Lesson 47. God is the strength in which I trust.

Lesson 47. God is the strength in which I trust.

If you are trusting in your own strength, you have every reason to be
apprehensive, anxious and fearful. What can you predict or control? What is
there in you that can be counted on? What would give you the ability to be aware
of all the facets of any problem, and to resolve them in such a way that only
good can come of it? What is there in you that gives you the recognition of the
right solution, and the guarantee that it will be accomplished?

Of yourself you can do none of these things. To believe that you can is to put
your trust where trust is unwarranted, and to justify fear, anxiety, depression,
anger and sorrow. Who can put his faith in weakness and feel safe? Yet who can
put his faith in strength and feel weak?

God is your safety in every circumstance. His Voice speaks for Him in all
situations and in every aspect of all situations, telling you exactly what to do
to call upon His strength and His protection. There are no exceptions because
God has no exceptions. And the Voice which speaks for Him thinks as He does.

Today we will try to reach past your own weakness to the Source of real
strength. Four five-minute practice periods are necessary today, and longer and
more frequent ones are urged. Close your eyes and begin, as usual, by repeating
the idea for the day. Then spend a minute or two in searching for situations in
your life which you have invested with fear, dismissing each one by telling
yourself:

God is the strength in which I trust.<

Now try to slip past all concerns related to your own sense of inadequacy. It is
obvious that any situation that causes you concern is associated with feelings
of inadequacy, for otherwise you would believe that you could deal with the
situation successfully. It is not by trusting yourself that you will gain
confidence. But the strength of God in you is successful in all things.

The recognition of your own frailty is a necessary step in the correction of
your errors, but it is hardly a sufficient one in giving you the confidence
which you need, and to which you are entitled. You must also gain an awareness
that confidence in your real strength is fully justified in every respect and in
all circumstances.

In the latter phase of the practice period, try to reach down into your mind to
a place of real safety. You will recognize that you have reached it if you feel
a sense of deep peace, however briefly. Let go all the trivial things that churn
and bubble on the surface of your mind, and reach down and below them to the
Kingdom of Heaven. There is a place in you where there is perfect peace. There
is a place in you where nothing is impossible. There is a place in you where the
strength of God abides.

During the day, repeat the idea often. Use it as your answer to any disturbance.
Remember that peace is your right, because you are giving your trust to the
strength of God.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

The commentary on this lesson (below) is from Kenneth Wapnick's eight volume
series of books, called: "Journey Through the Workbook of A Course in Miracles,"
which can be purchased at the following site:??~ M. Street

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Lesson 47. "God is the strength in which I trust."

*This introduces another important teaching that is central in the text: the
contrast between our weakness and the strength of Christ in us, or between the
ego's illusory power and the Holy Spirit's true power. As we read near the
text's end:

"You always choose between your weakness and the strength of Christ in you.
And what you choose is what you think is real. Simply by never using weakness to
direct your actions, you have given it no power. And the light of Christ in you
is given charge of everything you do. For you have brought your weakness unto
Him, and He has given you His strength instead." (T.31.VIII.2.3-7)

This lesson subtly introduces the theme of special relationships, which entail
placing trust in someone or something outside us to alleviate our anxiety, or
simply to make us feel good. That means we are substituting some object,
substance, or relationship for the Love of God, giving power (or strength) to
these special objects to bring us pleasure or alleviate pain. This choice for
specialness is the substitution of weakness for strength.*

(1:1) "If you are trusting in your own strength, you have every reason to be
apprehensive, anxious and fearful."

*Trusting in our own strength means that we have made the ego thought system
real. Having done so, we will feel guilty. Guilt will be projected and we will
inevitably fear the punishment we believe is forthcoming as a natural expression
(really an <un>natural expression) of the guilt we feel in our minds. You can
see, incidentally, how often in these lessons the dynamic or projection is
discussed.*

(1:2) "What can you predict or control?"

