Amazing Grace!
Amazing Grace!
We have all heard the song so many times. But have we taken an entire day or even a week's vacation from the world to do nothing but really consider and appreciate how amazing grace really is?
What would you do with such a day or week? Would you look at your past? Your future? Your joy and happiness here and now?
Christian books are filled with stories of people saying things like, "Wow! Amazing grace! When I consider where I would have been...." In other words, they look at their past, project their past into the future, and feel glad that they are not presently traveling along the path of their projection. They don't seem to really, really, really feel what is available to them right now.
Such a process might allow a partial appreciation of grace, but let's question if this is still an ego process. Jesus, in his modern day revelation A Course in Miracles addresses the issue this way:
The ego has a very strange notion of time, and it is with this notion that questioning might well begin. For the ego uses the present only as a brief transition to the future, in which it brings the past to the future by interpreting the present in past terms. (ACIM Text Chap. 13)
Could it be that the above mentioned method which many Christians use to appreciate grace is actually an ego device designed to keep the past alive? This same section of the Course continues:
"Now" has no meaning to the ego. The present merely reminds it of past hurts and it reacts to the present as if it were past. For the ego cannot tolerate release from the past, and though the past is no more the ego tries to preserve its image by responding as if it were present. (ACIM Text Chap. 13)
Hmmm ... what would happen if we set aside a day or a week for the purpose of appreciating grace and we were able to totally wipe clean all past memory? What if, for example, you went walking in the desert and focused with all intent on receiving ALL of God's grace right here and now.
And I heard a loud voice saying in heaven, Now is come salvation, and strength, and the kingdom of our God, and the power of his Christ: for the accuser of our brethren is cast down, which accused them before our God day and night. (Revelation 12:10)
And of course the accuser has all along been the ego, but by blanking out past memory on your walk in the desert the ego is being "cast down," isn't it? And with the ego disengaged, now salvation, strength, in fact the kingdom is experienced.
Presently, if you will, grace is experienced.
In another example, some who have discovered the joy of Christianity will say, "Oh, for a long time I was an atheist. But God must have just picked me up and carried me along because here I am." And such a statement must certainly be considered to be an appreciation of grace.
But imagine the explosion of grace that might be experienced if the speaker said nothing more than: Here I am!
Never mind, don't imagine. Because grace is so far beyond anything imaginable that imagination, a function of the ego, can only block what Jesus really wants us to experience.
And that's really the point Jesus is making in his course in miracles. God's grace can only be appreciated in its fullness here and now. Anything else is our made up idea, God's grace imagined as we would have it look, God's grace in our own image and likeness, so to speak.
In truth, it is so much bigger and more wonderful than we can imagine.
Maybe for our walk in the desert (or even a peaceful walk around the block) we can use a lesson from the Course given by Jesus:
Today we ask of God the gift He has most carefully preserved within our hearts, waiting to be acknowledged. This the gift by which God leans to us and lifts us up, taking salvation’s final step Himself. All steps but this we learn, instructed by His Voice. But finally He comes Himself and takes us in His Arms, and sweeps away the cobwebs of our sleep. His gift of grace is more than just an answer. It restores all memories the sleeping mind forgot; all certainty of what love’s meaning is. (ACIM Lesson 168)
Would all human defenses drop away? "Your grace is given me. I claim it now, all certainty of love's meaning!"
Would there be a raising up far above even the strongest belief into invincible knowing? "Grace is the present expression and experience of certainty!"
Would there remain only the divine laughter of all-encompassing joy and peace?
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