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ACIM Lesson 24 2025

I do not perceive my own best interests.

I absolutely believe this lesson. Sometimes, I will have a wish for something pass through my mind, and I let it. That is, I let it pass right on through without my attention. That was not always true, of course. I learned that I had no idea what was in my best interests. I might never have seen that this was true if Jesus had not pointed it out and guided me to recognize it in myself.

I used to fantasize about what I would do if I won the lottery. At first it was fun and interesting fantasy. But if I stayed with it very long at all, the fantasy would move into the problems associated with winning. That alone should have shown me that I don’t know my own best interests.

I’m glad I didn’t win all that money because, not having enough, I discovered something more valuable than having more. As it turns out, a wonderful outcome that I had not fantasized about occurred for me. I came to understand that abundance isn’t having millions of dollars. It is knowing that what you need will always be provided when you need it. I know this is true because it is how I live now.

Here is another one. When I was working, I very much wanted to retire and do my ministry full-time. I could not imagine how that would not be in my best interest. What I discovered is that the extra years I worked were the most productive. They provided me with so many forgiveness opportunities I would never have had if I had retired early.

Those opportunities are what led to the healing of my mind and made me a better teacher of God. After all, you cannot share with others what you don’t have. I am truly happy that I always left that decision up to the Holy Spirit, Who knew what was actually needed.

The only temptation to decide for myself that has occurred was the recent election. I thought I knew who should be elected. But even as I thought about it, I realized that I don’t really know what is in my best interests. The outcomes I was looking for were varied and ultimately ridiculous.

Nothing in the world is going to save me. I must do that myself, and I must do it by changing my mind, not by electing a savior. I am so grateful to Jesus for his instructions and grateful to myself for practicing the lessons he gives me. If I had not had and used the Course, my life would be very different now, and not in a good way.

© 2025, Pathways of Light. https://dev.pathwaysoflight.org
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Posted by Rev. Myron Jones.

ACIM Lesson 23 2025

I can escape from the world I see by giving up attack thoughts.

Jesus is perfectly clear as he reminds us that we make the world we see with our thoughts, and it is a vengeful world because our thoughts are of attacking and being attacked. He tells us that it will do no good to try to change the world. Our thoughts are the cause, and the world is its effect.

You cannot fix something by starting with the effect.

I was thinking about this, and I remember one time I made a cake from scratch. Yeah, I don’t know why I did this either, when you can buy perfectly good cake mixes at any grocery store. When the cake came out of the oven, it looked great. But when I tasted it, I realized I had dipped from the salt canister rather than the sugar canister. It was inedible. But it was so lovely, and I had worked so hard at it. Still, the cooking error was the cause, and the cake was the effect. Trying to fix the effect of the error would be a waste of time and energy.

Trying to fix the world, which is an effect of our thoughts, is the same error. It is a waste of time and energy and causes more suffering in the attempt. Just as I had to bite the bullet and toss the cake, it is time to do the same with the world we made of our attack thoughts. But unlike my cake, which would have to be cooked by me again to correct the problems with the world, I only need to identify the cause and then let it go. Vision will show us the real world that exists right now, unseen by us who are fixated on the world of our vengeance.

Looking at my attack thoughts this morning, I see that I did not agree with a decision of President Trump’s yesterday. I felt anger, contempt for the choice he made, and frustration that I could do nothing about it. All of those are attack thoughts. I won’t write him a letter about it or even talk about it with others, except as an example of this lesson. That would have been trying to change the effect without changing its cause.

But in my mind, I attacked and felt attacked. My angry thoughts were the cause of the world I was seeing. This is not, of course, the first time I have attacked someone, but this time, I recognized the error and happily let it go so that I could go back to seeing what stands in the place of our thought errors. As it happens, it is love and peace of mind. I will not spend my time here defending what I think should happen. I came for greater things. I came to heal the mind so that we can have an experience of a healed world rather than a world built on vengeance.

© 2025, Pathways of Light. https://dev.pathwaysoflight.org
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Posted by Rev. Myron Jones.

ACIM Lesson 22 2025

What I see is a form of vengeance.

In this lesson, Jesus is introducing us to the fact that the world we see does not actually exist. It is fiction written by us and maintained by us. Our stories make us feel like victims and so we defend ourselves. In our fear, we attack others. These ‘others’ are not really separate from us, so in attacking them, we are attacking ourselves. It seems like we are trapped in our own web of self-deceit. But we are not.

