WALKING THE WALK


A WAY OF WALKING IN THIS WORLD 
 
 I will step back and let him lead the way 
 
There is a way of living in the world that is not here, although it seems to be. You do not change appearance, though you smile more frequently. Your forehead is serene; your eyes are quiet. And the ones that walk the world as you do recognize their own. Yet those who have not yet perceived the way will recognize you also, and believe that you are like them, as you were before. 
 
The world is an illusion. Those who choose to come to it are seeking for a place where they can be illusions, and avoid their reality. Yet when they find their own reality is even here, then they step back and let it lead the way. What other choice is really theirs to make? To let illusions walk ahead of truth is madness. But to let illusions sink behind the truth and let the truth stand forth as what it is, is merely sanity. 
 
This is a simple choice we make today. The mad illusion will remain awhile in evidence, for those to look upon who chose to come, and have not yet rejoiced to find they were mistaken in their choice. They cannot learn directly from the truth, because they have decided it is so. And so they need a Teacher Who can still look beyond illusion to the simple truth in them. 
 
If truth demanded they give up the world, it would appear to them as if it asked the sacrifice of something real. Many have chosen to renounce the world while still believing its reality. And they have suffered from a sense of loss, and have not been released accordingly. Others have chosen nothing but the world, and they have suffered from a sense of loss still deeper, which they did not understand 
 
Between these paths there is another road that leads away from loss of every kind, for sacrifice and deprivation both are quickly left behind. This is the way appointed for you now. You walk this path as others walk, nor do you seem to be distinct from them, although you are indeed. Thus can you serve them while you serve yourself, and set their footsteps on the way that God has opened up to you, and them through you. 
 
Illusion still appears to cling to you, that you may reach them. Yet it has stepped back. And it is not illusion they hear you speak of, nor illusion that you bring their eyes to look on and their minds to grasp. Nor can the truth, which walks ahead of you, speak to them through illusions, for the road leads past illusion now, while on the way you call to them, that they may follow you. 
 
All roads will lead to this one in the end. For sacrifice and deprivation are paths that lead nowhere, choices for defeat, and aims that will remain impossible. All this steps back as truth comes forth in you, to lead your brothers from the ways of death, and set them on the way to happiness. Their suffering is but illusion. Yet they need a guide to lead them out of it, for they mistake illusion for truth. 
 
Such is salvations call, and nothing more. It asks that you accept the truth, and let it go before you, lighting up the path from ransom to illusion. It is not a ransom with a price. There is no cost, but only gain. Illusion can but seem to hold in chains, the holy Son of God. It is but from illusions he is saved. As they step back, he finds himself again. 
 
Walk safely now, yet carefully, because this path is new to you. And you may find that you are tempted still to walk ahead of truth, and let illusions be your guide. Your holy brothers have been given you, to follow in your footsteps as you walk with certainty of purpose to truth. It goes before you now, that they may see something with which they can identify; something they understand to lead the way. 
 
Yet at the journey’s ending there will be no gap, no distance between truth and you. And all illusions walking in the way you traveled will be gone from you as well, with nothing left to keep the truth apart from God’s completion, holy as Himself. Step back in faith and let truth lead the way. You know not where you go. But One Who knows goes with you. Let Him lead you with the rest. 
 
When dreams are over, time has closed the door on all the things that pass and miracles are purposeless, the holy Son of God will make no journeys. There will be no wish to be illusion rather than the truth. And we step forth toward this, as we progress along the way that truth points out to us. This is our final journey, which we make for everyone. We must not lose our way. For as truth goes before us, so it goes before our brothers who will follow us. 
 
We walk to God. Pause and reflect on this. Could any way be holier, or more deserving of your effort, of your love and your full intent? What way could give you more than everything, or offer less and still content the holy Son of God? We walk to God. The truth that walks before us now is one with him, and leads us to where He has always been. What way but this could be a path that you would choose instead? 
 
Your feet are safely set upon the road that leads the world to God. Look not to the ways that seem to lead you elsewhere. Dreams are not a worthy guide for you who are God’s Son. Forget not He has placed His Hand in yours, and given you your brothers in His trust that you are worthy of His trust in you. He cannot be deceived. His trust has made your pathway certain and your goal secure. You will not fail your brothers nor your Self. 
 
And now He asks but that you think of Him a while each day, that He may speak to you and tell you of His Love, reminding you how great His trust; how limitless His Love. In your Name and His Own, which are the same, we practice gladly with this thought today.  
 
I will step back and let Him lead the way, 
For I would walk along the road to Him. 
 
(A Course in Miracles, Lesson 155, Workbook for Students)  

                                                THE INNER CIRCLE
 
If God has called you to be really like Jesus he will draw you into a life of crucifixion and humility, and put upon you such demands of obedience, that you will not be able to follow other people, or measure yourself by other Christians, and in many ways he will seem to let other people do things which he will not let you do. 
 
Other Christians and ministers, who seem very religious and useful, may push themselves, pull wires, and work schemes to carry out their plans, but you cannot do it, and if you attempt it, you will meet with such failure and rebuke from the Lord as to make you solely penitent. 
 
Others may boast of themselves, of their work, of their successes, of their writings, but the Holy Spirit will not allow you to do any such thing, and if you begin it, he will lead you into some deep mortification that will make you despise yourself and all your good works. 
 
Others may be allowed to succeed in making money, or may have a legacy left to them, but it is likely God will keep you poor, because he wants you to have something far better than gold, namely, a helpless dependence upon him, that he may have the privilege of supplying you needs day by day out of an unseen treasury. 
 
The Lord may let others be honored and put forward, and keep you hidden in obscurity, because he wants to produce some choice fragrant fruit for his coming glory, which can only be produced in the shade. He may let others be great, but keep you small. He may let others do a work for him and get the credit for it, but he will make you work and toil on without knowing how much you are doing; and then to make your work still more precious he may let others get credit for the work which you have done, and thus make your reward ten times greater when Jesus comes. 
 
The Holy Spirit will put a strict watch over you, with a jealous love, and will rebuke you for little words and feelings or for wasting your time, which other Christians never feel distressed over. So make up your mind that God is an infinite Sovereign, and has a right to do as he pleases with his own. He may not explain to you a thousand things which puzzle your reason in his dealing with you, but if you absolutely sell yourself to be his love slave, he will wrap you in a jealous love, and bestow upon you many blessings which come only to those who are in the inner circle. 
 
Settle it forever, then, that you are to deal directly with the Holy Spirit, and that he is to have the privilege of tying your tongue, or chaining your hand, or closing your eyes, in ways that he does not seem to use with others. Now, when you are so possessed with the living God that you are, in your secret heart, pleased and delighted over this peculiar, personal, private, jealous guardianship and management of the Holy Spirit over your life, you will have found the vestibule of Heaven.

Author unknown 

                                                          VICTORY 
  
When you are forgotten or neglected, or purposely set at naught, and you smile inwardly, glorying at the insult or the oversight, because thereby counted worthy to suffer with Christ—that is victory 
 
When your good is evil spoken of, when your wishes are crossed, your taste offended, and your advice disregarded, your opinions ridiculed, and you take it all in patient, loving silence—that is victory. 
 
When you are content with any food, any raiment, any climate, any society, any solitude, and any interruption by the will of God— that is victory 
 
Lord Jesus, make thyself to me 
A living, bright Reality; 
More present to faith’s vision keen 
Than any earthly object seen; 
More dear, more intimately nigh 
Than even the dearest earthly tie.”  
 
Author unknown