A Course in Miracles.
Lesson 186.
Salvation of the world depends on me.
Salvation of the world depends on me.
Here is the statement that will one day take all the arrogance away from every mind.
Here is the thought of true humility,
Which holds no function as your own,
But that which
has been given you.
Salvation of the world depends on me.
This statement offers your acceptance of a part assigned to you without insisting on
another role.
It does not judge your proper role.
Salvation of the world depends on me.
This statement acknowledges the will of God is done on earth as well as heaven.
Salvation of the world depends on me.
This statement unites all wills on earth in heaven's plan to save the world,
To restore
the world to heaven's peace.
Let us not fight our function.
We did not establish it.
Our function is not our idea.
The means are given to us by which our function will be perfectly accomplished.
All that we are asked to do is to accept our part in genuine humility.
We are asked not to deny with self-deceiving arrogance that we are worthy.
What is given us to do,
We have the strength to do.
Our minds are perfectly suited to take the part assigned to us by the one who knows us
well.
Salvation of the world depends on me.
Today's idea may sound quite sobering until you see its meaning.
All it says is that God,
Your Father,
Still remembers you and offers you the perfect trust
he holds in you who is his child.
Today's idea does not ask that you be different in any way from what you are.
What could humility request but this?
What could arrogance deny but this?
Salvation of the world depends on me.
Today we will not shrink from our assignment on the specious grounds that modesty is outraged.
It is pride that would deny the call for God himself.
All false humility we lay aside today so that we may listen to God's voice,
Reveal to us
what he would have us do.
We do not doubt our adequacy for the function that God will offer us.
We will be certain that God knows our strengths.
We will be certain that God knows our wisdom.
We will be certain that God knows our holiness.
Salvation of the world depends on me.
If God deems us worthy,
So we are.
It is only arrogance that judges otherwise.
There is one way and only one way to be released from the imprisonment your plan to prove the
false is true has brought to you.
Accept the plan you did not make.
Judge not your value to it.
If God's voice assures you that salvation needs your part,
If God's voice assures you
that the whole depends on you,
Be sure that it is so.
Salvation of the world depends on me.
The arrogant must cling to words,
Afraid to go beyond them,
Afraid to experience that
which might affront their stance.
The humble are free to hear the voice which tells them what they are.
The humble are free to hear the voice which tells them what to do.
Your arrogance makes the image of yourself that is not real.
It is this image which trembles and retreats in terror as the voice for God assures you
that you have the strength,
That you have the wisdom,
And that you have the holiness
to go beyond all images.
You are not weak as is the image of yourself.
You are not ignorant.
You are not helpless.
Sin cannot tarnish the truth in you.
Misery cannot come near the holy home of God.
All of this the voice for God relates to you,
And as he speaks the image trembles and seeks
to attack the threat it does not know.
The image senses its basis crumbling.
Let it go.
Salvation of the world depends on you,
And not upon this little pile of dust.
What can it tell the holy child of God?
Why does the child of God need to be concerned at all?
And so we find our peace.
We will accept the function God has given us.
All illusions rest upon the weird belief that we can make another illusion for ourselves.
Our self-made roles are shifting.
They seem to change from mourner to ecstatic bliss of love and loving.
We can laugh or weep.
We can greet the day with welcome or with tears.
Our very being seems to change as we experience a thousand shifts in mood,
And our emotions
raise us high or dash us to the ground in hopelessness.
Is this the child of God?
Did God create such instability and call it his child?
God who is changeless shares his attributes with his creation.
All the images you appear to make have no effect on what God is,
On what you really are.
Salvation of the world depends on me.
Images blow across your mind like windswept leaves that form a patterning,
An instant,
And break apart to group again and scamper off.
Images blow across your mind like mirages seen above a desert rising from the dust.
These unsubstantial images will go.
They will leave your mind unclouded and serene when you accept the function given you.
Salvation of the world depends on me.
The images you make only give rise to conflicting goals,
Impermanent and vague,
Uncertain and ambiguous.
Who could be constant in their efforts?
Who could direct their energies and concentrated drive toward goals like these?
The functions which the world esteems are so uncertain that they change
ten times an hour at their most secure.
What hope of gain can rest on goals like this?
In contrast,
Certain as the suns return each morning to dispel the night,
Your truly given function stands out clear and wholly unambiguous.
There is no doubt of its validity.
Your function comes from one who knows no error,
Whose voice is certain of its messages.
These messages will not change,
Nor will they be in conflict.
All of them point to one goal,
One goal you can attain.
Your plan may be impossible,
But God's plan can never fail,
Because God is its source.
Salvation of the world depends on me.
Do as God's voice directs,
And if it asks a thing of you which seems impossible,
Remember who it is that asks and who would make denial.
Then consider this.
Which is more likely to be right?
The voice that speaks for the creator of all things,
Who knows all things exactly as they are,
Or the voice of a distorted image of yourself,
Confused,
Bewildered,
Inconsistent,
And unsure of everything.
Let not this voice direct you.
Hear instead a certain voice,
A voice which tells you of a function given you by your creator,
Who remembers you and urges that you now remember him.
God's gentle voice is calling from the known to the unknowing.
He would comfort you,
Although he knows no sorrow.
He would make a restitution,
Though he is complete.
He gives you a gift,
Although he knows that you have everything already.
He has thoughts which answer every need his child perceives,
Although he sees them not.
Salvation of the world depends on me.
Love must give,
And what is given in God's name
takes on the form most useful in a world of form.
These are the forms which never can deceive,
Because they come from formlessness itself.
Forgiveness is an earthly form of love.
Love in heaven has no form.
Yet,
What is needed here is given here as it is needed.
In this form you can fulfill your function even here,
Although what love will mean to you when formlessness has been restored to you is greater still.
Salvation of the world depends on you who can forgive.
Such is your function here.
Ponder on this.
Salvation of the world depends on you who can forgive.
Such is your function here.
Salvation of the world depends on you who can forgive.
Such is your function here.
Nothing real can be threatened.
Nothing unreal exists.
Herein lies the peace of God.
