Read on the ACIM CE App: https://acimce.app/:W-275
Lesson 275
God’s healing Voice protects all things today.
Practice Instructions
See complete instructions in a 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
Jesus tells us in this lesson that we need to join him in hearing the Voice of God (1:3). “For the Voice of God tells us of things we cannot understand alone, nor learn apart” (1:4). Notice that the joining Jesus urges on us here is not primarily with one another, with other people, although that is certainly implied; it is joining with him that is called for.
If the problem is a belief in the reality of separation, that problem cannot be healed alone and apart. Being alone and apart is the problem! Any healing, any salvation, any enlightenment that the Voice for God brings to us will be something that is shared.
I can join with Jesus in hearing the Voice for God; that is something I can do now, in the privacy of my home, with no other people around. What I hear—which is always some form of the message “God’s Son is innocent”—is something that applies to Jesus as well as to me, and to me as well as to Jesus. I share it with him. Peace, safety, and protection come in letting go of any mental defenses I have against Jesus and allowing his presence to be with me. I own and acknowledge that Jesus and I share a common goal and common interests. I see that he has no attack in his heart toward me, and I have none toward him. “It is in this [joining] that all things are protected” (1:5).
As I move out into the world, to meet with other people, I can extend what I have found in Jesus’ presence to everyone I meet. What he and I have heard together is shared, not only between the two of us, but also with the Son of God in everyone. I hear the Father’s healing Voice, and it protects all things, so that “I need be anxious over nothing” (2:2). All beings share this common interest and common goal. We are all in the world for this one purpose. Any perception of competition or attack on my part, or on the part of another, is merely a mistake in perception, and is not anything to be afraid of.
“The safety that I bring is given me” (2:4). I bring safety from my companionship with Jesus to the world, and as I give it, it is given to me. “Everyone I meet is safe with me today,” I can say. “And I am safe with everyone I meet.” Each encounter is holy because I am holy. When the purpose of the day is thus set as it begins, I can be sure of full direction. We will be given very specific directions for our activity here within this world, even if the world is only an illusion: “For Your Voice will tell me what to do and where to go, to whom to speak and what to say to him, what thoughts to think, what words to give the world” (2:3).
It is a healing Voice I hear, a healing that consists in sharing, in joining, in having no separate interests. The joining is the healing. “The healing of God’s Son is all the world is for” (T-24.VI.4:1), and the healing of God’s Son in myself and everyone I meet is what this day is for. Nothing else. Let today be a day when I especially listen for the Voice. Let me “seek and hear and learn and understand” (1:2).
Alan Watts wrote a book called The Wisdom of Insecurity.1 As I remember, it speaks about how seeking security is unwise because security for the ego and the body simply is not possible. If you are constantly seeking security you will drive yourself nuts. It is much better and wiser to accept the fact of insecurity and to simply go with the flow of the universe.
When this lesson speaks of how listening to the Voice protects all things, it is really saying the same thing. We recognize that we don’t know the answers, we can’t figure everything out. We don’t know “what to do and where to go, to whom to speak and what to say to him, what thoughts to think, what words to give the world,” but He does. Instead of constantly trying to acquire the answers for ourselves, we stay in relationship with the Answer Himself, the One who does know. Instead of having millions of our own in the bank, we trust that what we need will be given as we need it, and don’t worry about it. We leave the running of the universe in God’s Hands.
Our safety and protection is not something that resides in us, alone and apart. It comes only from listening to the Voice moment to moment. We don’t know the road to heaven, but we walk with One who does.