Sunday, April 19, 2015
Lesson 109: “I rest in God.”
I rest in God is a very specific practice. The world in fact appears to have little time to rest, which is one of the reasons we get so out of habit resting. The world seems to thrive on chaos. The ego doesn’t want us to slow down because it is afraid of the awareness that often accompanies the slowing down. This awareness leads to discarding the ego and choosing otherwise. Thus, this is always a concern so the world mostly packs every possible activity to keep us so busy we never can look within.
First we need to just have compassion for ourselves for going round and round without the thought of what it all is truly about, and then choose otherwise. We want ourselves to make time to listen to our heart with rapt attention even if we aren’t used to it yet. Let’s make a new practice. We are asked to slow down. And any amount of slowing down is great, it’s a fabulous first step.
But what the Course invites us to do is actually rest in the intention of God. The ego likes to perpetuate conflict and discord even in resting. We have to notice when we start to play this game as the ego does. Often when we do make the practice of slowing our bodies and perhaps being in quiet, the ego goes on to fill our minds with energy that is reminding us of attack. Even in rest, our hearts can be filled with our agenda, and the resentment and guilt and whatever our ego likes to present. What happens is our hearts are not aligned with God so we end up feeling filled with anguish and anger. This is no experience of rejuvenation because it feels like attack is wounding us even if it is still simply in our energy.
This is why we are asked to let go of grievances, forgive it all every time we stop to rest, even if we are otherwise busy. If we just get into the practice of noticing our heart’s resistance to forgiveness then instead of feeling discord in the moment’s we are trying to rest, we will be filled with feelings of good will and contentment. We will be extraordinarily restored because our energy is aligned with the love of God while we are being quiet and resting. This is the place where we live out from God’s good graces because our energy is with God. When we rest with God we end up feeling a wondrous freshness in our restoration because miracles can happen when we open our minds to God energy.
Even if we can’t be in God’s energy because we don’t know how to connect and remember this feeling of being totally lovable, what we can do is simply draw the conclusion that we want something other than our ego’s way. When we then hold space for the possibility we can be in an altered state, we simply open the door for the true experience of this blessed state. All we have to do is just have the slightest bit of doubt that we want other than the ego. Then this opens the way for our memory that God never left us.