II. The Way to Remember God, P 9
9 You who have tried to banish love have not succeeded, but you who choose to banish fear must succeed. The Lord is with you, but you know it not. Yet your Redeemer liveth, and abideth in you in the peace out of which He was created. Would you not exchange this awareness for the awareness of fear? When we have overcome fear—not by hiding it, not by minimizing it, and not by denying its full import in any way—this is what you will really see. You cannot lay aside the obstacles to real vision without looking upon them, for to lay aside means to judge against. If you will look, the Holy Spirit will judge, and He will judge truly. Yet He cannot shine away what you keep hidden, for you have not offered it to Him and He cannot take it from you.
Journal
As Jesus tells us often, we are only pretending to abandon love because it cannot be done. What can and must be done is that we abandon fear. We will do that because the Lord is with us. We can be aware of this rather than aware of fear. The way we do this is simple. We overcome fear when we stop hiding and denying and minimizing. Trying to use the ego mind to rid ourselves of it in some way is how we keep it.
We must give our fear thoughts to the Holy Spirit to judge for us and He will always judge them as false. To give them to Him we must do more than say the words. There must be a willingness to really see the fear, to acknowledge the import fear has on us. That means feeling the fear. Here is what happens for me.
I have something that must be done at work and so far I have not succeeded. I started getting anxious about that. Then I was talking to my son on the phone and he was describing his efforts to get his finances in order. This brought up mine, and I told him how my plans to retire are coming along. Then I told him I had not yet added up my basic costs to see if my income will cover everything. I new that I was avoiding this out of fear.
When I went to bed these worries were on my mind and I couldn’t sleep. I tried to put them aside but they kept coming back. I tried to reassure myself that it would all work out and thought about solutions to the problems. I could feel myself getting more and more anxious. I stopped the runaway fear thoughts by reminding myself of what matters.
I reminded myself that the peace of God is everything I want. I did this several times. I have a little card above my desk that says, “Holy Spirit, I’m listening.” I thought about that card each time the ego tried to drag me back into the fear. “I’m listening, Holy Spirit.” I listened to Him tell me that I am loved and safe and that the peace of God is mine. He reminded me that I am not a victim to my thoughts. That was very helpful.
I know that the ego mind will try to engage me in fear and guilt thoughts until the desire for them is completely gone. It is not a surprise that it happens at times, and each time it does I look with the Holy Spirit and make a choice. There was a time it would have taken me days to let my fear go. There was a time when the fear would have consumed me and left me shaking and crying.
Now I notice fear thoughts and turn to the Holy Spirit immediately. I am not afraid of the thoughts and I am not willing to keep them. Last night I was anxious and began to obsess about these problems, but I am used to peace now and I can’t maintain this kind of anxiety. I miss peace as soon as I give it up and I want it back.
Yes, sitting in the fear was uncomfortable, but I can’t give it up unless I look at it with Spirit, feel it, acknowledge its effect on me. Doing that I can then truly decide if I want to keep it or if I want to let it go. When I asked Holy Spirit to take it from me, I knew what I was asking and I was certain of my decision. And it was done.
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