LESSON FORTY TWO

TRANSCRIBER’S NOTE: The Course text is in bold face. The Guidance is in normal type In His Guidance, He has asked Me to capitalize the pronouns You and We as an acknowledgement of the Divinity of All of Us, an acknowledgement of Equality, an expression of His Love and respect for You. When You see the word ‘YOU’ capitalized in the Guidance, know that He is not just speaking to YOU, He is honoring YOU.

Workbook PART I

L e s s o n 42

God is my strength.

For the Son of God is nothing without the Father-Mother. What could ever be that lacks its source? Nothing springs from nothing.  From God spring all things of Reality.

Vision is His gift.

  The gift to see them.  For perception can be mis-perception, seen by the ego.

¹ The idea for today combines two very powerful thoughts, both of major importance. Since God is Your strength, and Vision is His Gift to You, then Vision must be strength as well as power too. It also sets forth a cause and effect relationship which explains why you cannot fail in your efforts to achieve the goal of the course. You will see because it is the Will of God.  God wills that You see with His eyes, and – therefore – with His Vision. It is His strength, not your own, that gives you power.  Relax; accept It. And it is His gift to you, rather than your own, which offers vision to you.  Learn well this lesson I taught 2000 years ago: Of my self, I do nothing.

While We think We ‘e nouns – which can be inert – God is Our verb; Life is omniaction.

² God is indeed your strength. And what He gives is truly given. This means that you can receive it any time and anywhere, wherever you are and in whatever circumstances you find yourself.  For God is the One and Only Power. Your passage through time and space is not random. You cannot but be in the right place at the right time. Such is the strength of God. Such are His gifts. The transcriber has had a number of vehicular close calls to teach Her this Lesson.  It could be called time-folding, where the impending accident is – for lack of better words – simply eliminated from the picture.

Hence, no accident occurs; and harm is, therefore, prevented. Thus has the dream of ‘time’ been re-written.

³ We will have two three- to five-minute longer exercise periods today, one as soon as possible after you wake and another as close as possible to the time you go to sleep. It is better, however, to wait until you can sit quietly by yourself at a time when you feel ready than it is to be concerned with the time as such. In other words, let peace outweigh all things.

⁴ Begin the practice period by repeating the idea for today slowly with eyes open, looking about you. Then close your eyes and repeat the idea again, quite slowly. After this, try to think of nothing except thoughts which occur to you in relation to today’s idea. You might think, for example:

⁵ Vision must be possible. God gives truly; or,
God’s gifts to me must be mine because He gave them to me.

In the silence ideas will flow to You, bringing healing.

⁶ Whatever thought that is clearly related to the idea itself is suitable. You may, in fact, be astonished at the amount of course-related understanding some of your own thoughts contain. Trust what You’re hearing when You are focused. Let them come without censoring unless you realize your mind is merely wandering and you have let obviously irrelevant thoughts intrude. You may also reach a point where no thoughts at all seem to come to mind. If such interferences occur, open your eyes and repeat the thought once more while looking slowly about; close your eyes, repeat the idea once more, and then continue to look for related thoughts in your mind.  Let Your mental walk be quite leisurely. You are companioned; trust in the Silence.  It is fecund with what You need to know.  Enjoy Its richness.

⁷ Remember, though, that active searching is not appropriate for today’s exercises. No need to control. God is Guiding You. Be still and listen. Try merely to step back and let the thoughts come. If you find this difficult, it is better to spend the practice period alternating between slow repetitions of the idea with eyes open, then closed, then open, and so on, than it is to strain in order to find suitable thoughts.

⁸ There is no limit on the number of short practice periods which would be most beneficial. The idea for the day is a beginning step in bringing thoughts together and teaching you that what you are studying is a unified thought system in which nothing is lacking that is needed, and nothing is included that is contradictory or irrelevant.  I ask that You take My word as gospel, for it is! You need not be serious; just give devotion!

 

⁹ The more often you repeat the idea during the day, the more often you will be reminding yourself that the goal of the course is important to you, and that you have not forgotten it.

Please let the purpose of the Course be as important to You as it is to Me. We All are as One.