Love is the way I walk in gratitude.
Gratitude is a lesson hard to learn for those who look upon the world amiss. The most that they can do is see themselves as better off than others. And they try to be content because another seems to suffer more than they. How pitiful and deprecating are such thoughts! For who has cause for thanks while others have less cause? And who could suffer less because he sees another suffer more? Your gratitude is due to Him alone Who made all cause of sorrow disappear throughout the world.
It is insane to offer thanks because of suffering. But it is equally insane to fail in gratitude to One Who offers you the certain means whereby all pain is healed, and suffering replaced with laughter and with happiness. Nor could the even partly sane refuse to take the steps which He directs, and follow in the way He sets before them, to escape a prison that they thought contained no door to the deliverance they now perceive.
Your brother is your "enemy" because you see in him the rival for your peace; a plunderer who takes his joy from you, and leaves you nothing but a black despair so bitter and relentless that there is no hope remaining. Now is vengeance all there is to wish for. Now can you but try to bring him down to lie in death with you, as useless as yourself; as little left within his grasping fingers as in yours.
You do not offer God your gratitude because your brother is more slave than you, nor could you sanely be enraged if he seems freer. Love makes no comparisons. And gratitude can only be sincere if it be joined to love. We offer thanks to God our Father that in us all things will find their freedom. It will never be that some are loosed while others still are bound. For who can bargain in the name of love?
Therefore give thanks, but in sincerity. And let your gratitude make room for all who will escape with you; the sick, the weak, the needy and afraid, and those who mourn a seeming loss or feel apparent pain, who suffer cold or hunger, or who walk the way of hatred and the path of death. All these go with you. Let us not compare ourselves with them, for thus we split them off from our awareness of the unity we share with them, as they must share with us.
We thank our Father for one thing alone; that we are separate from no living thing, and therefore one with Him. And we rejoice that no exceptions ever can be made which would reduce our wholeness, nor impair or change our function to complete the One Who is Himself completion. We give thanks for every living thing, for otherwise we offer thanks for nothing, and we fail to recognize the gifts of God to us.
Walk, then, in gratitude the way of love. For hatred is forgotten when we lay comparisons aside. What more remains as obstacles to peace? The fear of God is now undone at last, and we forgive without comparing. Thus we cannot choose to overlook some things, and yet retain some other things still locked away as "sins." When your forgiveness is complete you will have total gratitude, for you will see that everything has earned the right to love by being loving, even as your Self.
Today we learn to think of gratitude in place of anger, malice and revenge. We have been given everything. If we refuse to recognize it, we are not entitled therefore to our bitterness, and to a self-perception which regards us in a place of merciless pursuit, where we are badgered ceaselessly, and pushed about without a thought or care for us or for our future. Gratitude becomes the single thought we substitute for these insane perceptions. God has cared for us, and calls us Son. 6 Can there be more than this?
Our gratitude will pave the way to Him, and shorten our learning time by more than you could ever dream of. Gratitude goes hand in hand with love, and where one is the other must be found. For gratitude is but an aspect of the Love which is the Source of all creation. God gives thanks to you, His Son, for being what you are; His Own completion and the Source of love, along with Him. Your gratitude to Him is one with His to you. For love can walk no road except the way of gratitude, and thus we go who walk the way to God.
The Following is Forwarded from Pathwaysoflight.org
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Lesson 195
"Love is the way I walk in gratitude."
A key idea that is brought up several times in this lesson is that Love makes no comparisons. Comparison is a way of setting things apart. So comparison is a reflection of unforgiveness. If I have forgiven my brother, I have let go of the idea that he is separate from me. It is impossible to compare what is one. There must be an 'other' for a comparison to be made.
Each time I recognize that my brother shares the same need to Love that I have, my forgiveness or letting go of illusion is strengthened. Everyone in the world needs to Love, because Love is what we all are. Yet the world was made to be a place without Love, where Love/God is excluded. And so we wander the world searching for Love because we hear the call from our heart to return to Love. Forgiveness is the means in this world to remove the barriers to Love's Presence. That is why when forgiveness is complete, gratitude is complete, because Love is complete.
As I learn to look past the behavior that I disapprove of, the words that seem to hurt, and see the Love I share with all things, gratitude fills my heart. I no longer need to defend. I no longer need to compare myself with anything or anyone. The full recognition of the Love that I am dawns upon my mind. The search is over. I have found what I am and what I am encompasses all of Life, for what I am is one with Love, my Source. Love fills me and is my strength. Love is my safety and my peace.
Today let me look upon my brother and see him as he is, with no thought of the past and no empty images that could ever contain his magnificent Light. Thus will I recognize my Self and I will walk in gratitude.
Inherent within the Love of our Source is oneness. Oneness is the truth. Because all is One Love, there are no differences, no exceptions. When I open up my mind to accept this truth, the truth of God's Love as being all there is, I am filled with gratitude. Gratitude comes inherently with accepting the truth that God's Love is all there is.
Today my practice is to be grateful for the truth of our oneness in God. I am grateful that the truth of oneness is real and nothing else is real. This opening to the truth brings me deep peace. God is One. No dreams can change that. Of this I am grateful.
I am thankful that the dreams of separation could never be true. I am thankful that everyone is safe in God and their true Identity could never be changed from how God created them. I am thankful that all that is real still resides in Heaven and has never left Heaven. I am thankful that we cannot leave God, even though we may dream of separation. I am thankful that Love is the only reality and that dreams of separation could never be real. Remembering the Reality and Oneness of Love is the way I walk in gratitude. That is the essence of today's lesson for me.
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