To gain the most from A Course in Miracles Lesson Insights, we recommend
that you read the corresponding lesson in the Workbook of the Second or
Third Edition of A Course in Miracles published by the Foundation for Inner Peace.
Review: “I am not a body. I am free. For I am still as God created me.”
“I want the peace of God.”
Behind all the false values found in this world are the true values we really want. Behind every conflict and underneath all the drama and masks found within the belief in separation, we really want the peace of God.
If we are taking directions from the ego, our efforts to find the peace of God will be directed where it cannot be found, in keeping with the ego’s goal of seek and do not find. Whether somebody murders or tortures or argues with a spouse, all of this is an attempt to solve our problems with the ego, and without the peace of God.
The desire to hide from the peace of God is the underlying motive for all our living here. The world was made to be a place where God could not enter. The search for peace in the world takes on twisted forms that look like war and conflict. This is because the ego teaches us that we can find salvation through the elimination of our enemies or some other external change in circumstance. It does not want us to know the peace of God is already in us, given us by God in our creation. The ego thrives on conflict and perceives the peace of God as its enemy.
That is why it is so important that we take time each day to practice becoming quiet, stilling our minds and opening our hearts to the peace of God given us before time began. Each instant we are able to set the ego aside, to let go of our identification with a separate self-identity for a moment, we experience a taste of the peace of God, our one goal.
Today I will walk hand in hand with the Holy Spirit and let Him guide my way. I trust He will lead me toward the peace of God, for He shares my one goal with me. He is not deceived by the myriad forms of this world. He knows where the peace of God is and will lead me there. I need but follow. I offer Him my willingness and ask for His strength to magnify my willingness so that I may truly remember I am not a body, I am free. I am still as God created me.
Early in the Text Jesus tells us the ego becomes strong in strife. This is why the ego loves to make up stories of conflict and tension and war. It loves to make up stories of death, suffering, weakness and vulnerability to outside forces.
If we truly opened to the peace of God, all the false stories would be seen as the false mental constructs they are. We would laugh at them because we would recognize they could never be true. We would remember there could be nothing that replaces the peace of God. We would remember we are the peace of God. We would not try to make something else real and try to be what we are not.
I have reached the place where I am willing to give up most overt forms of conflict in my search for peace. If I do feel angry or hurt or guilty, I give it to Holy Spirit as fast as I can. Sometimes I take it back, but I keep trying.
The ego finds ways, though, to divert me. I stay very busy. There are so many things to do. I say it would be a luxury to experience boredom, but if stillness looks imminent, I become uncomfortable and quickly find something else that must be done. I have convinced myself that this kind of activity is a virtue and to be otherwise would indicate laziness or lack of direction or something.
I am coming to understand that all of this frantic activity is my way of avoiding peace. It is like I am afraid to stand still; afraid to let my mind be still. I haven’t been able to release this behavior yet, but I am working on it. I truly do want the peace of God.
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