My thoughts* on Workbook Lesson 261, for September 17, 2024. God is my refuge and security.

God is my refuge and security.

* This is something that I can COUNT ON.

* Actually, it is the ONLY THING THAT I CAN COUNT ON and I know that nothing can interfere with that reality no matter what “life” appears to place before me.

1. I will identify with what I think is refuge and security.

²I will behold myself where I perceive my strength, and think I live within the citadel where I am safe and cannot be attacked.

* Citadel = a fortress, typically on high ground, protecting or dominating a city.

³Let me today seek not security in danger, nor attempt to find my peace in murderous attack.

* I have to think on this. I know that I have no intention of being in those places and yet, I have allowed myself to claim in my storyline or in this form, that I have a commitment to someone who does not want to allow me this parameter in our relationship. In other words, he insists that hate, evil, and vengeful grudges are meaningful to him. How can I cling to an idea of “forever other” when threat and hate are the return of my affiliation, relationship, or interaction with him?

* Do you see what I mean? My desire to have eternal associations on earth leads me to constrict my vision or opportunities. Shame on me! I feel like I am betraying my fella but how can he BE my fella when he insists on tying himself to suffering?

* Do you see what I am trying to unravel?

* Yes, there is potential in him and his family so that we might have a wonderful life but if I insist on limiting myself to a commitment to one who has “No intention of changing because I do not have any problem and I have peace” who am I serving?

* Is commitment to a person in form so he can teach me what I don’t want to do logical? Probably not. To live in the Presence of God I cannot sustain the opposite. I can pray for them and give thanks for them but then I have to let them go in God’s Care wherever they need to go.

*I would say that this is a huge theme in my life, to let go of the entanglements of attachment that society says I am supposed to engage in.

* I suspect that these “relationships” were given names and made “important” by the likes of those who would enslave us to their perceptions of charity that made some rulers and some in submission when in reality charity means equality in the mind of Jesus and the Father.

* I hope you are willing to see the teaching that the wholly Spirit is doing in my life and that this is on public display, not only for my benefit, but because it shows what the United Consciousness needs to do to rise above the suffering that it has come to think of as its due.

⁴I live in God.

* Yes, I do.

⁵In Him I find my refuge and my strength.

⁶In Him is my Identity.

⁷In Him is everlasting peace.

* Absolutely, this I recognize.

⁸And only there will I remember Who I really am.

* Not only inside myself but in the world of form as well.

2. Let me not seek for idols.

* I have no desire to place one person above another to have a possession that I can claim is mine. I know this sounds silly and basic but apparently, I have that sort of attitude in my mind, and it needs to be released.

²I would come, my Father, home to You today.

* The trap of “sin” or suffering is like “bait” to the ego and we want to “love it away.” We want to comfort the other because we know what it feels like to be there. Or we think we do.

* In the video I posted today (on Facebook) I claim that “my fella” is drawn to someone who is suffering and being used by her. (Let’s be clear it may not be in a “romantic way” but what he gives her emotionally and otherwise, helps build a bigger canyon between him and me.) Perhaps I am following a similar trail? To cling to someone who insists on suffering is not the makings of Heaven. Quite the opposite and there is no joy in that no matter how “comforting” it may seem at the time.

* Do I still say that I reside in Heaven and Eternal Life N O W, In Form? Yes, I do.

* I say this with confidence because the Peace of knowing God exists, Happiness in knowing all of Consciousness will accept this eventually, and Joy in existence are mine regardless of the form, situation, or emotions I find myself in.

* I WILL BE TAUGHT ALONG THE WAY AND I AM PREPARED AND GRATEFUL FOR THIS.

³I choose to be as You created me, and find the Son whom You created as my Self.

* I AM the Son, along with ALL THAT IS.

* The ATONEMENT is only the beginning of finding this understanding; even though it may take several lifetimes to bring us all fully, to an understanding of what this means.

(ACIM, W-261.1:1–2:3)

Till next time, God bless, debi.