Thursday, December 25, 2014
Lesson 358: “No call to God can be unheard nor left unanswered. And of this I can be sure; His answer is the one I really want.”
What a beautiful day to celebrate the birth of Christ. The Course teaches us that Christ came to be an example of how we can be to hold certainty and forgiveness evenly throughout our days. The Course encourages us not to put Christ on a pedestal and make it seem to us that Christ is so much better than we are, thus separated from us.
The Course teaches us not to forget to include ourselves when we contemplate the gift of favor from God. Often Christian based religions forget to make this point and sometimes we can get lost in the energy of making ourselves not good enough to receive the same favor as the Christ child. We must practice giving ourselves the love that is meant for all men and women because we are all God’s most beloved offspring.
The Course teaches us to not implement a hierarchy where Christ is at the top and so unreachable. We simply had the wrong story when we did this. God asks us to celebrate Christ’s life. Jesus was an amazing teacher with God’s energy pouring forth from his heart and mind. We can celebrate Jesus because He really remembered His truth that God is His only identity.
I resonate deeply with the kind of corrections or emphases differences that the Course makes about the Bible. I grew up thinking it was blasphemous to correct the Bible. Only God could do that. Therefore, some people might think the Course goes against the Bible. I just love the incredibly compassionate and loving God in the Course and I think the Course makes the Bible logical. The Course takes great care not to contradict itself. That’s part of why it feels like such a happy and well thought out philosophy. I want to believe in a wholly loving God and I think Jesus teaches this in the Course. For me I feel so happy for this day of celebrating this Savior’s life.
I think in the world it’s a common complaint that people don’t feel heard. We get so busy and people very often don’t take the time to simply be witnessed with friends or loved ones or therapists. We get so busy sometimes we forget to ask for this from our pool of loved ones. Sometimes we get so shut down from being able to be heard that we even shut down the processing of emotions as a natural response to our feelings.
People can forget they have feelings if they get used to not expressing them. We are all emotional beings all the time. That’s part of being human. We need to make sure we make time for this part of life. Allow the feelings to come and find some willing companion to stop and listen.
The beautiful thing about expressing our feelings is, sometimes at first gander, we can’t find someone with the availability to listen just then to what we feel. This is the beauty of developing our relationship with God. God will always listen and we can view God as the compassionate, friendly Being the Course teaches us.
When we express our feelings to God we can even do so with the imagining of how God would respond as the ideal friend and confidant that God is when we understand this quality about Him. This can be the best relationship for empathy because God meets us with no judgement and this we can count on. We can know that God gives us the very best connection to meet our need for kindness.
The beauty is we can always come to God for kindness and direction when we need guidance. God will never let us down. And then in the world, when we are making our happy dream, we find other people who have loving natures and kind hearts. Thus, we continue to benefit from the compassion we gain from our comrades. Then, we have the best of all worlds.
My apologies about not being able to write Laurie’s Reflections yesterday. I had an unexpected day. Blessings for understanding.