All things are given you. God’s trust in you is limitless. He knows His
Son. He gives without exception, holding nothing back that can
contribute to your happiness. And yet, unless your will is one with His,
His gifts are not received. But what would make you think there is
another will than His?
Here is the paradox that underlies the making of the world. This world is
not the Will of God, and so it is not real. Yet those who think it real
must still believe there is another will, and one that leads to opposite
effects from those He wills. Impossible indeed; but every mind that
looks upon the world and judges it as certain, solid, trustworthy and
true believes in two creators; or in one, himself alone. But never in
One God.
The gifts of God are not acceptable to anyone who holds such strange
beliefs. He must believe that to accept God’s gifts, however evident
they may become, however urgently he may be called to claim them as his
own, is being pressed to treachery against himself. He must deny their
presence, contradict the truth, and suffer to preserve the world he
made.
Here is the only home he thinks he knows. Here is the only safety he
believes that he can find. Without the world he made is he an outcast,
homeless and afraid. He does not realize that it is here he is afraid
indeed, and homeless too; an outcast wandering so far from home, so long
away, he does not realize he has forgotten where he came from, where he
goes, and even who he really is.
Yet in his lonely, senseless wanderings God’s gifts go with him, all
unknown to him. He cannot lose them. But he will not look at what is
given him. He wanders on, aware of the futility he sees about him
everywhere, perceiving how his little lot but dwindles as he goes ahead
to nowhere. Still he wanders on in misery and poverty, alone though God
is with him, and a treasure his so great that everything the world
contains is valueless before its magnitude.
He seems a sorry figure, weary, worn, in threadbare clothing, and with
feet that bleed a little from the rocky road he walks. No one but has
identified with him, for everyone who comes here has pursued the path he
follows, and has felt defeat and hopelessness as he is feeling them. Yet
is he really tragic when you see that he is following the way he chose,
and need but realize Who walks with him and open up his treasures to be
free?
This is your chosen self, the one you made as a replacement for reality.
This is the self you savagely defend against all reason, every evidence,
and all the witnesses with proof to show this is not you. You heed them
not. You go on your appointed way, with eyes cast down lest you might
catch a glimpse of truth, and be released from self-deception and set
free.
You cower fearfully lest you should feel Christ’s touch upon your
shoulder, and perceive His gentle hand directing you to look upon your
gifts. How could you then proclaim your poverty in exile? He would make
you laugh at this perception of yourself. Where is self-pity then? And
what becomes of all the tragedy you sought to make for him whom God
intended only joy?
Your ancient fear has come upon you now, and justice has caught up with
you at last. Christ’s hand has touched your shoulder, and you feel that
you are not alone. You even think the miserable self you thought was you
may not be your identity. Perhaps God’s Word is truer than your own.
Perhaps His gifts to you are real. Perhaps He has not wholly been
outwitted by your plan to keep His Son in deep oblivion, and go the way
you chose without your Self.
God’s Will does not oppose. It merely is. It is not God you have
imprisoned in your plan to lose your Self. He does not know about a plan
so alien to His Will. There was a need He did not understand, to which He
gave an Answer. That is all. And you who have this Answer given you have
need no more of anything but this.
Now do we live, for now we cannot die. The wish for death is answered,
and the sight that looked upon it now has been replaced by vision which
perceives that you are not what you pretend to be. One walks with you
Who gently answers all your fears with this one merciful reply, “It is
not so.” He points to all the gifts you have each time the thought of
poverty oppresses you, and speaks of His Companionship when you perceive
yourself as lonely and afraid.
Yet He reminds you still of one thing more you had forgotten.
For His touch on you has made you like Himself. The gifts you have are
not for you alone. What He has come to offer you, you now must learn to
give. This is the lesson that His giving holds, for He has saved you from
the solitude you sought to make, in which to hide from God. He has
reminded you of all the gifts that God has given you. He speaks as well
of what becomes your will when you accept these gifts, and recognize
they are your own.
The gifts are yours, entrusted to your care, to give to all who chose
the lonely road you have escaped. They do not understand they but pursue
their wishes. It is you who teach them now. For you have learned of
Christ there is another way for them to walk. Teach them by showing them
the happiness that comes to those who feel the touch of Christ and
recognize God’s gifts. Let sorrow not tempt you to be unfaithful to your
trust.
Your sighs will now betray the hopes of those who look to you for their
release. Your tears are theirs. If you are sick you but withhold their
healing. What you fear but teaches them their fears are justified. Your
hand becomes the giver of Christ’s touch; your change of mind becomes
the proof that who accepts God’s gifts can never suffer anything. You are
entrusted with the world’s release from pain.
Betray it not. Become the living proof of what Christ’s touch can offer
everyone. God has entrusted all His gifts to you. Be witness in your
happiness to how transformed the mind becomes which chooses to accept
His gifts and feel the touch of Christ. Such is your mission now. For
God entrusts the giving of His gifts to all who have received them. He
has shared His joy with you. And now you go to share it with the world.