God does not know of learning. Yet His Will extends to what He does not
understand, in that He wills the happiness His Son inherited of Him be
undisturbed; eternal and forever gaining scope, eternally expanding in
the joy of full creation, and eternally open and wholly limitless in
Him. This is His Will. And thus His Will provides the means to guarantee
that it is done.
God sees no contradictions. Yet His Son believes he sees them. Thus he
has a need for One Who can correct his erring sight, and give him vision
that will lead him back to where perception ceases. God does not
perceive at all. Yet it is He Who gives the means by which perception is
made true and beautiful enough to let the light of Heaven shine upon it.
It is He Who answers what His Son would contradict, and keeps his
sinlessness forever safe.
These are the lessons God would have you learn. His Will reflects them
all, and they reflect His loving kindness to the Son He loves. Each
lesson has a central thought, the same in all of them. The form alone is
changed, with different circumstances and events; with different
characters and different themes apparent but not real. They are the same
in fundamental content. It is this:
“Forgive and you will see this differently.”
Certain it is that all distress does not appear to be but
unforgiveness. Yet that is the content underneath the form. It is this
sameness which makes learning sure, because the lesson is so simple that
it cannot be rejected in the end. No-one can hide forever from a truth
so very obvious that it appears in countless forms, and yet is
recognized as easily in all of them, if one but wants to see the simple
lesson there.
“Forgive and you will see this differently.”
These are the words the Holy Spirit speaks in all your tribulations, all
your pain, all suffering regardless of its forms. These are the words
with which temptation ends and guilt, abandoned, is revered no more.
These are the words which end the dream of sin, and rid the mind of
fear. These are the words by which salvation comes to all the world.
Shall we not learn to say these words when we are tempted to believe
that pain is real, and death becomes our choice instead of life? Shall
we not learn to say these words when we have understood their power to
release all minds from bondage? These are words which give you power
over all events which seem to have been given power over you. You see
them rightly when you hold these words in full awareness, and do not
forget these words apply to everything you see or any brother looks upon
amiss.
How can you tell when you are seeing wrong, or someone else is failing
to perceive the lesson he should learn? Does pain seem real in the
perception? If it does, be sure the lesson is not learned. And there
remains an unforgiveness hiding in the mind which sees the pain through
eyes the mind directs.
God would not have you suffer thus. He would help you forgive yourself.
His Son does not remember who he is. And God would have him not forget
His Love, and all the gifts His Love brings with It. Would you now
renounce your own salvation? Would you fail to learn the simple lessons
Heaven’s Teacher sets before you that all pain may disappear, and God
may be remembered by His Son?
All things are lessons God would have you learn. He would not leave an
unforgiving thought without correction, nor one thorn or nail to hurt
His sacred Son in any way. He would ensure his holy rest remain
untroubled and serene, without a care in an eternal home which cares for
him. And He would have all tears be wiped away, with none remaining yet
unshed, and none but waiting their appointed time to fall. For God has
willed that laughter should replace each one, and that His Son be free
again.
We will attempt today to overcome a thousand seeming obstacles to peace
in just one day. Let mercy come to you more quickly. Do not try to hold
it off another day, another minute or another instant. Time was made for
this. Use it today for what its purpose is. Morning and night devote
what time you can to serve its proper aim, and do not let the time be
less than meets your deepest need.
Give all you can and give a little more, for now we would arise in haste
and go unto our Father’s house. We have been gone too
long, and we would linger here no more. And as we practice, let us think
about all things we saved to settle by ourselves, and kept apart from
healing. Let us give them all to Him Who knows the way to look upon them
so that they will disappear. Truth is His message; truth His teaching
is. His are the lessons God would have us learn.
Each hour spend a little time today, and in the days to come, in
practicing the lesson in forgiveness in the form established for the
day. And try to give it application to the happenings the hour brought,
so that the next one is free of the one before. The chains of time are
easily unloosened in this way.
Let no one hour cast its shadow on the one that follows, and when that
one goes let everything that happens in its course go with it. Thus will
you remain unbound, in peace eternal in the world of time. This is the
lesson God would have you learn: There is a way to look on everything
that lets it be to you another step to Him and to salvation of the
world.
To all that speaks of terror, answer thus:
“I will forgive and this will disappear.”
To every apprehension, every care, every form of suffering repeat these
selfsame words. And then you hold the key that opens Heaven’s gate, and
brings the Love of God the Father down to earth at last, to raise it up
to Heaven. God will take this final step Himself. Do not deny the little
steps He asks you take to Him.