Thursday, June 11, 2015
Lesson 162: “I am as God created me.”
This lesson is the crux of the Course. When we want to live in constant peace, the way we can accomplish this is as our identification with and as an example of God. The reason this is so is because we need to have some energy or force that we can identify with that is truly perfect, that is so far supreme to what we could possibly imagine with our limited human view. I think most religions might say the same, but what doesn’t work for me about standard religions is that their picture of God is doesn’t make full sense.
Other religions seem fine about seeing God as the primary punisher of us. Religions tend to have philosophies about God that are contradictory in some way or another within themselves. That always has made it incredibly difficult for me to join in with a religion that puts out opposing ideas. The Course goes to great lengths to have its 1300 pages completely consistent. Jesus presents a God who is in no way contrary to Himself. And also God is loving beyond what we with our ego’s view can even try to understand. This is why the Course is different and a healed way to understand God.
The Course’s God has no agenda, no judgement, no anger or upset at us. We don’t have to hang around and believe in someone who is out to get us when the going gets tough. We don’t want to believe in this God who is unloving because this sets up a reality where its not happy or safe to identify as a creature of God. When God is presented as an enemy some of the time, we will be anxious about joining with God. Furthermore, this strong pull not to feel loving about God because God’s punishing is what gives us the situation of having no model to want to embody and emulate. Then, we are stuck when we have nowhere to turn to see how to behave and who to copy. Then we have no idea who to model because that kind of God seems like part of our nightmare.
I see one of the Course’s purposes is to teach us a different view of God. This is a necessary step to healing. We need to understand that God is always loving, forgiving and gentle. Then when we see that we don’t have to cringe at the mention of God, then we can integrate deeply that we are the offspring of God so we can translate our life into the life of perfect peace, abundance, and equanimity. We must assume God is always gentle. When we know that we are the happy recipients of God’s love and purpose, then we can be truly happy and know our true worth. When God dictates to us who we should be, all we have to do is accept our perfection as it has never changed as the heirs of God’s kingdom and energy. Then when we feel truly happy about who we are as God’s creations, then our lives look happy and feel happy.