Sunday, May 3, 2015
Lesson 123: “I thank my Father for His gifts to me.”
I appreciate the Course’s way of thinking about a need for gratitude toward God. I have heard of religions that say if we don’t speak to God just so and give God all the accolades God will cut us off from our bounty and love. This is incredibly tragic when we get the messages especially from religions because those are supposed to be the “experts” on God (if there is such a thing).
Most people would probably assume religions would have the skinny on what God wants and expects from us. Then, if we don’t follow through with such love and adoration, then we are likely to feel guilty because we are not playing the part we were told is our part to play. Furthermore, when we feel guilty, we most likely react with some form of attack because we will not be aligned with love and forgiveness. This is a vicious cycle which God and Jesus realize, so in the Course, they teach differently. Then we can stay out of this cycle permanently and stay rather in the flow of abundant joy and love.
If we believe in a God who has a whole lot of expectations of our lavishly expressing gratitude, what can happen is then we can feel like we need to take care of God’s needs. This is often confusing because this need of gratitude can seem like a huge chore to express. This then can make us feel exhausted and spent because we are busy looking after God.
And this kind of ego projection in fact makes us perceive God as needy. This sense of neediness is not in the same energy of the abundant love and kindness that the Course teaches is God’s nature. We just need to stay clear about what comes up in our relationship with God. And when we are aligned with the true nature of God, there is never a sense of neediness.
Then when we realize God has no NEED of our gratitude, then we can simply express gratitude from a place of exquisite joy that we get so much from God, as we always have what we need. Therefore, we can simply go crazy about loving God simply from our great blessings of perfect love and life of plenty.