Lesson 193

“All things are lessons God would have me learn.”

God does not know of learning. Yet His Will extends to what He
does not understand, in that He wills the happiness His Son
inherited of Him be undisturbed; eternal and forever gaining scope,
eternally expanding in the joy of full creation, and eternally open
and wholly limitless in Him. This is His Will. And thus His Will
provides the means to guarantee that it is done.

God sees no contradictions. Yet His Son believes he sees them.
Thus he has a need for One Who can correct his erring sight, and
give him vision that will lead him back to where perception ceases.
God does not perceive at all. Yet it is He Who gives the means by
which perception is made true and beautiful enough to let the light
of Heaven shine upon it. It is He Who answers what His Son would
contradict, and keeps his sinlessness forever safe.

These are the lessons God would have you learn. His Will
reflects them all, and they reflect His loving kindness to the Son He
loves. Each lesson has a central thought, the same in all of them. The
form alone is changed, with different circumstances and events; with
different characters and different themes apparent but not real. They
are the same in fundamental content. It is this:

“Forgive and you will see this differently.”

Certain it is that all distress does not appear to be but
unforgiveness. Yet that is the content underneath the form. It is this
sameness which makes learning sure, because the lesson is so simple
that it cannot be rejected in the end. No-one can hide forever from
a truth so very obvious that it appears in countless forms, and yet is
recognized as easily in all of them, if one but wants to see the simple
lesson there.

“Forgive and you will see this differently.”

These are the words the Holy Spirit speaks in all your tribulations, all
your pain, all suffering regardless of its forms. These are the words with
which temptation ends and guilt, abandoned, is revered no more.

These are the words which end the dream of sin, and rid the mind of
fear. These are the words by which salvation comes to all the world.
Shall we not learn to say these words when we are tempted to
believe that pain is real, and death becomes our choice instead of life?

Shall we not learn to say these words when we have understood their
power to release all minds from bondage? These are words which
give you power over all events which seem to have been given power
over you. You see them rightly when you hold these words in full
awareness, and do not forget these words apply to everything you see
or any brother looks upon amiss.

How can you tell when you are seeing wrong, or someone else
is failing to perceive the lesson he should learn? Does pain seem real
in the perception? If it does, be sure the lesson is not learned. And
there remains an unforgiveness hiding in the mind which sees the
pain through eyes the mind directs.

God would not have you suffer thus. He would help you forgive
yourself. His Son does not remember who he is. And God would
have him not forget His Love, and all the gifts His Love brings with
It. Would you now renounce your own salvation? Would you fail to
learn the simple lessons Heaven’s Teacher sets before you that all pain
may disappear, and God may be remembered by His Son?

All things are lessons God would have you learn. He would not
leave an unforgiving thought without correction, nor one thorn or
nail to hurt His sacred Son in any way. He would ensure his holy rest
remain untroubled and serene, without a care in an eternal home
which cares for him. And He would have all tears be wiped away,
with none remaining yet unshed, and none but waiting their
appointed time to fall. For God has willed that laughter should
replace each one, and that His Son be free again.

We will attempt today to overcome a thousand seeming obstacles
to peace in just one day. Let mercy come to you more quickly. Do not
try to hold it off another day, another minute or another instant. Time
was made for this. Use it today for what its purpose is. Morning and
night devote what time you can to serve its proper aim, and do not let
the time be less than meets your deepest need.

Give all you can and give a little more, for now we would arise
in haste and go unto our Father’s house. We have been gone too
long, and we would linger here no more. And as we practice, let us
think about all things we saved to settle by ourselves, and kept apart
from healing. Let us give them all to Him Who knows the way to
look upon them so that they will disappear. Truth is His message;
truth His teaching is. His are the lessons God would have us learn.

Each hour spend a little time today, and in the days to come, in
practicing the lesson in forgiveness in the form established for the
day. And try to give it application to the happenings the hour
brought, so that the next one is free of the one before. The chains of
time are easily unloosened in this way.

Let no one hour cast its shadow on the one that follows, and
when that one goes let everything that happens in its course go with
it. Thus will you remain unbound, in peace eternal in the world of
time. This is the lesson God would have you learn:  There is a way to
look on everything that lets it be to you another step to Him and to
salvation of the world.

To all that speaks of terror, answer thus:

“I will forgive and this will disappear.”

To every apprehension, every care, every form of suffering repeat
these selfsame words. And then you hold the key that opens Heaven’s
gate, and brings the Love of God the Father down to earth at last, to
raise it up to Heaven. God will take this final step Himself. Do not
deny the little steps He asks you take to Him.

Britney Shawley added:

Certain it is that all distress does not appear to be but unforgiveness. Yet that is the content underneath the form. It is this sameness which makes learning sure, because the lesson is so simple that it cannot be rejected in the end. No one can hide forever from a truth so very obvious that it appears in countless forms, and yet is recognized as easily in all of them, if one but wants to see the simple lesson there.

Forgive, and you will see this differently.

These are the words the Holy Spirit speaks in all your tribulations, all your pain, all suffering regardless of its form. These are the words with which temptation ends, and guilt, abandoned, is revered no more. These are the words which end the dream of sin, and rid the mind of fear. These are the words by which salvation comes to all the world.