Trust all things to Him
Date: 08/22/2007
Many of us want our practice of A Course in Miracles to give us dramatic, "blow out" experiences of ultimate reality. That can and does happen sometimes, but for me, it's the "little" day-to-day positive experiences that most often demonstrate the rewards of following the path of the Course. I had such an experience on Monday, and I'd like to share it with you.
On Friday, a problem arose with a company I do business with. This problem was one that could cost a lot of money, and it seemed to be the company's fault. On Monday, I would have to call the company and try to get it worked out. I dreaded this call all weekend, since it would most likely involve getting the company to admit their mistakes, and I had some negative experiences with telephone customer service in the past.
But then I got to thinking: I believe in a God of Love, Whose Voice ensures us that "all things work together for good" (T-4.V.1:1). If this is really true, then what am I worried about? To the extent that I'm worried about this situation, I don't really believe in the God I spend my life teaching others to trust. I need to put my money where my mouth is here.
So, over the weekend, I started practicing on the theme of trusting the Holy Spirit to bring about a happy outcome to this situation, whatever it may look like on the level of form. I used one of my favorite passages from the Manual section on "trust," the first characteristic of God's teachers:
The teachers of God have trust in the world, because they have learned it is not governed by the laws the world made up. It is governed by a Power that is in them but not of them. It is this Power that keeps all things safe. It is through this Power that the teachers of God look on a forgiven world. (M-4.I.1:4-7)
Then, on Monday morning, I worked with the day's Workbook lesson, which is one of my favorites: Lesson 232, "Be in my mind, my Father, through the day." This lesson has a beautiful prayer in which you affirm your desire to spend the entire day in God's loving Presence. It also has a line that jumped out at me in light of my situation and my weekend practice: "Trust all things to Him" (W-pII.232.2:4). There's that message of trust again. I had a really fulfilling morning quiet time, and felt ready to face the day.
Finally, the time came to make the phone call. I repeated some of those lines about trusting God, extended loving thoughts to whomever I would be speaking with on the other end of the line, and dialed the number. I'm sure you can guess what happened: It was a wonderful experience. I was kind to both customer service reps I talked to, and not surprisingly they were kind to me in return. We had a thoroughly pleasant interaction. It turned out that the problem was indeed on the company's end rather than mine, but they were quite happy to fix it right up. We thanked each other when we were done, and that was that.
To me, the best part of this experience wasn't simply that I got my external problem solved, though that was certainly nice. The best part was that I was in such a loving and trusting state of mind by the time I made the call that the external result didn't matter too much. I honestly think that even if the external problem hadn't been resolved in a way that I preferred, it would have been okay. The important thing was that I was having a loving encounter with these brothers of mine, and I could trust that whatever came out of this encounter would be a blessing in the long run: "A happy outcome to all things is sure" (W-pII.292.Heading). And I learned, once again, just how happy life can be when I really make the effort to practice A Course in Miracles.
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