VIII. The Problem and the Answer, P 5
5 You may complain that this course is not sufficiently specific for you to understand and use. Yet perhaps you have not done what it specifically advocates. This is not a course in the play of ideas, but in their practical application. Nothing could be more specific than to be told that if you ask you will receive. The Holy Spirit will answer every specific problem as long as you believe that problems are specific. His answer is both many and one, as long as you believe that the One is many. You may be afraid of His specificity, for fear of what you think it will demand of you. Yet only by asking will you learn that nothing of God demands anything of you. God gives; He does not take. When you refuse to ask, it is because you believe that asking is taking rather than sharing.
Journal
If I ask, God gives, and He doesn’t give in the way that we do. He does not give to get, He gives to share, and that means nothing will be taken from us in the giving. This makes it perfectly safe to ask. He even answers specific problems even though He knows that we have only one problem appearing as many. He answers the problem we believe we have until we learn that all problems are one problem with one solution.
What more could we ask? What are we waiting for? He is asking us to practice this, to put it to the test and let the results convince us. What would you ask for if you knew you would be answered, and that the answer would cost you nothing? I was thinking about this and I wondered why anyone would hesitate. What would I fear would be taken from me if I asked for what I want? Jesus gave me a specific need to look at so he could help me understand this.
I have the possibility of retirement looming ahead. It is getting closer and so is no longer just a vague idea to look forward to, but a reality coming soon. This is something I want, but at the same time, I am afraid of it. I won’t have much money and that is the problem that I am most concerned about. I notice that sometimes when it comes to mind I remember that all my needs are met because all my problems are answered.
But then other times I listen to the ego and the ego says that there is no way for this to happen. It says that I should have prepared better, saved money, invested. It says that I will get what I deserve and that ain’t much. I am not becoming as a little child, asking as a child would ask, with happy anticipation of a loving answer. I am asking out of fear and little expectation of a generous answer, but rather a meager answer based on my perceived guilt.
In order to ask differently, with confidence and with an open heart ready to receive, I will have to give up my specialness. I will no longer be the one who did not plan and so is guilty. God will not take this from me, but on the other hand, He cannot give me what I do not think I deserve and so do not really want.
The first thing I am asking for is a healed mind. I ask that I be healed of the belief I am guilty about my failure to plan for the future. And now that I think about it, guilt wants to attach to the idea that I think I should plan for the future when the Course tells me that a healed mind doesn’t make plans.
Could I give up all this guilt? Could I at least accept the Atonement for this particular form of guilt in this particular circumstance? If this is the sacrifice asked of me, the sacrifice I am afraid of, then clearly I have been afraid of nothing. Freedom from guilt would not be a sacrifice. And obviously, I believe I have specific problems. So I will use those perceived needs to teach myself trust and acceptance, and eventually, that all needs are one need and that need is answered.
Thank you, Brother, for this clarity. I am opening to a new way of perceiving this future. I am asking for help to remember my purpose and to release my fear. God wants me to ask and He wants to answer. I want to receive and receive fully. Help me to do so.
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