Lesson 284: “What is the Holy Spirit?”  “I can elect to change all thoughts that hurt.”  

We learn to apply the Course in incremental segments.  It is a process.

We need to make peace with the process.  Over and over, we must learn to forgive ourselves.  

We forgive and then forgive again.

Eventually this becomes second nature.  But certainly along the way, we will encounter countless favorable occasions to forgive ourselves.  We need to appreciate that this will be a long process- because the nature of being human is that we make mistakes.  We will forget to experience and live the Course’s philosophy because it is unusual and certainly unfamiliar in the world’s belief system.

The Course is something we can only do if we practice it.  The whole purpose is to apply it.  

We apply it because we realize after a while that we want peace more than anything else. 

This sure can take some time.  We may begin to shift, and then get sidetracked until we have some timely reminder.  We can trust that the process is exactly as it is meant to be.

God has a purpose for us and trusts that we will remember we want to live in love and forgiveness ultimately more than anything else. 

We must truly reach that part of our minds that is clear and focused on what makes us truly happy.

We must forgive that we lose sight of our Godly perspective.  We find out along the way that we are always our worst enemy when we are trying to surrender the ego to God.  When we forget, then we need to forgive ourselves in order to remain happy.

If we don’t forgive, then we make a block to love’s presence. 

Our grievances, that the ego makes seem so real, can be very hard give back to God’s altar with a grateful heart. 

The ego will want to clutch at them for dear life like we are giving up some critical part of us.

The ego’s priorities make us miserable, but we don’t know how to release them to God’s Will.  The grievances hold a mystery about them that lure the ego beyond belief.

We become addicted to the grievances. 

It is an uncomfortable relationship we have with the grievances to say the least, but it is such a strong pull we have with them, it is difficult to give them up so we can instead sit with empty hands at the feet of God. 

The grievances always give us cause to suffer.  The Course is teaching us to forgive that we think we like the grievances better than God.

This is insane for sure, but still a tough battle to win when we want to fight the good fight and come to God’s holy purpose with our own like and aligned energy.

Just appreciate we always learn a deeper sense of forgiveness.  We are always getting better at learning how to forgive when we allow God to be the sole intention in the exchange of giving away our grievances from our hearts.

We just need to trust that our forgiveness is always being redefined. 

This is why we must let God be the teacher of how to heal anything that is other than love.