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Study of Manual for Teachers 5-4-12

Day 124
3 The prayer for things of this world will bring experiences of this world. If the prayer of the heart asks for this, this will be given because this will be received. It is impossible that the prayer of the heart remain unanswered in the perception of the one who asks. If he asks for the impossible, if he wants what does not exist or seeks for illusions in his heart, all this becomes his own. The power of his decision offers it to him as he requests. Herein lie hell and Heaven. The sleeping Son of God has but this power left to him. It is enough. His words do not matter. Only the Word of God has any meaning, because it symbolizes that which has no human symbols at all. The Holy Spirit alone understands what this Word stands for. And this, too, is enough.

I can pray for things in the world and receive them, but what I pray for brings me heaven or hell. It is my decision. I am learning that I am not interested in reinforcing the illusion. More and more, I ask the Holy Spirit what it is that I want, rather than deciding myself and asking. Yesterday’s understanding of prayer has reinforced this desire in me. I now understand that my heart prays for an experience and it is the mind that translates this into a concrete desire. I am practicing asking the Holy Spirit to help me see this in my mind.

Yesterday I was working in the heat. It is the first day this year that I have worked outside when it was really hot and I haven’t acclimated to the change yet. My face was bright red, and I was sweating and feeling sluggish as the heat slowed me down. And it wasn’t near as hot as it soon will be. I wished with all my heart that I would not have to endure another summer working outside.

I realized that I was asking for something in the world. I noticed that I was asking out of fear. I also noticed that I felt like crying. I asked the Holy Spirit to show me what all this means. He showed me that I felt like crying because I didn’t believe I would receive the answer to this prayer. I didn’t feel worthy. I felt like God wanted me to suffer. That was a complete surprise, and in fact it frightened me when I had that thought. So I said it out loud to dispel the ego fear.

I knew this could not be true and yet I knew, in that moment, I truly believed it. I believed that God really was angry with his prodigal child. I asked the Holy Spirit to take that false belief from my mind and I sat there and felt it slowly dissolve. I waited and let myself feel for it but there was only a lightness where it used to be.

Then the Holy Spirit showed me that the prayer to not have to work outside this summer is the mind’s attempt to put expression to the experience the heart desires. The experience that is desired is to feel loved and cherished. Because I had believed that God wanted my sacrifice to atone for my betrayal of Him, I did not feel loved and cherished.

When I thought about it I realized that this was true. When I feel that I am suffering I often have a wish for someone to know what is happening and to care about my pain. I would think about calling people and telling them how miserable I am and they would feel bad for me and sympathize with my plight.

I have even acted on this desire, so deep was my need to feel loved. But the desire to find someone out here to care is just a reflection of my need to feel God’s forgiveness and to feel He still loves me. No one in the world can love me enough to overcome the loss I feel when I believe God does not love me, so it never really helps when I seek a stand-in for Him.

I thanked the Holy Spirit for this insight. I asked Him to heal my mind of the belief that I am judged by God and found wanting and healed of the belief that I am not loved and not loveable. I asked for the experience of my heart, and set aside the mind’s attempt to interpret that experience through its own understanding.

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