I Need Be Anxious Over Nothing
The Course’s Promise of a Carefree Life
I’ve been thinking a lot lately about the idea of living a carefree life, a life free of the cares (in the sense of anxieties, worries, and burdens) that normally plague us. Like so many people, at times I feel the burdens of daily life weighing down on me, and dream of a life in which those burdens are lifted. Is there any of us who does not yearn for the “rest for your souls” that Jesus promised when he said that “my yoke is easy, and my burden is light”?
These thoughts have been sparked, in fact, by a class on the historical Jesus that I recently took. The idea of living a carefree life is a major part of his teachings, which speak of fearlessly turning the other cheek, freely giving to everyone who asks, trusting that God will provide everything we need, and being as carefree as the birds of the air and lilies of the field. As Huston Smith has said, “There blows through these teachings…a wind of freedom and liberty.”
Fortunately, in A Course in Miracles, that blessed wind of freedom and liberty blows again. In the Course, too, Jesus promises us a carefree life, a promise that can be fulfilled in us if we will simply trust God to take care of us. In this article, I’d like to share some of the Course’s counsel in how to live a truly carefree life—counsel that has certainly given me much blessed rest for my soul.
Life as we know it: a life full of cares
The Course tells us what we already know: Our lives are full of cares and burdens. In its pages, it sketches a scenario with which we are all too familiar, a scenario I will summarize in the following points. As you read through these points, you might want to reflect on your own life and see how what they say applies specifically to you.
We live in a world that doesn’t care for us, and is indeed antagonistic to us
We like to tell ourselves that life is good and it’s a wonderful world. But if we’re really honest with ourselves, does it not seem that we are tiny ants being stomped on by the world at every opportunity? Sure, at times we get lucky and hit the lottery, metaphorically or literally. We might even manage to avoid major trouble for a long time. But our successes are usually short-lived, brief respites from life as usual. Our day-to-day lives are summed up in the expressions we typically use to describe them: We live by Murphy’s Law (everything that can go wrong will go wrong), it’s another SNAFU (“Situation Normal, All Fouled Up”), and even if things go well for us, “You can’t take it with you” for, as Jim Morrison sang, “No one here gets out alive.”
In short, whatever we may tell ourselves, most of the time the world seems indifferent at best and hostile at worst. And the author of the Course is well aware of this; the Course is chock full of brutally honest references to this uncaring world. It speaks of a word that is “careless indeed” of us, “as thoughtless of [our] peace and happiness as is the weather or the time of day” (T-27.VII.8:5). It depicts the world as we know it as “a place of merciless pursuit, where we are badgered ceaselessly, and pushed about without a thought or care for us or for our future” (W-pI.195.9:3). In sum:
The world you see is merciless indeed, unstable, cruel, unconcerned with you, quick to avenge and pitiless with hate. It gives but to rescind, and takes away all things that you have cherished for a while. No lasting love is found, for none is here. This is the world of time, where all things end. (W-pI.129.2:3-5)
And at the head of this uncaring world (as we see it) is an uncaring God: a God who “holds your little life in his hand but by a thread, ready to break it off without regret or care, perhaps today” (M-27.2:3); an “angry god, whose fearful image you believe you see at work in all the evils of the world” (W-pI.153.7:3). Not one of us who has been through the wringer of life long enough “but has thought that God is cruel” (T-13.In.2:11). This has, in fact, led many of us to give up on God entirely; the suffering of the world is one of the most potent arguments for atheism. In the face of a deck that is hopelessly stacked against us, it’s virtually impossible to feel carefree. What can we do?
Therefore, we try very hard to take care of ourselves
Faced with this stacked deck, we try our best to make do for ourselves in spite of the odds, do we not? After all, when a person has played the game long enough, his mind seemingly has good reason to believe that “it will [not] be provided for, unless it makes its own provisions” (W-pI.135.15:2). We have to plan our lives very carefully because, as Workbook Lesson 135 tells us, we all “operate from the belief you must protect yourself from what is happening because it must contain what threatens you” (W-pI.135.2:1).
So, we try to manage as best we can. We try to keep our fragile bodies and delicate egos safe. We try to collect the physical things we need to survive. We try to find pleasure and avoid pain. We try to surround ourselves with allies who can help us fend off all the attackers out there. In other words, we slog through life as we know it: the endless quest for safety, food, health, money, sex, romance, companionship, family, and some sort of meaning to it all. We hope against hope that in a world that doesn’t take care of us, we can somehow take care of ourselves.
