Day 118
3 How is this quiet found? No one can fail to find it who but seeks out its conditions. God’s peace can never come where anger is, for anger must deny that peace exists. Who sees anger as justified in any way or any circumstance proclaims that peace is meaningless, and must believe that it cannot exist. In this condition, peace cannot be found. Therefore, forgiveness is the necessary condition for finding the peace of God. More than this, given forgiveness there must be peace. For what except attack will lead to war? And what but peace is opposite to war? Here the initial contrast stands out clear and apparent. Yet when peace is found, the war is meaningless. And it is conflict now that is perceived as nonexistent and unreal.
I completely get this! The more often I let go of conflict, the more meaningless it becomes to me. I do still find meaning in conflict but because I no longer believe in it the way I used to, I quickly choose forgiveness because it is the only thing that makes sense.
When I was having trouble forgiving “Johnny” recently, and forgiving myself for not forgiving him, I was miserable. The contrast between holding a grievance and being at peace that was so stark I wanted very much to forgive. It was incredible to me that I held on to the anger as long as I did. I have no explanation for that other than I was listening to the ego thoughts rather than to the Holy Spirit.
Regina posted a message from the Holy Spirit some time ago and I printed it out and taped it to my mirror. It said in part:
When you listen to Me,
You know peace.
When you listen only to Me,
Peace is uninterrupted.
When there is a war being waged in my mind it is because I am not listening to the Holy Spirit. I am listening to the ego. It is always that simple because there are only two voices in my mind and I am always listening to one or the other.
My experience has always been that all I need to do is decide on a thing and that thing is mine. If I need to do anything to prepare for the change, then I will be guided to what I need, or I will be told directly. I want the peace of God. Something that Ken Wapnick said helped me very much. He said that before we can have the peace of God we first have to understand how much we don’t want it.
This is the preparatory work I must do in this case. I have to become aware of and decide against the hidden rage in my mind before I can let it go and choose peace instead. As uncomfortable as it was to look at the anger I had toward Johnny, it was absolutely important that I do so, and I am grateful that I had that opportunity.
It is like I said, “I want the peace of God.” And then the Universe said, “Are you sure? Here, look at this anger? Are you ready to give that up so that you can have the peace of God?” And then I got a chance to decide what it was I really wanted. God really does not ever force happiness on me. ~smile~ I always get to decide what I really want.
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