Lesson 79: “Let me recognize the problem so it can be solved.”
The purpose of the Course is to teach us to choose peace so that we can get to a constantly sustained level of peace.
We are learning to do this because we deserve it and God plans this for us.
God decrees this our destiny and we are given the gift of being able to choose consciously our thoughts and feelings.
The Course is teaching us that we all play an important part in the plan of getting into our peace because we all are active participants in the journey.
Our task is to grow our willingness to play our parts and learn what our parts entail and be open for making ourselves available in God’s purpose.
The Course is teaching us how to choose our love thoughts and feelings so that we release our grievances and release all attack thoughts because they are not helpful or pleasant in the long run and short run.
We learn how to evaluate the world without judging it so that we can accumulate information from what we see without triggering the ego’s old song and dance about being wounded.
Choosing peace is what everyone wants.
We do need, however, to take all the steps involved in the process.
We must choose our own thoughts of love in order to find that inner peace, but first we need to see there is a problem with the thinking we have now.
If we skirt identifying the problem, we will go nowhere quickly.
The Course reminds us that we have work to do.
We must start first by listening to that ego voice and the Holy Spirit’s voice- whatever inner dialogue is happening- we must allow ourselves to be witness to it.
We simply need to let it be acceptable that it exists and not try to bury it or deny it or in some way avoid it. We need to just be open to our own process in discovering how we feel and what we thinking.
This inner work is absolutely essential to the next step of actively choosing peace instead.
We must do that first step of becoming aware of all of those parts of ourselves that may trigger us and make us feel shameful or guilty or inadequate, or whatever this brings up.
We need to appreciate how difficult it can be to get to know ourselves this way because it brings up that stuff we bury very deeply under that whole ego wall in our minds.
We are asked to simply appreciate that becoming self aware takes a lot of time and effort, and it also can be downright painful when the ego squirms about unlocking layers of blocked attack energy.
We are learning to let God help us in this process of learning our own stuck spots.
God is always there to hold our hands when we get weary from the task and remind us to hold that part of us lightly and gently.