Sunday, August 2, 2015
Lesson 214: Review: “I am not a body. I am free. For I am still as God created me.” “I place the future in the hands of God.”
The Course teaches us to readily give our plans to God. Our egos love to plan and plan to the greatest ends of the earth. The ego stops at nothing to get to the planning part- because the ego relishes every moment of planning. The task of planning is when we try to have control over each outcome, to dictate what will come and dictate a future that we think we want. The ego has so much of its identity set in planning because the ego wants to create itself continually- making its own vision of life set in the rock of the future picture.
Our egos make every effort to set out every detail of the proposed future. Our egos try to pin down at length each turn in the maze of what we want to control when it comes. Our egos always tell us that the future will be better if the ego gets to take charge. This is very confusing because our egos have a false sense of what is good for us. The ego just perpetuates the world and experiences that are worldly- not Godly. This invariably is extraordinarily far away from what truly is going to bring us peace.
The problem is that the ego is so convincing that the future is where it will finally be good. If the present is perceived as difficult then our egos tell us ad nauseam that if we don’t like the now, surely the future will be the improvement that we are most wanting in the now that we think we don’t have. The problem with this logic is that the future never comes. It is only the now where we have any power. And we have the power to change the now if we are simply willing to align our thoughts with God.
We don’t have to sit around the moment and pity ourselves because we think we aren’t happy now. And we think if we aren’t happy now, we won’t be happy in the future because without God the outcome looks bleak. However, what we can do is know that we can change our minds to make the now the greatest possible reality we could ever want. Then we will automatically be choosing with God so this is the way to meet with our own inner peace in the moment. If we are happy in the now then our future will automatically seem bright because we aren’t presently suffering over our own current sense of victimization.
What we want to do is be absolutely certain we aren’t trying to make the future without God. This inevitably leads to our confused intention when we aren’t putting our egos away and letting God be in charge. Jesus says here that when God is in charge of the future, this is the way to our inner peace because we won’t worry about it. When we think we have to get the ego ready to do this job, it can seem like a terrible and impossible task because the ego gives us ill situations for sure.
Jesus tells us to simply give all future plans to God. Then our stress in the present goes away because we aren’t worrying how the ego will ever manage this. God is all knowing and has a perfect plan so we can spend all of our energy just taking care of the business of the moment. We can do this without a fret because we trust God is always in the know and leads us to the future that is perfect for our current place in our own evolution.