*Everyone in this world has control issues. We always try to predict what might
happen so we can be in control, thinking ahead: If I do such and such, what will
the outcome be? This is mandatory if we are to survive as an ego. We have to be
in control. If not, Jesus is, which means our special identity is gone. Our need
to exclude him finds its expression in the need to control what is going on
around us, like the Dutch boy who kept his finger in the dike to prevent a
catastrophic flood that would destroy his village. That is our fear: if our
finger slips, the waters of God's Love would rush through our defensive
structure and flood our egos into non-existence. Thus we keep our fingers of
specialness and hate firmly planted in the walls of our minds, ensuring that no
right-minded water of forgiveness ever gets through and washes away our self.*

(1:3) "What is there in you that can be counted on?"

*We figure a hell of a lot! We are sure that if we do not save ourselves, we are
doomed. I mentioned earlier that we have constructed our lives in such a way
that were convinced from the outset that no one could be trusted; no one is
dependable, and therefore the only one who could save us is ourselves. Again, we
are absolutely certain we are right. However, we are not aware of the underlying
thought that supports this defense: I have written my life's script so that it
will prove I am all alone in the universe, and therefore I had better take care
of me because no one else will! Recall that all-important line from the text:

"The secret of salvation is but this: That you are doing this unto
yourself." (T-27.VIII.10:1).

We <want> to be alone, since that justifies our living all alone -- trusting no
one -- and thus we reinforce our origin of being all alone, totally apart from
our Creator and Source.*

(1:4) "What would give you the ability to be aware of all the facets of any
problem, and to resolve them in such a way that only good can come of it?"

*This idea is expressed more fully in the text and manual: the Holy Spirit, not
ourselves, is the only One Who can judge correctly. We read, for example:

"It is necessary for the teacher of God to realize, not that he should not
judge, but that he cannot ... The aim of our curriculum, unlike the goal of the
world's learning, is the recognition that judgment in the usual sense is
impossible... In order to judge anything rightly, one would have to be fully
aware of an inconceivably wide range of things; past, present and to come. One
would have to recognize in advance all the effects of his judgments on everyone
and everything involved in them in any way. And one would have to be certain
there is no distortion in his perception, so that his judgment would be wholly
fair to everyone on whom it rests now and in the future. Who is in a position to
do this? Who except in grandiose fantasies would claim this for himself? ...
Make then but one more judgment. It is this: There is Someone with you Whose
judgment is perfect. He does know all the facts; past, present and to come. He
does know all the effects of His judgment on everyone and everything involved in
any way. And He is wholly fair to everyone, for there is no distortion in His
perception." (M-10.2:1;3:1,3-7;4:6-10).

It is simply our arrogance as egos that lead us to believe we could possibly
understand the true nature of any problem, not to mention its solution. This
arrogance has ensured throughout the millennia that no problem -- individual or
collective -- has ever truly been resolved. Thus we go from day to day, year to
year, century to century, reliving the same painful experiences over and over
again, with no respite from the terror of being wrong and being separated:

"Each day, and every minute in each day, and every instant that each minute
holds, you but relive the single instant when the time of terror took the place
of love." (T-26.V.13:1).*

(1:5) "What is there in you that gives you the recognition of the right
solution, and the guarantee that it will be accomplished?"

*It certainly is not us, our wrong-minded self, but our right-minded self when
we choose to identify with Jesus or the Holy Spirit.*

(2) "Of yourself you can do none of these things. To believe that you can is to
put your trust where trust is unwarranted, and to justify fear, anxiety,
depression, anger and sorrow. Who can put his faith in weakness and feel safe?
Yet who can put his faith in strength and feel weak?"

*This is what everyone's life is all about. We are frightened, anxious,
depressed, angry, and sad. If not, we are not paying attention to our life's
situation, which proves we are right in believing the world is hostile,
threatening, and lonely place, replete with those we cannot trust. We feel
justified in thinking this is why we feel as terrible as we do, unaware that the
source of these thoughts and feelings is our decision to trust the teacher of
weakness, rather than the One of strength.*

(3) "God is your safety in every circumstance. His Voice speaks for Him in all
situations and in every aspect of all situations, telling you exactly what to do
to call upon His strength and His protection. There are no exceptions because
God has no exceptions. And the Voice which speaks for Him thinks as He does."

