Welcome to Active Meditation,
A Course in Miracles,
Lesson 166,
I am entrusted with the gifts of God.
All things are given you.
God's trust in you is limitless.
God knows his child.
God gives without exception,
Holding nothing back that can contribute to your happiness.
Unless your will is one with God's,
His gifts are not received.
What would make you think there is another will,
Other than the will of God?
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.
Those who think this world is real must still believe there is another will,
And one that leads to opposite effects from those God-wills.
Every mind that looks upon the world and judges it as certain,
Solid,
Trustworthy,
And true believes in two creators,
Or in one,
Themselves,
Alone,
But never in one God.
The gifts of God are not acceptable to anyone who holds such strange beliefs.
They must believe that to accept God's gifts,
However evident they may become,
However urgently they may be called to claim God's gifts as their own,
Is to be pressed to treachery against themselves.
They must deny the presence of these gifts,
Contradict the truth,
And suffer to preserve the world they have made.
Here is the only home they think they know.
Here is the only safety they believe they can find.
Without the world they made,
They are outcasts,
Homeless,
And afraid.
They do not realize that it is here they are afraid,
Indeed,
And homeless.
They are outcasts,
Wandering,
So far from home,
So long away.
They do not realize they have forgotten where they came from,
Where they go,
And even who they really are.
In their lonely,
Senseless wanderings,
God's gifts go with them,
All unknown to them.
They cannot lose God's gifts,
But they will not look at what is given to them.
They wander on,
Aware of the futility that they see about them everywhere,
Perceiving how their little lot but dwindles as they go ahead to nowhere.
Still they wander on,
In misery and poverty,
Alone,
Though God is with them,
With a treasure so great that everything the world contains is valueless before its magnitude.
They seem sorry figures,
Weary,
Worn,
In threadbare clothing,
And with feet that bleed a little from the rocky road they walk.
No one but has identified with them,
For everyone who comes here has pursued this path they follow.
All of us have felt defeat and hopelessness as they are feeling them.
Are they really tragic when you see that they are following the way they themselves chose?
All they need but realize is who walks with them,
And then open up God's 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.
You defend against every evidence.
You defend against 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,
Fearing that you might perceive His gentle hand directing you to look upon your gifts.
How could you then proclaim your poverty in exile?
Christ 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 whom God intended only joy?
Your ancient fear has come upon you now.
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 that the miserable self you thought was you may not be your identity.
Perhaps God's word is truer than your own.
Perhaps God's gifts to you are real.
Perhaps God has not wholly been outwitted by your plan to keep His child in deep oblivion and go the way you chose without your higher self.
God's will does not oppose.
It merely is.
It is not God you have imprisoned in your plan to lose your higher self.
God does not know about a plan so alien to His will.
There was a need God did not understand,
To which He gave an answer,
That is all.
And you,
Who have this answer given you,
Have no need 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 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.
Let this one mercifully reply,
It is not so.
God points to all the gifts you have each time the thought of poverty oppresses you.
God speaks of His companionship when you perceive yourself as lonely and afraid.
Yet God reminds you still of one more thing you had forgotten,
For Christ's touch on you has made you like Himself.
The gifts you have are not for you alone.
Say to yourself,
Say in your mind,
I am entrusted with the gifts of God.
Ponder on this.
I am entrusted with the gifts of God.
I am entrusted with the gifts of God.
What Christ has come to offer you,
You must now 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.
Christ has reminded you of all the gifts that God has given you.
He speaks as well of what becomes of 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 from Christ that there is another way for them to walk.
Teach them by showing them.
Show them the happiness that comes to those who feel the touch of Christ and recognize God's gifts.
Don't let sorrow tempt you to be unfaithful to your trust.
You keep in your mind,
I am entrusted with the gifts of God.
Spend a few moments reflecting on the gifts God has entrusted to you.
I am entrusted with the gifts of God.
What Christ has come to offer you,
You must now learn to give.
This is the lesson that His giving holds.
I am entrusted with the gifts of God.
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 withhold their healing.
What you fear teaches them their fears are justified.
Your hand becomes the giver of Christ's touch.
Your change of mind becomes the proof those who accept God's gifts can never suffer anything.
You are entrusted with the world's release from pain.
Do not betray this trust.
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 when it chooses to accept God's 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.
God has shared His joy with you.
Now you go to share it with the world.
I am entrusted with the gifts of God.
Nothing real can be threatened.
Nothing unreal exists.
Herein lies the peace of God.
