Lesson 194

“I place the future in the Hands of God.”

Today’s idea takes another step toward quick salvation, and a giant
stride it is indeed! So great the distance is that it encompasses, it sets
you down just short of Heaven, with the goal in sight and obstacles
behind. Your foot has reached the lawns that welcome you to
Heaven’s gate; the quiet place of peace where you await with
certainty the final step of God. How far are we progressing now from
earth! How close are we approaching to our goal! How short the
journey still to be pursued!

Accept today’s idea, and you have passed all anxiety, all pits of
hell, all blackness of depression, thoughts of sin, and devastation
brought about by guilt. Accept today’s idea, and you have released the
world from all imprisonment by loosening the heavy chains that
locked the door to freedom on it. You are saved, and your salvation
thus becomes the gift you give the world because you have received.

In no one instant is depression felt, or pain experienced, or loss
perceived. In no one instant can sorrow be set upon a throne and
worshipped faithfully. In no one instant can one even die. And so
each instant given unto God in passing, with the next one given Him
already, is a time of your release from sadness, pain and even
death itself.

God holds your future as He holds your past and present. They
are one to Him, and so they should be one to you. Yet in this world
the temporal progression still seems real. And so you are not asked to
understand the lack of sequence really found in time. You are but
asked to let the future go, and place it in God’s Hands. And you will
see by your experience that you have laid the past and present in his
hands as well, because the past will punish you no more, and future
dread will now be meaningless.

Release the future. For the past is gone, and what is present, freed
from its bequest of grief and misery, of pain and loss, becomes the
instant in which time escapes the bondage of illusions where it runs its
pitiless, inevitable course. Then is each instant, which was slave to time,
transformed into a holy instant when the light that was kept hidden in
God’s Son is freed to bless the world. Now is he free, and all his glory
shines upon a world made free with him, to share his holiness.

If you can see the lesson for today as the deliverance it really is,
you will not hesitate to give as much consistent effort as you can to
make it be a part of you. As it becomes a thought which rules your
mind, a habit in your problem-solving repertoire, a way of quick
reaction to temptation, you extend your learning to the world. And
as you learn to see salvation in all things, so will the world perceive
that it is saved.

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.

Place, then, your future in the hands of God. For thus you call
the memory of Him to come again, replacing all your thoughts of sin
and evil with the truth of love. Think you the world could fail to gain
thereby, and every living creature not respond with healed
perception? Who entrusts himself to God has also placed the world
within the hands to which he has himself appealed for comfort and
security. He lays aside the sick illusions of the world along with his,
and offers peace to both.

Now are we saved indeed. For in God’s hands we rest
untroubled, sure that only good can come to us. If we forget, we will
be gently reassured. If we accept an unforgiving thought, it will be
soon replaced by love’s reflection. And if we are tempted to attack,
we will appeal to Him Who guards our rest to make the choice for us
that leaves temptation far behind. No longer is the world our enemy,
for we have chosen that we be its friends.

Britney Shawley added:

If you can see the lesson for today as the deliverance it really is, you will not hesitate to give as much consistent effort as you can, to make it be a part of you. As it becomes a thought that rules your mind, a habit in your problem-solving repertoire, a way of quick reaction to temptation, you extend your learning to the world. And as you learn to see salvation in all things, so will the world perceive that it is saved.