My thoughts* on ACIM Workbook Lesson 200, for July 18, 2024. We’ve Been Lied To
Introduction to (REVIEW) Lessons 181–200
1. Our next few lessons make a special point of firming up your willingness to make your weak commitment strong; your scattered goals blend into one intent.
²You are not asked for total dedication all the time as yet.
* I find this statement to be misleading because without a full commitment to Truth, you will not receive it BECAUSE you do not yet WANT it with all of your being.
³But you are asked to practice now in order to attain the sense of peace such unified commitment will bestow, if only intermittently. ⁴It is experiencing this that makes it sure that you will give your total willingness to following the way the course sets forth.
2. Our lessons now are geared specifically to widening horizons, and direct approaches to the special blocks that keep your vision narrow, and too limited to let you see the value of our goal.
* This is best done in one jesture by accepting the REALITY of God and His Son under the Guidance of the Holy Spirit.
²We are attempting now to lift these blocks, however briefly.
* The Holy Spirit helps you carry the challenges that this brings while you must still exist among those who do not understand Who They ARE.
³Words alone can not convey the sense of liberation which their lifting brings.
* I find this statement a bit patronizing if not an outright lie BECAUSE it hides the reality of experiencing what appears to be the loss of all that was love, or loved in the people around you. YET, it is God that exists and His Son and NOT THE STORIES that the Son has manifested to show He was alone and abandoned by God and His Love. THIS does not mean that these people do not exist. They are a part of the Son of God. They are just bound by chains of guilt and oppression that they refuse to let go of.
⁴But the experience of freedom and of peace that comes as you give up your tight control of what you see speaks for itself.
* YES, there is Freedom. YES, there is Peace. But it is not of this world or in this world, AS YET. It is FOUND WITHIN.
⁵Your motivation will be so intensified that words become of little consequence.
⁶You will be sure of what you want, and what is valueless.
* “The experience of freedom and of peace that comes as you give up your tight control of what you see speaks for itself.”
* “You will be sure of what you want, and what is valueless.”
* Be aware that IT WILL HURT to see a world of confusion and chaos without God or the witness of His Son that you are not able to reach. And your heart will CRY, and tears may flow because you know that they can find what you have ONLY by going within and finding the Divinity of Which they are a part.
3. And so we start our journey beyond words by concentrating first on what impedes your progress still.
²Experience of what exists beyond defensiveness remains beyond achievement while it is denied.
* You have to be able to accept Heaven’s Reality before you find it.
³It may be there, but you cannot accept its presence.
⁴So we now attempt to go past all defenses for a little while each day.
* This sounds doable but I suggest that it doesn’t happen in increments. And it HURTS!!! But the hurt is unreal and you KNOW IT. The separation is not real and you KNOW it. The LOSS is NOT REAL and YOU KNOW IT.
* And you also know that you cannot go back to believing what you used to.
⁵No more than this is asked, because no more than this is needed.
* THAT is a BOLD-FACED LIE. You give up a world you thought was real for the TRUTH. And there is a period of mourning and a type of sorrow that you KNOW is not based in Reality but it still HURTS LIKE HELL.
⁶It will be enough to guarantee the rest will come.
* Even once you know the truth and have accepted the Atonement it can HURT LIKE HELL, but it is DOABLE because God IS WHO HE SAYS that He IS!
(ACIM, W-in.181–200.1:1–3:6)
Till next time, God bless, debi.
