Daily Inspiration for Living A Course in Miracles

Tweet

Subscribe

View all articles • Article index

Finding God’s Happiness

My present happiness is all I see.

Unless I look upon what is not there, my present happiness is all I see. ²Eyes that begin to open see at last. ³And I would have Christ’s vision come to me this very day. ⁴What I perceive without God’s Own Correction for the sight I made is frightening and painful to behold. ⁵Yet I would not allow my mind to be deceived by the belief the dream I made is real an instant longer. ⁶This the day I seek my present happiness, and look on nothing else except the thing I seek.

With this resolve I come to You, and ask Your strength to hold me up today, while I but seek to do Your Will. ²You cannot fail to hear me, Father. ³What I ask have You already given me. ⁴And I am sure that I will see my happiness today. (A Course in Miracles, W-290. See also ACIM Lesson 290 Insights.)

Happiness cannot be found in a fantasy that denies the Source of happiness. A dream that relies on the past to project future happiness overlooks the only point in time where true happiness exists. Happiness is in the eternal now. We welcome happiness when we forgive the past; when we forgive the wish for specialness.

Forgiveness seems to be difficult only because we are heavily invested in the belief that the past predicts the future. But as we are willing to accept the Help given us, we have the strength of God that supersedes the ego’s meaningless offerings.

An old friend used to pray, “Lord, prop me up on the leaning side.” Today we ask God’s help to strengthen us where our willingness is weak so we can forgive our belief in weakness. He does not judge us for our belief in weakness, but offers His help to find true happiness in His Love.

© 2022, Pathways of Light. http://www.pathwaysoflight.org
You may freely share copies of this with your friends, provided this copyright notice and website address are included.

Tell a friend about this article.

Printable Page

Choosing to See Love Reflected in the World

You may complain that this course is not sufficiently specific for you to understand and use. ²Yet perhaps you have not done what it specifically advocates. ³This is not a course in the play of ideas, but in their practical application. ⁴Nothing could be more specific than to be told that if you ask you will receive. ⁵The Holy Spirit will answer every specific problem as long as you believe that problems are specific. ⁶His answer is both many and one, as long as you believe that the one is many. ⁷You may be afraid of His specificity, for fear of what you think it will demand of you. ⁸Yet only by asking will you learn that nothing of God demands anything of you. ⁹God gives; He does not take. ¹⁰When you refuse to ask, it is because you believe that asking is taking rather than sharing.

Little child of God, you do not understand your Father. ²You believe in a world that takes, because you believe that you can get by taking. ³And by that perception you have lost sight of the real [forgiven] world. …⁷Blessed are you who are willing to ask the truth of God without fear, for only thus can you learn that His answer is the release from fear. (A Course in Miracles, T-11.VIII.5;7:1-3,7. See also ACIM Text Made Simple.)

As long as we value specialness, we will be afraid of God’s Will for us. With the quest for specialness comes the demand for sacrifice. We cannot have more than another without demanding sacrifice by soemone whom we would be different from. The ego’s forms of specialness are myriad. But we cannot want to be better than someone without asking the other to be less. This is the demand for sacrifice.

The ego projects its demand for sacrifice on God, for it perceives only itself. Of course we will believe that God demands sacrifice while we identify with the ego. This is why it is essential that we forgive our misperceptions, a wish for specialness, for only then will we welcome God’s gift of all of His Love.

Forgiveness brings willingness to receive His Answer. His Answer will unify us in His Thought of Love. It will show us the truth of Love in every brother and we will recognize it as a reflection of What we are. Christ, the Son of Love, sees Himself in everyone.

Today we choose to be watchful of how we are seeing our brothers. Do we see the Love in Him? Do we recognize His calls for Love and answer with Love? As we answer yes to these questions, our mind is healed. We remember the Love we are.

© 2022, Pathways of Light. http://www.pathwaysoflight.org
You may freely share copies of this with your friends, provided this copyright notice and website address are included.

Tell a friend about this article.

Printable Page

Remembering Love Is Our Reality

I have already chosen what You will.

Father, I thought I wandered from Your Will, defied it, broke its laws, and interposed a second will more powerful than Yours. ²Yet what I am in truth is but Your Will, extended and extending. ³This am I, and this will never change. ⁴As You are One, so am I one with You. ⁵And this I chose in my creation, where my will became forever one with Yours. ⁶That choice was made for all eternity. ⁷It cannot change, and be in opposition to itself. ⁸Father, my will is Yours. ⁹And I am safe, untroubled and serene, in endless joy, because it is Your Will that it be so.

