Lesson 118: Review: “God’s peace and joy are mine.”  “Let me be still and listen to the truth.”

The Course teaches us to empty our minds first and then, when our minds are open for something new, then, we can add in God’s message that we are lovable and worthy of God’s love and all great abundance in the world. 

We start first with an empty cup and then we fill it.

Making the step of getting to that empty place is completely our job. 

We have to be the one to release all that old language that no longer serves us and any idea that was not based in love. 

This means that we have a totally essential part in our getting to God because we have to be the ones to choose to surrender all those outdated thoughts.

We have to do this because it is the quality of our lives that is on the line and this means everything to any of us who stop and notice that we want more out of life.

When we get to that place of having a moment of doubt that we want something more than the ego’s story, then we start to open up. 

All we need is the tiniest amount of realization.

When we get this little bit, the light of God within it is so powerful it lights up our minds and we start to get introduced to God’s picture which is filled with love and light and brings us true comfort and peace.

The empty place in our minds happens when we start to weed out what goes through there.

Our job is to make the clear choice that we are open for only thoughts filled with love.

The empty place is necessary so that we can fill it with God later and this is why we bless the empty space. 

If we don’t then we may get ego signals that the empty space is undesired because the ego thrives on being full, preferably overly full.

One thing that happens when we make empty space in our minds, is the ego rushes up and bogs us down with more filler. 

The ego will go to such extremes to keep us from reaching God in our heart of serenity. 

Just appreciate that the ego may have us totally going along with it that we will be satisfied with the ego’s overstuffing.  We get so used to the ego’s excess that we stop even noticing that familiar feeling of being overfull.

When we do things with God, the Course teaches us rather how to appreciate more moderation in all the ego’s dramas of excess. 

We must get to that place where we are so practiced at living our lives in moderation that we don’t think twice about actively sustaining that practice of having just enough when it comes to consuming the world. 

The important thing is to learn to love moderation more and this is something we all can do with practice.

The key is to be sure we grow to love it more than the ego’s preferences, and then, sustaining it becomes absolutely easy and effortless because we love it more than the ego’s way. 

That means our relationships with all our worldly things become effortless and balanced and we can act there appropriately because we are quite grounded in our moderation. 

The key is to keep practicing moderation until we get good at it, but then also learn to love it as a practice.

This is the way to absolutely love that subtle and yet potent power of God that is never harsh or or demanding the way the ego is.