All things are given you. God's trust in you
is limitless. He knows His Son. He gives
without exception, holding nothing back
that can contribute to your happiness.
And yet, unless your will is one with His,
His gifts are not received. But what would make
you think there is another will than His?
Here is the paradox that underlies
the making of the world. This world is not
the Will of God, and so it is not real.
Yet those who think it real must still believe
there is another will, and one which leads
to opposite effects from those He wills.
Impossible, indeed; but every mind
which looks upon the world and judges it
as certain, solid, trustworthy and true
believes in two creators, or in one,
himself alone. But never in One God.
The gifts of God are not acceptable
to anyone who holds such strange beliefs.
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 being pressed
to treachery against himself. He must
deny their presence, contradict the truth,
and suffer to preserve the world he made.
Here is the only home he thinks be knows.
Here is the only safety he believes
that he can find. Without the world he made
is he an outcast, homeless and afraid.
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.
Yet in his lonely, senseless wanderings
God's gifts go with him, all unknown to him.
He cannot lose them. But he will not look
on what is given him. 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. 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.
He seems a sorry figure, weary, worn,
in threadbare clothing, and with feet that bleed
a little from the rocky road he walks.
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.
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?
This is your chosen self, the one you made
as a replacement for reality.
This is the self you savagely defend
against all reason, every evidence,
and all the witnesses with proof to show
this is not you. You heed them not. 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.
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. How could you then proclaim
your poverty and exile? He would make
you laugh at this perception of yourself.
Where is self-pity then? And what becomes
of all the tragedy you sought to make
for him whom God intended only joy?
Your ancient fear has come upon you now,
and justice has caught up with you at last.
Christ's hand has touched your shoulder, and you feel
that you are not alone. You even think
the miserable self you thought was you
may not be your identity. Perhaps
God's Word is truer than your own. Perhaps
His gifts to you are real. 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.
God's Will does not oppose. It merely is.
It was not God you have imprisoned in
your plan to lose your Self. He does not know
about a plan so alien to His Will.
There was a need He did not understand,
to which He gave an Answer. That is all.
And you who have this Answer given you
have need no more of anything but this.
Now do we live, for now we cannot die.
The wish for death is answered, and the sight
which looked upon it now has been replaced
by vision which perceives that you are not
what you pretend to be. One walks with you
Who gently answers all your fears with this
one merciful reply, "It is not so."
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.
Yet He reminds you still of one thing more
you had forgotten. For His touch on you
has made you like Himself. The gifts you have
are not for you alone. What He has come
to offer you, you now must learn to give.
This is the lesson which His giving holds,
for He has saved you from the solitude
you sought to make in which to hide from God.
He has reminded you of all the gifts
that God has given you. He speaks as well
of what becomes your will when you accept
these gifts and recognize they are your own.
The gifts are yours, entrusted to your care
to give to all who chose the lonely road
you have escaped. They do not understand
they but pursue their wishes. It is you
who teach them now. For you have learned of Christ
there is another way for them to walk.
Teach them by showing them the happiness
that comes to those who feel the touch of Christ
and recognize God's gifts. Let sorrow not
tempt you to be unfaithful to your trust.
Your sighs will now betray the hopes of those
who look to you for their release. Your tears
are theirs. If you are sick you but withhold
their healing. What you fear but teaches them
their fears are justified. 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. You are
entrusted with the world's release from pain.
Betray it not. Become the living proof
of what Christ's touch can offer everyone.
God has entrusted all His gifts to you.
Be witness by your happiness to how
transformed the mind becomes which chooses to
accept His gifts, and feel the touch of Christ.
Such is your mission now. And God entrusts
the giving of God's gifts to all who have
received them. He has shared His joy with you.
And now you go to share it with the world.
