3-4-13
VII. Cause and Effect
1 You may still complain about fear, but you nevertheless persist in making yourself fearful. I have already indicated that you cannot ask me to release you from fear. I know it does not exist, but you do not. If I intervened between your thoughts and their results, I would be tampering with a basic law of cause and effect; the most fundamental law there is. I would hardly help you if I depreciated the power of your own thinking. This would be in direct opposition to the purpose of this course. It is much more helpful to remind you that you do not guard your thoughts carefully enough. You may feel that at this point it would take a miracle to enable you to do this, which is perfectly true. You are not used to miracle-minded thinking, but you can be trained to think that way. All miracle workers need that kind of training.
I am glad we are starting this section talking about fear again. It really does feel very hard to let go of fear. Jesus recognizes that we will find this hard and maybe even think it is impossible. He says that we think it would take a miracle and that we would be right. But that is what we are doing here. We are learning to become miracle minded.
He is also reiterating that our minds are very powerful and that our thoughts make the world we see. Another way to say this is that our world is the effect of the thoughts we hold and believe. Jesus knows that we want him to just wipe our mind’s clear of the fear, but he can’t do that. He cannot interfere with cause and effect. And certainly he does not want us to believe that our mind is powerless because this is not true.
However, Jesus does not leave us on our own to figure this out. He tells us what to do about the fear. We learn to watch our minds carefully for thoughts that are not true. These untrue thoughts are the cause of every fearful situation we experience in this life. When we notice a thought that is not true, we then allow that thought to be corrected.
Could it really be that simple? Yes, it is. It requires vigilance and willingness, but it is simple. When it is not easy, it is only because we do not truly want it. I have noticed that sometimes I want to be free of the fearful feelings, but I do not want to let go of the belief that has caused those feeling to rise in me.
Often, I don’t even understand my convoluted thinking about it. I don’t know exactly what thought it is that I am holding onto so tightly, or why. That does not matter. Why bother trying to understand the meaningless? When I am in fear it is because I am thinking and believing something that is not of God.
I ask the Holy Spirit to correct my thinking, to heal my mind, to undo what I have done. I ask for the miracle and because I ask, and to the degree I really want it, this is what I receive. I may not be absolutely certain I am ready to give up that belief and if I am not, the thoughts will return and I will have to begin again. But that’s OK. I simply continue the process until I am fully convinced that I want to believe only the thoughts I think with God.
Now I will share with you the reason I am glad Jesus is talking about fear with us this morning. I woke up happy and in gratitude. I feel thankful for all the ways I am learning to be a miracle worker, and for the healing that is taking place in my mind. I am letting go of fear and guilt and I am learning that I want to make my life available to the Holy Spirit for His use. I am learning that all of these things are what I truly want. I am highly motivated to do this work.
As I was making my coffee I had a thought about my younger son. It was not a thought with words, but just a thought that was more of a feeling. If I put it into words, it would be something like this. What if something really bad happened to him? What if he died? I felt fear grip me. My stomach clinched and my jaw tightened.
Where do these thoughts come from? It didn’t feel like I asked for it and yet, there it was. What am I supposed to do with it? Trying not to think about it just makes it appear bigger in my mind. Deliberately entertaining the thought allows the ego to come up with reasons this could happen, and to imagine how it would feel. I don’t want to try to suppress the thought because I can’t. I don’t want to indulge the thought because it just makes it worse.
So I question the thought. I evaluate it for the truth. This feeling of dread and fear, is it from God? Is God fear? Did God create me like Himself, and if He did, did He create me fearful? If God created me fearful then He would have to be fearful and that makes no sense. This is not a thought of God and so is not a true thought.
I know this is not truth and I know that I don’t want to make anymore untrue effects. I want to undo the illusion, not go deeper into it. The world I see is the effect of my thoughts. If I want to see a different world I must think different thoughts. I already know that from within the dream I cannot control my thoughts, but I also know that I have access to help outside the dream.
I have the Holy Spirit and can ask Him to correct my thinking for me. He can heal my mind, and He will do so at the slightest invitation. So I invite Him into my mind and ask that He undo what I have done this morning. I ask for the miracle of a healed mind. All that is required of me now is that I accept the healing.
I notice the ego thoughts being thrown at me, and they are fear thoughts to pull me back into the story. The ego reasons that being released from fear does not protect my son from death. It accuses me of leaving him to suffer just so I feel better for the moment and warns me that if I do this I will suffer even more later. As if worrying about him would prevent something, anything, from happening. But I am no longer interested in the ego’s rants. The miracle has healed my mind. I am free.
I am, again, happy and grateful. Thank You, God. I love You, God.
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