However, we’re really not up to the task—the world’s a lot bigger than us—and so we are wracked with cares
We tell ourselves that we can pull this off. We put our heads in the sand and pretend that somehow we can make it. But of course, the world is a whole lot bigger than us, so try as we might, we’re not really up to the task. And as much as we try to tell ourselves otherwise, deep down we get this. We know the situation is hopeless. We know, as the Course says, that “there is no plan for safety [we] can make that ever will succeed. There is no joy that [we] can seek for here and hope to find” (T-31.I.7:7-8).
And so we are wracked with cares. We feel constant fear, anxiety, and depression. We try to cover it up, to deny it, to medicate it, but it’s there. Who does not immediately recognize him- or herself in the following passage?
If you are trusting in your own strength, you have every reason to be apprehensive, anxious and fearful. What can you predict or control? What is there in you that can be counted on? What would give you the ability to be aware of all the facets of any problem, and to resolve them in such a way that only good can come of it? What is there in you that gives you the recognition of the right solution, and the guarantee that it will be accomplished?
Of yourself you can do none of these things. To believe that you can is to put your trust where trust is unwarranted, and to justify fear, anxiety, depression, anger and sorrow. Who can put his faith in weakness and feel safe? (W-pI.47.1:1-2:3)
No wonder we are so full of cares! Just reading this passage tires me out. Indeed, who can put his faith in weakness and feel safe? It’s an exercise in futility, and the sooner we admit it, the better. As Helen and Bill so famously realized, there has to be a better way.
The Course’s promise: a carefree life
Jesus promises us in the Course that we can be freed from all of this. Indeed, the freedom he promises sounds too good to be true for us who have long labored under the burdens of life as we know it. Nevertheless, Jesus tells us that, as hard as it might be for us to imagine, liberation from all of our cares is the very purpose of our time here:
Can you imagine what it means to have no cares, no worries, no anxieties, but merely to be perfectly calm and quiet all the time? Yet that is what time is for; to learn just that and nothing more. (T-15.I.1:1-2)
Can you imagine? Even if you can catch a fleeting glimpse of this in your mind, I’m sure you’re wondering how such a lofty goal can actually be accomplished. Here, then, is some of the Course’s counsel for how to let go of our burdens and live a truly carefree life.
The truth is that God cares for us—and He’s a lot bigger than the world
We have to realize that our quest to take care of ourselves in a world that doesn’t care for us really is hopeless. That realization may initially feel depressing, but it has the potential to open us up to some very good news: God can and does take care of us, and He’s a lot bigger than the world—in fact, He is everything and the world is nothing.
Now, the idea that God takes care of us doesn’t mean that we can just lie on the couch and wait for Him to feed peeled grapes to us. As we’ll explore more thoroughly below, the divine care we actually experience in our lives is limited by our resistance to it, because He can’t force Himself upon us. Moreover, His care will often take the form of guiding us to get off the couch and do something. Nevertheless, according to the Course, His loving care is always with us:
God is with me. He is my Source of life, the life within, the air I breathe, the food by which I am sustained, the water which renews and cleanses me. He is my home, wherein I live and move; the Spirit which directs my actions, offers me Its Thoughts, and guarantees my safety from all pain. He covers me with kindness and with care, and holds in love the Son He shines upon, who also shines on Him. (W-pII.222.1:1-4)
Herein lies my claim to all good and only good. I am blessed as a Son of God. All good things are mine, because God intended them for me. I cannot suffer any loss or deprivation or pain because of Who I am. My Father supports me, protects me, and directs me in all things. His care for me is infinite, and is with me forever. I am eternally blessed as His Son. (W-pI.58.5:2-8)
Therefore, if we want to be carefree, we should cast our cares on Him
If you’re like me, you read the above and say, “How do I sign up for that?” The way is simple, even though it often doesn’t feel easy: All we have to do is to let go of our resistance to God, a resistance that is expressed in our futile selfcare project, and let Him care for us as He has always done in truth. His care is ours for the asking, but we have to do the asking—not because He won’t care for us if we don’t ask, but because we won’t recognize His care for us unless we do ask. To experience His care, we have to willingly and gratefully cast our cares on Him.