As we read these lessons and study the Text, we discover our way out. We have a choice now. Of course, we cannot gain our freedom from reading no matter how elevated the material. We must practice what we read until it is what we believe and so experience. Our experience of freedom will awaken us to reality.

When I first started these lessons, I did as Jesus asked. I looked at everything around me and admitted that it was a lie. More than that, it was a form of vengeance. It didn’t make me feel any better. ~smile~ But, eventually, the truth that none of it is real and that I am responsible for its being in my awareness sunk in. If I made it, I can choose to release it. I can choose to accept that it doesn’t actually exist.

Freedom from pain, suffering, and death is available to me, and all I have to do is suspend my ego judgment long enough for the Holy Spirit to heal my mind. I didn’t even have to fully accept any of this. I just had to trust my Brother’s words enough to do the little asked of me. Eventually, I accepted His help, and everything changed. I can still get pulled into a story briefly, and I am still aware of the ego’s thoughts, but I don’t believe them, and that is absolutely a miracle.

© 2025, Pathways of Light. https://dev.pathwaysoflight.org
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Posted by Rev. Myron Jones.

ACIM Lesson 21 2025

I am determined to see things differently.

I am determined to see my son’s impatience differently. I know this is not typical of him and is a result of his depression and anxiety, nevertheless, I judged him for it and felt irritated. I call it irritation because I tamped it down so that it didn’t reach the level of what I think of as anger.

But as Jesus tells us in this lesson, ⁵You will become increasingly aware that a slight twinge of annoyance is nothing but a veil drawn over intense fury. I may as well say that I was enraged by his impatience, which is just insane.

That I remembered it so quickly from yesterday must mean that some of that repressed rage was seeping out. This is the problem of repressing rather than forgiving. It is not really gone because we pushed it away. To be free, we must forgive it and thus let it go.

And remember, we do this for all of us and thus free us all. Or we keep it and imprison ourselves (all of ourselves) in the world.

© 2025, Pathways of Light. https://dev.pathwaysoflight.org
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Posted by Rev. Myron Jones.

ACIM Lesson 20 2025

I am determined to see.

Something I noticed about this lesson is that Jesus explained why it is so simple and so short, and he explained what it would do for us. But he doesn’t tell us how to achieve what we are determined to do. I think this is because the ‘how’ is inferred. What is needed to achieve the outcome of truly seeing is the firm decision to do so. That is all.

Well, how hard can that be? I will state my intention and repeat it a few times and that will be that. I will have traded my belief in what my eyes show me for real vision. Why do I need all those other lessons? Actually, I know why. After all these years of practice, I can still become confused about what I want to see.

First, let me be clear. When we see something in a particular way, it is because we want that perception of it. We want the emotional charge that goes with it. Or we want to prove something. For instance, last night, I had a frightening thought of something awful happening to my son. It seemed to come out of the blue, and once it was there, I found myself focused on it as if I could not look away.

All of this was for something that was not happening. There was no reason to expect it to happen. I was scaring myself for reasons I didn’t care to examine. But this isn’t my first rodeo. I know how this goes, and I am not as ignorant of why as I used to be. It is simple. I wanted to be afraid, as strange as that sounds.

Well, maybe not so strange. After all, people go to scary movies and ride roller coasters. They parachute out of perfectly good planes and rappel up mountains for no good reason. And most of us are perfectly willing to sit around with friends and share our personal everyday fears.

I may run out of money, and then what will I do? What if this politician gets elected, or that one? I wonder if my husband/wife is cheating on me? I had weird pains in my chest. When absolutely nothing is going wrong at that moment, we are willing to project fear into an unknown future. In other words, we are afraid because we want to be afraid. Anticipating the worst can become a bad habit.

But knowing this is true, I can now watch my feelings and my thoughts, and when I see this happening as it did last night, I can choose again. I can choose to forgive the former choice for fear and simply be in the moment where nothing is happening. Even if it seems I must drag my reluctant mind into the present, I will do it as I turn to the Holy Spirit for another way to see. I am determined to release the imagined horrors. I am determined to see.

© 2025, Pathways of Light. https://dev.pathwaysoflight.org
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Posted by Rev. Myron Jones.

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