God is the Strength in which I trust.I
1. If you rely on your own strength, you have every reason to be apprehensive, anxious, and afraid.
²What can you predict or control?
³What is there in you that you can depend on?
⁴What gives you the ability to be aware of all facets of any problem, and to resolve them in such a way that only good can come of it?
⁵What is there in you that enables you to recognize the right solution, and ensure that it will be achieved?
2. You can do none of these things by yourself.II
²To believe you can is to place your trust where it is unwarranted, and this results in fear, anxiety, depression, anger, and sorrow.
³Who can put his faith in weakness and feel safe?
⁴And who can put his faith in Strength and feel weak?
3. God is your sure protection in every circumstance.
²His Voice speaks for Him in every situation and in every aspect of each situation, telling you exactly what to do to call upon His Strength and His protection.
³There are no exceptions to this, because God makes no exceptions.III
⁴And the Voice that speaks for Him thinks as He does.
4. Today we will try to go past your weakness and reach the Source of true Strength.
²Four five-minute practice periods are required today, and more and longer sessions are strongly encouraged.
³Close your eyes and begin, as usual, by repeating the idea for today.
⁴Then spend a minute or two searching your mind for situations in your life that you have invested with fear, and dismiss each one by saying to yourself:
⁵God is the Strength in which I trust.
5. Now try to let go of all concerns related to your own sense of inadequacy.
²Clearly, any situation that causes you concern is associated with feelings of insufficiency, for otherwise you would believe you could handle it successfully.
³Placing your trust in yourself is not how you build confidence.
⁴But the Strength of God in you will always succeed.IV
6. Recognizing your own frailty is a necessary step in the correction of your errors.
²But it is not sufficient to give you the confidence you need and are entitled to.
³You must also gain awareness that your trust in your true Strength is fully justified in every circumstance and with respect to everything.V
7. In the final phase of practice, try to go deep within your mind to a place of true safety.
²You will recognize that you have reached it if you experience a sense of deep peace, no matter how briefly.
³Let go of the trivial thoughts that crowd the surface of your mind and sink beneath them to the Kingdom of Heaven.
⁴There is a place in you where perfect peace abides.
⁵There is a place in you where nothing is impossible.
⁶There is a place in you where the Strength of God resides.
8. Repeat today’s idea often.
²Use it as your response to any disturbance.
³Remember that Peace is your right because you trust in the Strength of God.
I Notice how these last Lessons deal with the three aspects of Being, the divine triad of Knowing, Loving, and Creating.
W-44: God is the Light in which I see. (Seeing–Ajna/I understand)
W-45: God is the Mind with which I think. (Mind–Sahasrara/I am)
W-46: God is the Love in which I forgive. (Loving–Anahata/I love) W-47: God is the Strength in which I trust. (Power–Will–Manipura/I can)
II To recognize this is nothing more than an exercise in simple honesty; it is something that not even the Son of God, by himself, can do, for the Son of God, by himself, is nothing but a human being. As Jesus reminds us: “Jesus therefore answered and said to them, ‘Truly, truly, I say to you, the Son can do nothing of Himself, but what He sees the Father do; for whatever things He does, these also does the Son likewise’” (John 5:19).
III Here Jesus reminds us once again that the Voice of the Holy Spirit is always within our reach. It speaks to us in every circumstance, for it dwells in the right part of the mind, sometimes referred to as the “higher mind.” If at times we do not hear It, it is not because the Voice is absent, but because to hear It we need to be willing to listen and to pause our inner dialogue for a moment. After all, how could we hear the Voice of the Holy Spirit if we do not give It space and go on conversing with ourselves without end?
IV In your present situation, it is natural that this statement—no matter how beautiful and joyful it may seem to you—does not yet strike you as entirely believable. Perhaps you read it with good will, yet still consider it little more than a well-intentioned, somewhat idealistic story.
Listen attentively and open your mind to the truth: nothing is closer to truth than this! To harbor the idea of God in your mind—to think of your Father, even if only for an instant—makes you absolutely invulnerable under any circumstance. To remember Him, even for a brief moment, places you beyond all threat in this illusory dream of death and destruction. To think of God fills you with such power and joy that, even though it does not physically remove you from this world, it protects you with a mantle of sanity and shields you from all harm. Do you not realize that to call upon God is to bring Reality to illusion, Love to fear, Truth to error, and Strength to weakness? But do not rely on these words alone: see for yourself! Think of God when you feel afraid, when doubts assail you, or when you do not know which path to take… and watch carefully what happens. You will be astonished.
V “True strength” refers to the Strength of God that dwells within you, not to that which your ego seeks to claim for itself.
Remember also that trust is the first and most important characteristic of God’s teachers, and it rests precisely upon that Strength. As the Course states:
“God’s teachers trust in the world because they have learned it is not governed by the laws the world made up. It is governed by a Power in them, but not of them” (M-5.1.1:4-5).That Power, in the end, is the Strength of God.