*Passages like these, and there are many of them in the workbook, make it sound
as if the Holy Spirit is with you to tell you exactly what to do. In one sense
this is true, but the focus is never really on what you do, because that is
unimportant. Rather, Jesus is emphasizing how you <think> about what you do.
This is where the Holy Spirit enters the picture. If you would join with His
Love -- meaning you have let go of the barriers that would keep you separate
from Him -- everything you do and say will come from love. That is what it means
to be guided by the Holy Spirit. Not that he tells you specifically what to do
or not to do. When your mind is aligned with His, everything coming from that
mind must be His since our bodies are nothing more than a projection or
extension of what is in our minds. When these are joined with the Holy Spirit,
again, everything we do will be an expression of love. Our experience might be
that Jesus told us this or the Holy Spirit told us that. In reality, we have
simply joined with abstract love in our minds, and that love becomes the source
of our specific thoughts and behavior.

"The Song of Prayer" specifically addresses the issue of moving beyond our need
for specifics, our going so far as to ask God or the Holy Spirit for the
fulfillment of our special requests. Indeed, one of the major emphases of this
all-important writing is to have students of A Course in Miracles ask <only> for
help in removing the obstacles to hearing the non-specific Voice of love. Once
our egos are out of the way, we automatically <know> what to do or say. Thus
Jesus teaches in the pamphlet's opening pages:

"The secret of true prayer is to forget the things you think you need. To
ask for the specific is much the same as to look on sin and then forgive it.
Also in the same way, in prayer you overlook your specific needs as you see
them, and let them go into God's Hands. There they become your gifts to Him, for
they tell Him that you would have no gods before Him; no Love but His. What
could His answer be but your remembrance of Him? Can this be traded for a bit of
trifling advice about a problem of an instant's duration? God answers only for
eternity. But still all little answers are contained in this." (S-1.I.4.)

This important teaching was underscored in a personal message to Helen,
correcting her tendency to ask for <specific> words to say to a person in
trouble. Here is what Jesus told his scribe:

"Remember you need nothing, but you have an endless store of loving gifts to
give. But teach this lesson only to yourself. Your brother will not learn if
from your words or from the judgments you have laid on him. You need not even
speak a word to him. You cannot ask, "What shall I say to him?" and hear God's
answer. Rather ask instead, "Help me to see this brother through the eyes of
truth and not of judgment," and the help of God and all His angels will
respond." (Absence from Felicity: The story of Helen Schucman and Her Scribing
of A Course in Miracles, p.381).

We shall return again and again to this vital point, for it points the way
beyond the ego's <spiritual specialness>, one of its greatest defenses against
the spiritual truths found in A Course in Miracles and many other
spiritualities.*

(4:1) "Today we will try to reach past your own weakness to the Source of real
strength."

*This is reminiscent of Lesson 44, where Jesus helped us sink down into our
minds, passing by the ego's illusions to reach the Holy Spirit's truth.*

(4:2-5) "Four five-minute practice periods are necessary today, and longer and
more frequent ones are urged. Close your eyes and begin, as usual, by repeating
the idea for the day. Then spend a minute or two in searching for situations in
your life which you have invested with fear, dismissing each one by telling
yourself:
"God is the strength in which I trust."

*Again, this is the process. The way to reach your real strength is to move past
your weakness by becoming aware of your ego's thoughts. That is why there is
such heavy emphasis on mind searching in these lessons. You cannot move past the
darkness until you first realize there <is> darkness. You must look at your
investment in having your ego be alive and well, and then bring that investment
in weakness to the strength of God within.*

(5) "Now try to slip past all concerns related to your own sense of inadequacy.
It is obvious that any situation that causes you concern is associated with
feelings of inadequacy, for otherwise you would believe that you could deal with
the situation successfully. It is not by trusting yourself that you will gain
confidence. But the strength of God in you is successful in all things."

