Day 20
4 Now comes “a period of settling down.” This is a quiet time, in which the teacher of God rests a while in reasonable peace. Now he consolidates his learning. Now he begins to see the transfer value of what he has learned. Its potential is literally staggering, and the teacher of God is now at the point in his progress at which he sees in it his whole way out. “Give up what you do not want, and keep what you do.” How simple is the obvious! And how easy to do! The teacher of God needs this period of respite. He has not yet come as far as he thinks. Yet when he is ready to go on, he goes with mighty companions beside him. Now he rests a while, and gathers them before going on. He will not go on from here alone.
I don’t know about anyone else’s path, but mine has meandered a bit. I am reminded of a comic that I used to follow in the paper called Family Circle. The mom would send the little boy to another part of the house to get something and you could follow his circular route as he became distracted with all sorts of interesting but unrelated things. I’m sure his mom wondered how it could take him so long to go such a short distance.
Well, this is me, too. I have been given this short and direct path to salvation. All I have to do is give up what I do not want, and keep what I do. But I see something up ahead that looks interesting and I follow it, forgetting to notice if it is going to bring me closer to my goal, or take me away from it. In this way I wander in and out of the first three steps, periodically stopping at step four to relax awhile and look back on what has happened.
It is at this step that I begin to see that not only did I suffer when I made certain choices, but that I suffered every time I made those choices. I begin to notice that the form didn’t matter, but was just an ego distraction that I used to keep me unaware that I was making the same error over and over. I was dressing the same error in various costumes and pretending they were, therefore, different and so needed to be investigated.
The first couple of times I got to this place of relative peace and contemplation, I thought I was through. Having come through so much confusion and fear, and having made so much progress, that suddenly feeling this peace and having these insights was heady stuff. I was not through. I was taking a coffee break. ~smile~
This step is important because it allows me to rest and to see that I am, indeed, making progress. I began to see that the promises in A Course in Miracles are real. And it is at this step I began to gather my mighty companions. Some are embodied and some unseen, these companions will be with me from now on, encouraging and supporting me, and helping me in ways I do not always discern, but only experience.
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