Lesson 231 • August-19
Father, I will but to remember You.
Practice Instructions
See complete instructions in separate document. A short summary:
- Read the commentary paragraph slowly and personally.
- Pray the prayer, perhaps several times.
- Morning and evening: Repeat the idea and then spend time in Open Mind Meditation.
- Hourly remembrance: Repeat the idea and then spend time in Open Mind Meditation.
- Frequent reminders: Repeat the idea and then spend a quiet moment in meditation.
- Response to temptation: Repeat the idea whenever upset, to restore peace.
- Read the "What Is" section slowly and thoughtfully once during the day.
Commentary
This lesson is talking about our will. When the Course uses the word "will" in this way, it is talking about a fundamental, unchanging part of us, the permanently fixed goal of our Self. It isn't talking about our wishes and our whims, but our will. Jesus speaks to us directly in the second paragraph and says, "This is your will, my brother" (2:1). It is a will we share with Him, and also with God our Father.
What is our will? To remember God; to know His Love. And that is all. Not many of us, as we began reading this Course, would have answered the question "What do you want out of life?" with the words "To remember God and know His Love." A lot of us probably don't feel those words fit us even now. The lesson recognizes that: "Perhaps I think I seek for something else" (1:2).
What is the "something else" you are seeking? It might be wealth, or fame. It might be some form of worldly security. It might be romance. It might be hot sex. Or a good time. Or a quiet family life, in the tradition of the American dream. We've called it by many names. We think these things are what we are seeking for. Yet no matter what we may think, these things are not what we truly will for ourselves. They are all forms, forms that we believe will give us something. It isn't the form we are really seeking, it is the content, it is what we believe these things offer to us.
And what is that? Inner peace. Satisfaction. A sense of completion and wholeness. A sense of worth. An inner knowing that we are essentially good; lovable and loving. A feeling of belonging, of being valuable. Ultimately these things come only from remembering God and knowing His Love. They are something inside of us, not something outside of us. Only when we remember the truth about ourselves, only when we remember our connectedness to Love Itself, will we find what we are seeking. And we will find that we are what we have been seeking, and always have been.
"To remember Him is Heaven. This we seek. And only this is what it will be given us to find" (2:3-5). Remembering God is the only thing I am really looking for. Let me then, today, spend time, morning and evening, reminding myself of this fact: "Father, I will but to remember You." Let me stop briefly every hour to recall it to my mind. And each time I find myself thinking that I want "something else," let me gently correct myself: Remembering God is all I want.
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