Today we will accept our union with each other and our Source. ²We have no will apart from His, and all of us are one because His Will is shared by all of us. ³Through it we recognize that we are one. ⁴Through it we find our way at last to God. (A Course in Miracles, W-329. See also ACIM Lesson 329 Insights.)

We don’t remember that we chose to accept God’s Will as ours because all we remember is the ego’s dream that denies God’s Will. But denial does not change the fact. It only makes us unaware of it. The fact is that everything God is, His Son is. This means that if we are not supremely happy, in a state of peace that does not change and sharing the eternal extension of God’s Love, we are denying Reality. We are denying our very existence.

We can reclaim our unity with God by letting go of our allegiance to the ego’s denial of God’s Love. We let go through forgiveness of our wish to be different from God’s Creation. This is what forgiveness does. We have a mighty Companion Whose purpose is to help us forgive. But we need to be willing to accept this help.

Today we affirm that we accept the Will of God as ours as It has always been in truth. We choose Reality today instead of fantasy. We choose Love instead of fear. We choose peace and joy.

© 2022, Pathways of Light. http://www.pathwaysoflight.org
You may freely share copies of this with your friends, provided this copyright notice and website address are included.

Tell a friend about this article.

Printable Page

A Recipe for a Happy Day

…you cannot make decisions by yourself. ⁴The only question really is with what you choose to make them.

Your day is not at random. ²It is set by what you choose to live it with, and how the friend [ego or Holy Spirit] whose counsel you have sought perceives your happiness. ³You always ask advice before you can decide on anything.

…you and your adviser must agree on what you want before it can occur. ³It is but this agreement that permits all things to happen. ⁴Nothing can be caused without some form of union, be it with a dream of judgment or the Voice for God. ⁵Decisions cause results _because_ they are not made in isolation.

It needs but two [you and Holy Spirit] who would have happiness this day to promise it to all the world. ²It needs but two to understand that they cannot decide alone, to guarantee the joy they asked for will be wholly shared. …⁵These two are joined before there can be a decision. ⁶Let this be the one reminder that you keep in mind, and you will have the day you want, and give it to the world by having it yourself. ⁷Your judgment has been lifted from the world by your decision for a happy day. ⁸And as you have received, so must you give. (A Course in Miracles, T-30.I.14:3-4;15:1-3;16:2-5;17:1-2,5-8. See also ACIM Text Made Simple.)

The consequence of choosing to believe that specialness will make us happy is the dream of conflict, loss, guilt and fear we experience. We have made an “advisor,” the ego, that we rely on as a guide in all decision making to guide us to the specialness we seek. The ego cannot offer true and lasting happiness. The best it can offer are substitute fantasies that bring us temporary happiness. This happiness never lasts because it has no reliable foundation.

In answer for our self-made advisor, God gave us His Advisor, the Holy Spirit. In every instant we can choose the Holy Spirit as our advisor. We can rely on Him to guide us to true and lasting happiness. He guides us to remember the joy that is innate in the Love we are as created by God.

The recipe to have a happy day is to choose the Holy Spirit as our Advisor. When we join with Him, we unite with the Love of God. There is no greater joy than experiencing the presence of God’s Love. His Love is ours. His joy is ours.

We start today by committing to the practice of judging nothing on our own. Instead we ask of the Holy Spirit, “How would You see this? What would You have me do or say? I would only follow You.”

© 2022, Pathways of Light. http://www.pathwaysoflight.org
You may freely share copies of this with your friends, provided this copyright notice and website address are included.

Tell a friend about this article.

Printable Page

Remembering We Are God’s Son

God is the only goal I have today.

The way to God is through forgiveness here. ²There is no other way. ³If sin had not been cherished by the mind, what need would there have been to find the way to where you are? ⁴Who would still be uncertain? ⁵Who could be unsure of who he is? ⁶And who would yet remain asleep, in heavy clouds of doubt about the holiness of him whom God created sinless? ⁷Here we can but dream. ⁸But we can dream we have forgiven him in whom all sin remains impossible, and it is this we choose to dream today. ⁹God is our goal; forgiveness is the means by which our minds return to Him at last.

And so, our Father, would we come to You in Your appointed way. ²We have no goal except to hear Your Voice, and find the way Your sacred Word has pointed out to us. (A Course in Miracles, W-256. See also ACIM Lesson 256 Insights.)

The path of return to God is singular. We must forgive — let go of — our dream of individuality, differences and specialness. There is no other way. Only our belief in what could never be true hides from our awareness the fact that we share God’s Love. These beliefs have put us to sleep to dream of a world that is completely opposite to the Reality of the Life we live in God.

