Lesson 166

I am entrusted with the gifts of God.

p1. All things are given you. 2 God’s
trust in you is limitless. 3 He knows His Son.
4 He gives without exception, holding nothing
back that can contribute to your happiness. 5
And yet, unless your will is one with His, His gifts are not received. 6
But what would make you think there is another will than His?

p2. Here is the paradox that underlies the making of the world.
2 This world is not the Will of God, and so
it is not real. 3 Yet those who think it real
must still believe there is another will, and one that leads to opposite
effects from those He wills. 4 Impossible indeed;
but every mind that looks upon the world and judges it as certain, solid,
trustworthy and true believes in two creators; or in one, himself alone.
5 But never in one God.

p3. The gifts of God are not acceptable to anyone who holds such
strange beliefs. 2 He must believe that to accept
God’s gifts, however evident they may become, however urgently he may be
called to claim them as his own, is to be pressed to treachery against himself.
3 He must deny their presence, contradict the
truth, and suffer to preserve the world he made.

p4. Here is the only home he thinks he knows. 2
Here is the only safety he believes that he can find. 3
Without the world he made is he an outcast; homeless and afraid. 4
He does not realize that it is here he is afraid indeed, and homeless, too;
an outcast wandering so far from home, so long away, he does not realize
he has forgotten where he came from, where he goes, and even who he really
is.

p5. Yet in his lonely, senseless wanderings, God’s gifts go with
him, all unknown to him. 2 He cannot lose them.
3 But he will not look at what is given him.
4 He wanders on, aware of the futility he sees
about him everywhere, perceiving how his little lot but dwindles, as he
goes ahead to nowhere. 5 Still he wanders on
in misery and poverty, alone though God is with him, and a treasure his
so great that everything the world contains is valueless before its magnitude.

p6. He seems a sorry figure; weary, worn, in threadbare clothing,
and with feet that bleed a little from the rocky road he walks. 2
No one but has identified with him, for everyone who comes here has pursued
the path he follows, and has felt defeat and hopelessness as he is feeling
them. 3 Yet is he really tragic, when you see
that he is following the way he chose, and need but realize Who walks with
him and open up his treasures to be free?

p7. This is your chosen self, the one you made as a replacement
for reality. 2 This is the self you savagely
defend against all reason, every evidence, and all the witnesses with proof
to show this is not you. 3 You heed them not.
4 You go on your appointed way, with eyes cast
down lest you might catch a glimpse of truth, and be released from self-deception
and set free.

p8. You cower fearfully lest you should feel Christ’s touch upon
your shoulder, and perceive His gentle hand directing you to look upon your
gifts. 2 How could you then proclaim your poverty
in exile? 3 He would make you laugh at this
perception of yourself. 4 Where is self-pity
then? 5 And what becomes of all the tragedy
you sought to make for him whom God intended only joy?

p9. Your ancient fear has come upon you now, and justice has caught
up with you at last. 2 Christ’s hand has touched
your shoulder, and you feel that you are not alone. 3
You even think the miserable self you thought was you may not be your Identity.
4 Perhaps God’s Word is truer than your own.
5 Perhaps His gifts to you are real. 6
Perhaps He has not wholly been outwitted by your plan to keep His Son in
deep oblivion, and go the way you chose without your Self.

p10. God’s Will does not oppose. 2
It merely is. 3 It is not God you have imprisoned
in your plan to lose your Self. 4 He does not
know about a plan so alien to His Will. 5 There
was a need He did not understand, to which He gave an Answer. 6
That is all. 7 And you who have this Answer
given you have need no more of anything but this.

p11. Now do we live, for now we cannot die. 2
The wish for death is answered, and the sight that looked upon it now has
been replaced by vision which perceives that you are not what you pretend
to be. 3 One walks with you Who gently answers
all your fears with this one merciful reply, “It is not so.” 4
He points to all the gifts you have each time the thought of poverty oppresses
you, and speaks of His Companionship when you perceive yourself as lonely
and afraid.

p12. Yet He reminds you still of one thing more you had forgotten.
2 For His touch on you has made you like Himself.
3 The gifts you have are not for you alone.
4 What He has come to offer you, you now must
learn to give. 5 This is the lesson that His
giving holds, for He has saved you from the solitude you sought to make
in which to hide from God. 6 He has reminded
you of all the gifts that God has given you. 7
He speaks as well of what becomes your will when you accept these gifts,
and recognize they are your own.

p13. The gifts are yours, entrusted to your care, to give to all
who chose the lonely road you have escaped. 2
They do not understand they but pursue their wishes. 3
It is you who teach them now. 4 For you have
learned of Christ there is another way for them to walk. 5
Teach them by showing them the happiness that comes to those who feel the
touch of Christ, and recognize God’s gifts. 6
Let sorrow not tempt you to be unfaithful to your trust.

p14. Your sighs will now betray the hopes of those who look to
you for their release. 2 Your tears are theirs.
3 If you are sick, you but withhold their healing.
4 What you fear but teaches them their fears
are justified. 5 Your hand becomes the giver
of Christ’s touch; your change of mind becomes the proof that who accepts
God’s gifts can never suffer anything. 6 You
are entrusted with the world’s release from pain.

p15. Betray it not. 2 Become the living
proof of what Christ’s touch can offer everyone. 3
God has entrusted all His gifts to you. 4 Be
witness in your happiness to how transformed the mind becomes which chooses
to accept His gifts, and feel the touch of Christ. 5
Such is your mission now. 6 For God entrusts
the giving of His gifts to all who have received them. 7
He has shared His joy with you. 8 And now you
go to share it with the world.

In the Course of a Year::A Course in Miracles Lessons online

Lesson 166

I am entrusted with the gifts of God.

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