My way of seeing things is wrong. I allow it to change through miracles. I will forgive. I will forgive everything, because everything is my memory, a part of me. That is my conversion. When I see something less than perfect, I need healing. When I see someone sick, I need healing, and I need to offer healing in order to be healed. How could I be free and healed as long as I hold anyone to my old ideas of pain, sickness and death?

That is A Course In Miracles. There is no difference between the attacker and the victim. It is one thing. There is no separation. I accept at-one-ment for myself, for I am still the holy Son of God Himself.

If you haven't seen the trailer for the upcoming feature length documentary, A Course In Miracles Unleashed, please watch it, and spread the word. It will come out very soon. Thank you.