Salvation of the world depends on me.
Salvation of the world depends on me.
Here is the statement that will one day take all arrogance
away from every mind. Here is the thought of true humility which holds
no function as your own but that which has been given you. It offers
your acceptance of a part assigned to you, without insisting on another
role. It does not judge your proper role. It but acknowledges the Will
of God is done on earth as well as Heaven. It unites all wills on earth
in Heaven's plan to save the world, restoring it to Heaven's peace.
Let us not fight our function. We did not establish it. It
is not our idea. The means are given us by which it will be perfectly
accomplished. All that we are asked to do is to accept our part in
genuine humility and not deny with self-deceiving arrogance that we are
worthy. What is given us to do we have the strength to do. Our minds are
suited perfectly to take the part assigned to us by One Who knows us
well.
Today's idea may seem quite sobering until you see its
meaning. All it says is that your Father still remembers you and offers
you the perfect trust He holds in you who are His Son. It does not ask
that you be different in any way from what you are. What could humility
request but this? And what could arrogance deny but this? Today we will
not shrink from our assignment on the specious grounds that modesty is
outraged. It is pride that would deny the call of God Himself.
All false humility we lay aside today that we may listen to
God's Voice reveal to us what He would have us do. We do not doubt our
adequacy for the function He will offer us. We will be certain only that
He knows our strengths, our wisdom, and our holiness. And if He deems us
worthy, so we are. It is but arrogance that judges otherwise.
There is one way and only one to be released from the
imprisonment your plan to prove the false is true has brought to you.
Accept the plan you did not make instead. Judge not your value to it. If
God's Voice assures you that salvation needs your part and that the
whole depends on you, be sure that it is so. The arrogant must cling to
words, afraid to go beyond them to experience which might affront their
stance. Yet are the humble free to hear the Voice which tells them what
they are and what to do.
Arrogance makes an image of yourself that is not real. It
is this image which quails and retreats in terror as the Voice for God
assures you that you have the strength, the wisdom, and the holiness to
go beyond all images. You are not weak, as is the image of yourself. You
are not ignorant and helpless. Sin cannot tarnish the truth in you, and
misery can come not near the holy home of God.
All this the Voice for God relates to you. And as He
speaks, the image trembles and seeks to attack the threat it does not
know, sensing its basis crumble. Let it go. Salvation of the world
depends on you and not upon this little pile of dust. What can it tell
the holy Son of God? Why need he be concerned with it at all?
And so we find our peace. We will accept the function God
has given us, for all illusions rest upon the weird belief that we can
make another for ourselves. Our self-made roles are shifting, and they
seem to change from mourner to ecstatic bliss of loved and loving. We
can laugh or weep and greet the day with welcome or with tears. Our very
being seems to change as we experience a thousand shifts in mood, and
our emotions raise us high indeed or dash us to the ground in
hopelessness.
Is this the Son of God? Could He create such instability
and call it Son? He Who is changeless shares His attributes with His
creation. All the images His Son appears to make have no effect on what
he is. They blow across his mind like windswept leaves that form a
patterning an instant, break apart to group again, and scamper off. Or
like mirages seen above a desert, rising from the dust.
These unsubstantial images will go and leave your mind
unclouded and serene when you accept the function given you. The images
you make give rise to but conflicting goals, impermanent and vague,
uncertain and ambiguous. Who could be constant in his efforts or direct
his energies and concentrated drive toward goals like these? The
functions which the world esteems are so uncertain that they change ten
times an hour at their most secure. What hope of gain can rest on goals
like this?
In lovely contrast, certain as the sun's return each
morning to dispel the night, your truly given function stands out clear
and wholly unambiguous. There is no doubt of its validity. It comes from
One Who knows no error. And His Voice is certain of its messages. They
will not change nor be in conflict. All of them point to one goal, and
one you can attain. Your plan may be impossible, but God's can never
fail because He is its Source.
Do as His Voice directs. And if it asks a thing of you
that seems impossible, remember Who it is that asks and who would make
denial. Then consider this—which is more likely to be right? The Voice
that speaks for the Creator of all things Who knows all things exactly
as they are, or a distorted image of yourself, confused, bewildered,
inconsistent and unsure of everything? Let not its voice direct you.
Hear instead a certain Voice Which tells you of a function given you by
your Creator, Who remembers you and urges that you now remember Him.
His gentle Voice is calling from the known to the
unknowing. He would comfort you, although He knows no sorrow. He would
make a restitution, though He is complete; a gift to you, although He
knows that you have everything already. He has thoughts which answer
every need His Son perceives, although He sees them not. For Love must
give, and what is given in His Name takes on the form most useful in a
world of form.
These are the forms which never can deceive, although they
come from Formlessness Itself. Forgiveness is an earthly form of love
which as it is in Heaven has no form. Yet what is needed here is given
here as it is needed. In this form, you can fulfill your function even
here, although what love will mean to you when formlessness has been
restored to you is greater still. Salvation of the world depends on you
who can forgive. Such is your function here.