*Still again, we are asked by Jesus to turn away from the weakness and
inadequacy of the ego's thought system to the strength of God he holds out for
us. That is why he exhorts us in the text:

"Resign now as your own teacher.... for you were badly taught."
(T-12.V.8:3;T-28.1.7:1).*

(6) "The recognition of your own frailty is a necessary step in the correction
of your errors, but it is hardly a sufficient one in giving you the confidence
which you need, and to which you are entitled. You must also gain an awareness
that confidence in your real strength is fully justified in every respect and in
all circumstances."

*The structure here is typical of most of the sections in the text: first you
get the ego's side; then the Holy Spirit's answer. Throughout A Course in
Miracles Jesus tells us in no uncertain terms how important it is that we look
at our ego. Here he is saying we must look at our weakness, which comes from
identifying with the ego. However, Jesus also teaches there is a presence of
love, strength, and truth inside us, which is the basis of our looking. We
become aware that the way we identify with truth and find real happiness and
peace is by looking at our darkness with the expression of that truth -- Jesus
or the Holy Spirit -- beside us. Recall that wonderful passage from the text,
quoted here more fully than previously:

"No one can escape from illusions unless he looks at them, for not looking
is the way they are protected. There is no need to shrink from illusions, for
they cannot be dangerous. We are ready to look more closely at the ego's thought
system because together we have the lamp that will dispel it, and since you
realize you do not want it, you must be ready. Let us be very calm in doing
this, for we are merely looking honestly for truth. The "dynamics" of the ego
will be our lesson for a while, for we must look first at this to see beyond it,
since you have made it real. We will undo this error quietly together, and then
look beyond it to truth."
"What is healing but the removal of all that stands in the way of
knowledge? And how else can one dispel illusions except by looking at them
directly, without protecting them? Be not afraid, therefore, for what you will
be looking at is the source of fear, and you are beginning to learn that fear is
not real.... Do not be afraid ... to look upon fear, for it cannot be seen.
Clarity undoes confusion by definition, and to look upon darkness through light
must dispel it." (T-11.V.1:1--2:3,8-9).

Thus we are given both sides of the split mind: the truth within, as well as
instruction for the journey to that truth, which entails looking at the ego's
weakness.

One more point: Looking at the ego is not enough if you do not move beyond it to
the strength of Christ. Half the lesson is not the whole. This thought is
similar to the passage in the text on healing being of the <mind>, not the
<body>; the removal of physical symptoms is not the issue:

"Yet half the lesson will not teach the whole. The miracle is useless if you
learn but that the body can be healed, for this is not the lesson it was sent to
teach. The lesson is the mind was sick that thought the body could be sick;
projecting out its guilt caused nothing, and had no effects." (T-28.II.11:5-7).

Thus, "letting go of the ego" means nothing. Moreover, it is not <really>
letting go if one does not identify at the same time with the gentle,
defenseless, and loving strength of Christ, inherent in which is the remembrance
of the Oneness of God's Son.*

(7) "In the latter phase of the practice period, try to reach down into your
mind to a place of real safety. You will recognize that you have reached it if
you feel a sense of deep peace, however briefly. Let go all the trivial things
that churn and bubble on the surface of your mind, and reach down and below them
to the Kingdom of Heaven. There is a place in you where there is perfect peace.
There is a place in you where nothing is impossible. There is a place in you
where the strength of God abides."

*Again, we let go of "all the trivial things that churn and bubble" in our minds
-- our thoughts of specialness -- by bringing them to Jesus or the Holy Spirit;
no longer holding on to them for safety and defense. In other words, we no
longer want the purpose they serve: preserving and protecting our separated
self.*

(8) "During the day, repeat the idea often. Use it as your answer to any
disturbance. Remember that peace is your right, because you are giving your
trust to the strength of God."

*And so we return to this central theme of the early lessons: the need to
practice continually by bringing our disturbances to Jesus' specific answer,
trusting in its strength rather than the weakness of the ego's shabby substitute
for God.*

Love and Blessings,

Lyn Johnson

719-369-1822

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Lesson 47. God is the strength in which I trust.