We are not asked to forgive the dream on our own. We have been given the Holy Spirit in our mind to Whom we can turn in every moment for help in letting go of our mistaken beliefs. He will teach us that we are not weak and vulnerable but strong in the certainty of God’s Love. He shines the Light of Love on every mistaken belief when we are willing to accept It.

In His Light the veil of false beliefs dissolves and we see the Love that unites us with every brother and our Creator. We learn that we are safe, innocent, loved and loving. We remember we are God’s Son.

© 2022, Pathways of Light. http://www.pathwaysoflight.org
You may freely share copies of this with your friends, provided this copyright notice and website address are included.

Tell a friend about this article.

Printable Page

Welcoming Peace into Our Minds

The hush of Heaven holds my heart today.

Father, how still today! ²How quietly do all things fall in place! ³This is the day that has been chosen as the time in which I come to understand the lesson that there is no need that I do anything. ⁴In You is every choice already made. ⁵In You has every conflict been resolved. ⁶In You is everything I hope to find already given me. ⁷Your peace is mine. ⁸My heart is quiet, and my mind at rest. ⁹Your Love is Heaven, and Your Love is mine.

The stillness of today will give us hope that we have found the way, and travelled far along it to a wholly certain goal. ²Today we will not doubt the end which God Himself has promised us. ³We trust in Him, and in our Self, Who still is one with Him. (A Course in Miracles, W-286.1–2. See also ACIM Lesson 286 Insights.)

The ego is terrified of peace. It recognizes that a mind at peace is open to the Holy Spirit’s inspiration. A mind at peace is not paying attention to past “memories.” A mind at peace welcomes the vision of Christ which sees past the ego’s false images to the eternal presence of Love in the now moment.

The ego has many schemes to distract us, keeping our mind busy with meaningless activities. To the ego, form is all meaning and the content doesn’t matter. To our true Self, the oneness of Love is all meaning and form without Love is meaningless. We can free ourselves from the temptations of the ego by pausing frequently to welcome peace into our minds. With this practice, we welcome Love and happiness. We welcome the hush of Heaven.

© 2022, Pathways of Light. http://www.pathwaysoflight.org
You may freely share copies of this with your friends, provided this copyright notice and website address are included.

Tell a friend about this article.

Printable Page

The Path Revealed by Christ’s Vision “

Today we will again give thanks for our Identity in God. ²Our home is safe, protection guaranteed in all we do, power and strength available to us in all our undertakings. ³We can fail in nothing. ⁴Everything we touch takes on a shining light that blesses and that heals. ⁵At one with God and with the universe we go our way rejoicing, with the thought that God Himself goes everywhere with us.

What we receive is our eternal gift to those who follow after, and to those who went before or stayed with us a while. ²And God, Who loves us with the equal love in which we were created, smiles on us and offers us the happiness we gave.

Today we will not doubt His Love for us, nor question His protection and His care. ²No meaningless anxieties can come between our faith and our awareness of His Presence. ³We are one with Him today in recognition and rememberance. ⁴We feel Him in our hearts. ⁵Our minds contain His Thoughts; our eyes behold His loveliness in all we look upon. ⁶Today we see only the loving and the lovable. (A Course in Miracles, W-124.1;3-4. See also ACIM Lesson 124 Insights.)

This passage describes our true Self’s experience. We are unaware of this experience when it is hidden behind projected illusions of separation. The benefit of forgiving our wish for specialness is the experience of our eternal existence in the Love of God.

Today we remind ourselves of the safety and joy of our true Home. As we pause to welcome God’s Love, we see our brothers with loving eyes and we remember the Love we are. We rest in the eternal peace of changeless Love. With this as our foundation, we walk in the world knowing that beyond appearances of conflict is the Love that is our strength. Love is our rock and our salvation. We carry that thought with us today. It lights our way, showing us the path of Christ’s vision with which we see our brothers truly.

© 2022, Pathways of Light. http://www.pathwaysoflight.org
You may freely share copies of this with your friends, provided this copyright notice and website address are included.

Tell a friend about this article.

Printable Page

Page 164 of 848 pages ‹ First  < 162 163 164 165 166 >  Last ›

<< Back to main page of Daily Inspiration.

Has this page been helpful to you?
Your contribution to support this site is greatly appreciated. To make a tax deductible contribution with a credit/debit card, click here.
Click here to donate from your PayPal account.
Or send a check to Pathways of Light, 12530 Lions Chase Court, Huntley, IL 60142.