The following passage from the Text has always felt vital to me, especially the line I’ve italicized:
Do you really believe you can plan for your safety and joy better than He can? You need be neither careful nor careless; you need merely cast your cares upon Him because He careth for you. You are His care because He loves you. His Voice reminds you always that all hope is yours because of His care. You cannot choose to escape His care because that is not His Will, but you can choose to accept His care and use the infinite power of His care for all those He created by it. (T-5.VII.1:3-7)
This is putting our faith in God’s strength. Lesson 47 asks how we can put our faith in weakness and feel safe, but it goes on to ask the flip-side of this question: “Who can put his faith in strength and feel weak?” (W-pI.47.2:4). While our weak efforts are utterly inadequate to deal with the problems we face, God’s strength always suffices for every problem we face:
God is your safety in every circumstance. His Voice speaks for Him in all situations and in every aspect of all situations, telling you exactly what to do to call upon His strength and His protection. There are no exceptions because God has no exceptions. (W-pI.47.3:1-3)
What a joyous prospect! Just reading this makes me breathe a huge sigh of relief. There is a way out of the fear, anxiety, depression, anger, and sorrow that inevitably accompany our futile attempts to take care of ourselves. There is a way to that carefree life we’ve been promised. Hallelujah!
How can we accept God’s care?
This, it seems to me, is a crucial question. It arises because of the clear disconnect between the care that we are told God provides and the apparent lack of care that we experience in our daily lives. Let’s face it: Most of the time, it doesn’t look like an infinitely loving God takes care of us. How can it be true both that God showers us with infinite loving care and that we suffer in a world where it often feels like no one really cares for us at all? Why is it that even very devout people who fervently pray to God for His help and sustenance are beset with the senseless sufferings and cruelties of life as we know it?
As I’ve mentioned already, the Course’s answer is that all of us—even the most outwardly devout of us—have a massive amount of resistance to God’s care. The Course tells us that, because we have rejected God and now identify with our self-made egos so thoroughly, deep down we actually fear God’s Love. As insane as it sounds, though outwardly we fear the attacks of this cruel world, the Course tells us that “your fear of attack is nothing compared to your fear of love” (T-13.III.2:3). Thus, even when on the surface we are pleading for God’s care, deep down we’re pushing it away.
Hence our question: How can we let go of this resistance and really accept God’s care? I think this is a process that doesn’t happen overnight. Indeed, this process is really the entire journey of the Course, in which we gradually let go of our resistance to God until that resistance reaches zero and we awaken fully to Him. The way we accept God’s care, if we are Course students, is to walk the Course’s path.
Here, then, are some ways the Course offers to gradually lower our resistance and welcome God’s infinite care into our lives. None of them guarantees instant release from challenges and suffering—our resistance runs deep. They are, rather, ways in which we can slowly but surely move in the direction of reducing our resistance and, in the process, live a more and more carefree life.
We accept His care by spending the day with Him and embracing His care
The Course, especially in the Workbook, encourages us to keep God and His infinite care for us in our minds throughout the day: reminding ourselves of Him morning and evening, every hour, frequently in between the hours, and whenever our ego tempts us to believe that we are on our own in a hostile world.
For instance, we have powerful lessons like Lesson 109, “I rest in God,” which invites us to spend the entire day calmly resting in God, assuring us that “in Him you have no cares and no concerns, no burdens, no anxiety, no pain, no fear of future and no past regrets” (W-pI.109.5:1). And we have other Workbook lessons that give us powerful prayers to use to help us keep God and His care in our minds throughout the day. For me, the best example of this is Lesson 232, “Be in my mind, my Father, through the day”:
Be in my mind, my Father, when I wake, and shine on me throughout the day today. Let every minute be a time in which I dwell with You. And let me not forget my hourly thanksgiving that You have remained with me, and always will be there to hear my call to You and answer me. As evening comes, let all my thoughts be still of You and of Your Love. And let me sleep sure of my safety, certain of Your care, and happily aware I am Your Son.
This is as every day should be. Today, practice the end of fear. Have faith in Him Who is your Father. Trust all things to Him. Let Him reveal all things to you, and be you undismayed because you are His Son. (W-pII.232.1:1-2:5)
We accept His care by trusting that He will give us the guidance we need
Of course, a major source of worry every day is the countless decisions that we are faced with. How can we know that our decisions will lead to positive outcomes, especially in the often very complicated and confusing situations that confront us? The Course’s answer to this, as every Course student knows, is to give all of our decisions over to the Holy Spirit. As the famous “truly helpful” prayer says, “I do not have to worry about what to say or what to do, because He Who sent me will direct me” (T-2.V.A.18:4).
