Together, We Light the Way

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Study of Text, Chapter 11: I: The Gifts of Fatherhood, P 7. 8-14-15

I. The Gifts of Fatherhood, P 7

Journal
To know what God gives me, I must give as He gives, without limit and without end. What must I give? God is Love and this is what He gives, so this is what I must give. In other places in the Course, Jesus tells us that sharing and communication are the closest we come to creation and to love in the world. How do I do this? How do I share and communicate endlessly and without limit?

The first thing that comes to mind is that I share and communicate only in union. If I treat someone as if they are separate from me, with separate interests and separate goals, I will automatically be in competition with them. This is not sharing, and not communication. For instance, if I look on a customer as someone who needs to remain my customer to insure my income, I am not sharing or communicating; I am using him to fulfill my needs.

I might tell myself that I am going to be the best vendor ever and he is lucky to have me working for his interests, but the truth is while we share some goals and that works out for both of us, we are not in full communication. He wants something from me and I want something from him. That is not shared goals, but competing goals. I am not unlimited in my sharing.

I don’t think that I can actually share and communicate fully and completely without limits as long as I believe that there is this gap that exists between each of us. The fact that we are using these bodies to promote that belief doesn’t help us remember our union. But neither does it make it impossible to remember we are one. I know this is true because, though I have not succeeded in knowing we are one all the time, I have done it sometimes. If I can know what we are sometimes I can know it always.

So I practice it. I ask the Holy Spirit to look with me at my relationships. I ask Him to look with me at this customer I am talking to and to help me to see him truly. I do the same with all relationships, my relationships with my children, my friends, my coworkers; they are all the same relationship, because we are all one Family of God, one mind.

As I have become more and more open to His answer, I notice that where I used to feel needful in a relationship, now I feel loving. This is much closer to giving without limits. I am not consistent in this, not yet. But it is getting better and easier and I see how much happier and peaceful I am when I do succeed in giving fully, needing nothing in return. It is such a sweet thing, this giving as my Father gives. It is a gift of fatherhood, and I claim it now, as my Father, in His unlimited love, would have me do. And when I have accepted it fully, I will be very close to creating as God creates.

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