Here again, the Workbook gives us many powerful lessons and beautiful prayers to help us turn over our decisions to the Holy Spirit. For instance, here is a favorite prayer of mine from Lesson 275, “God’s healing Voice protects all things today”:
Your healing Voice protects all things today, and so I leave all things to You. I need be anxious over nothing. 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. The safety that I bring is given me. Father, Your Voice protects all things through me. (W-pII.275.2:1-5)
If the Holy Spirit tells us what to think, say, and do and therefore brings protection and safety to others and ourselves alike, then we need indeed “be anxious over nothing,” for our “sense of care is gone” (M-10.5:7). The Course tells us often how relieved we will feel when we are “free of a burden so great that [we] could merely stagger and fall down beneath it” (M-10.5:2). Relax into a “sigh of gratitude” (M-10.5:1) and let the fresh air of the following passage fill your whole being:
When you have learned how to decide with God, all decisions become as easy and as right as breathing. There is no effort, and you will be led as gently as if you were being carried down a quiet path in summer. Only your own volition seems to make deciding hard. The Holy Spirit will not delay in answering your every question what to do. He knows. And He will tell you, and then do it for you. You who are tired will find this is more restful than sleep. (T-14.IV.6:1-7)
We accept His care by trusting that He has a plan for our lives
According to the Course, the Holy Spirit doesn’t just give us guidance on the micro level of daily decisions. He has also planned the macro level of our lives as a whole, and our trust in His plan is a major source of freedom from care. Trust is in fact the primary characteristic of the advanced teacher of God, and that trust is rooted in the Holy Spirit’s governance of everything that happens in the world (see M-1.I.1:4-7).
Therefore, the Course is full of glowing accounts of the peace and joy we will experience when we let go of our own attempts to plan for our happiness and trust in the Holy Spirit’s plan for everything. One of the best known is from Lesson 135:
What could you not accept, if you but knew that everything that happens, all events, past, present and to come, are gently planned by One Whose only purpose is your good? Perhaps you have misunderstood His plan, for He would never offer pain to you. But your defenses [i.e., your self-initiated plans] did not let you see His loving blessing shine in every step you ever took. While you made plans for death, He led you gently to eternal life.
Your present trust in Him is the defense that promises a future undisturbed, without a trace of sorrow, and with joy that constantly increases, as this life becomes a holy instant, set in time, but heeding only immortality. Let no defenses but your present trust direct the future, and this life becomes a meaningful encounter with the truth that only your defenses would conceal. (W-pI.135.18:1-19:2)
In other words, as Lesson 194 counsels us, we are to place the future into the Hands of God. This is a key to a carefree life:
What worry can beset the one who gives his future to the loving Hands of God? What can he suffer? What can cause him pain, or bring experience of loss to him? What can he fear? And what can he regard except with love? For he who has escaped all fear of future pain has found his way to present peace, and certainty of care the world can never threaten. He is sure that his perception may be faulty, but will never lack correction. He is free to choose again when he has been deceived; to change his mind when he has made mistakes. (W-pI.194.7:1-8)
Notice that even our inevitable mistakes are ultimately nothing to worry about, because we are always “free to choose again.” This reference to mistakes brings to my mind again the issue that I raised above regarding our resistance: Given these glowing passages about how perfect and pain-free our lives will be when we accept the Holy Spirit’s day-to-day guidance and overall plan for our lives, does making the decision to turn our lives over to Him immediately lead to a life in which no painful or otherwise challenging events ever happen?
As I suggested above, not necessarily. Now, I do think that turning our lives over to the Holy Spirit’s plan will make them run more smoothly in general and will help us avoid pain in many ways. I think the more we really commit to Him, the more this will be the case. But that being said, even when we make a concerted effort to turn to the Holy Spirit, ego resistance can crop up and bring us the experience of suffering.
This suffering can happen in a number of ways. We can feel pain when we don’t accomplish an ego-based goal, either because the ego sabotages it to accomplish its deeper goal of punishing us, or because the spirit makes sure it doesn’t happen, for our own good. We can feel pain because we do accomplish an ego-based goal, but we’re enough in tune with the spirit to realize how unsatisfying this accomplishment is. We can feel pain when we don’t accomplish a spirit-based goal due to our ego resistance being too strong. And we can feel pain when we do accomplish a spirit-based goal, because the ego in us is threatened by that and fights back.
So, the bad news is that our lives are likely not going to be free of distressing events overnight. But the good news is that the Holy Spirit has incorporated even the distressing events of our lives into His plan. The pain of those events is caused by ego resistance—as our passage above says, the Holy Spirit “would never offer pain to you”—but what the Holy Spirit does is take those events and turn them into blessed learning opportunities. He makes our lemons into lemonade. No matter how we manage to imprison ourselves, His plan offers a doorway out.
Therefore, we really can be carefree regardless of what happens to us. When our lives go smoothly and joyfully, we can rejoice in that. And when unexpected painful events come, we can look for the learning opportunity and rejoice in that too. I don’t mean to be glib about this—suffering still hurts, and calls for compassion in response—but it is comforting to know that something beautiful can be drawn out of it, as so many people who have lived through even the most harrowing events have discovered. We really can “see His loving blessing shine” in every step we take.
We accept His care by forgiving
Trusting the Holy Spirit’s plan, the Course tells us, enables us to “look upon a forgiven world” (M-4.I.1:7). And indeed, extending forgiveness is one of the major ways that we accept God’s care. This is perfectly logical from the standpoint of the Course’s thought system. In the Course’s view, “All blocks to the remembrance of God are forms of unforgiveness, and nothing else” (P-2.II.3:3). Therefore, it is by forgiving that we remember God and His infinite care for us.
The Course is full of passages that extol the benefits of forgiveness. Here is one of the most beautiful—feel the wind of freedom that blows through this passage:
What could you want forgiveness cannot give? Do you want peace? Forgiveness offers it. Do you want happiness, a quiet mind, a certainty of purpose, and a sense of worth and beauty that transcends the world? Do you want care and safety, and the warmth of sure protection always? Do you want a quietness that cannot be disturbed, a gentleness that never can be hurt, a deep, abiding comfort, and a rest so perfect it can never be upset?
All this forgiveness offers you, and more. (W-pI.122.1:1-2:1)
Lesson 193 also emphasizes this theme. It tells us that “there is a way to look on everything that lets it be to you another step to Him, and to salvation of the world” (W-pI.193.13:1). That way of looking, the one lesson God would have us learn, is forgiveness. It is through forgiveness that we will rise above “every apprehension, every care and every form of suffering” (W-pI.193.13:4). It is through forgiveness that we will “remain untroubled and serene, without a care” (W-pI.193.9:3). What are we waiting for?
We accept His care by caring for others
To be carefree means to be free of cares, but it most emphatically does not mean to be free of caring. On the contrary, we’ve already seen references to caring for others in the passages we’ve examined: The passage about casting our cares on God speaks of our using “the infinite power of His care for all those He created by it,” and that lovely prayer from Lesson 275 tells us that “the safety that I bring [to others] is given me.” This is actually one of the major forms that forgiveness takes: working miracles, extending loving care to others in whatever the way the Holy Spirit directs.
Thus, Jesus in the Course is constantly encouraging us not only to come to God for comfort and care, but to “bring with you all those whom He has sent to you to care for as I care for you” (C-5.6:12). Even though the pain of life as we know it is ultimately an illusion, it seems real to us, and it thus calls for loving relief. It is through taking care of others as we are guided that we come to recognize God’s care for us. A wonderful evocation of this is the prayer from Lesson 245 of the Workbook, “Your peace is with me, Father. I am safe”:
Your peace surrounds me, Father. Where I go, Your peace goes there with me. It sheds its light on everyone I meet. I bring it to the desolate and lonely and afraid. I give Your peace to those who suffer pain, or grieve for loss, or think they are bereft of hope and happiness. Send them to me, my Father. Let me bring Your peace with me. For I would save Your Son, as is Your Will, that I may come to recognize my Self.
And so we go in peace. To all the world we give the message that we have received. And thus we come to hear the Voice for God, Who speaks to us as we relate His Word; Whose Love we recognize because we share the Word that He has given unto us. (W-pII.245.1:1-2:3)
Notice especially the concluding line here: Sharing the Voice for God with others (through extending peace to them in whatever form we are guided) enables us to recognize God’s Love for us. This is how we recognize that the peace of God is with us, and we are safe.
We accept His care by accepting our special function in His plan for salvation
In my mind, this is where everything comes together: We embrace God’s care by spending our days fulfilling our part in the Holy Spirit’s plan for salvation, in which we forgive others in the form of caring for them as He guides us. Our special function is our particular way of caring for others, and perhaps more than anything else, it is fully embracing this function that opens us to God’s care. We see this in one of the Course’s most beautiful passages on the joy of casting our cares upon Him:
Once you accept His plan as the one function that you would fulfill [your special function], there will be nothing else the Holy Spirit will not arrange for you without your effort. He will go before you making straight your path, and leaving in your way no stones to trip on, and no obstacles to bar your way. Nothing you need will be denied you. Not one seeming difficulty but will melt away before you reach it. You need take thought for nothing, careless of everything except the only purpose that you would fulfill. (T-20.IV.8:4-8)
What a beautiful promise! In my experience and that of many others I’ve known, there is no better path to a happy and carefree life than to walk the path of finding and fulfilling your special function. This has become my go-to counsel for people who are feeling unfulfilled and all alone. The Course tells us that “the lonely ones are those who see no function in the world for them to fill; no place where they are needed, and no aim which only they can perfectly fulfill” (T-25.VI.3:6). I think this is profoundly true.
I believe deeply that there is nothing like finding and fulfilling our God-given special function to give us a life that feels profoundly meaningful: a life where we feel needed, a life in which we can use our unique talents to do something for God that no one else can do, a life where loneliness has been replaced by the deep sense that we are part of something larger than ourselves. When we’re living such a life, we will have both fewer painful obstacles to deal with and a sense of purpose that enables us to learn from the painful obstacles we may still have to deal with. In short, we will come to understand ever more deeply that we are truly being cared for by God.
Conclusion
As I consider all we have explored here, I’m reminded again of Huston Smith’s reflection on the teachings of the historical Jesus: “There blows through these teachings…a wind of freedom and liberty.” Ah, what a refreshing wind! Both in the gospels and in the pages of A Course in Miracles, Jesus offers us a vision that implies a whole new stance toward life. We don’t need to feel crushed by the burdens of life. We can truly cast our cares on God and be as carefree as the birds in the air and the lilies of the field.
It strikes me as well that this new stance transforms how we care for others. It seems to me that our attitudes toward caring for others tend to fall on a kind of continuum from frantic concern to facile disregard. Of course, most people fall somewhere in between, but on one caricatured extreme is the burnt-out caregiver: the overburdened mother wearily sacrificing for her children, the workaholic doctor stoically serving his patients, the jaded activist angrily fighting the man. On the other caricatured extreme is the careless Pollyanna (“careless” in the sense of “not paying sufficient attention”): the motivational speaker boiling life down to eight steps, the relentless positive thinker bragging that he never watches the news, the glib New Ager saying “What did you do to create that?” The problem with both extremes is a kind of denial: the first type tends to deny the joy of a life rooted in trust, while the second type tends to deny the suffering of life as we know it.
But the new stance I’m seeing here—exemplified at least to some degree in people as varied as Jesus himself, St. Francis, the Dalai Lama, Ram Dass, Peace Pilgrim, and no doubt many others—is one that could be called the carefree caregiver. Carefree caregivers are unusually free of both forms of denial: they joyously trust in the loving care of God (or the universe), and out of that very trust they tenderly care for those who suffer from life as we know it. The burnt-out caregiver bitterly says “I’ll sacrifice my needs to take care of your needs in this vale of tears,” and the careless Pollyanna blithely says “Needs? What needs?” But the carefree caregiver joyously says, as Robert sums up the stance of the historical Jesus, “My needs are taken care of. How can I help you along the way?” (Entering the Kingdom: What the Historical Jesus Teaches Us about the Kingdom of God, by Robert Perry, p. 68).
This carefree life is the life that Jesus, both two thousand years ago and today, promises can be ours. Is this not the life we all yearn for? A life in which we rest in God so deeply and completely that we can lovingly help all the beloved brothers He sends to us: “the desolate and lonely and afraid….those who suffer pain, or grieve for loss, or think they are bereft of hope and happiness”? This is the life I want. How about you?
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[Please note: ACIM passages quoted in this article reference the Foundation for Inner Peace (FIP) Edition.]
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