Read on the ACIM CE App: https://acimce.app/:W-327

Lesson 327

I need but call and You will answer me.

Practice Instructions

See complete instructions in a separate document. A short summary:

• Read the commentary paragraph slowly and personally.
• Pray the prayer, perhaps several times.
• Morning and evening: Repeat the idea and then spend time in Open Mind Meditation.
• Hourly remembrance: Repeat the idea and then spend time in Open Mind Meditation.
• Frequent reminders: Repeat the idea and then spend a quiet moment in meditation.
• Response to temptation: Repeat the idea whenever upset, to restore peace.
• Read the "What Is" section slowly and thoughtfully once during the day.

Practice suggestion: Today's lesson urges us to test out God's promises; specifically, the promise that He will answer our calls. This is an invitation we should not refuse. Think of some question or request for which you really need a response. Put your question or request to God, with all the desire you can muster, and expect a response. Try to open your mind about what the response ought to be. Realize that it may come now, and it may need to work its way past some obstacles in you before it comes. It may even show up initially in a form which does not look like a response to your question, but which makes way for a more direct response later on.

Commentary

This reminds me of a Bible verse in the Old Testament book of Jeremiah (33:3): "Call unto me, and I will answer thee."

The basic thought of the lesson seems to be: “Here are God’s promises; try them, and prove to yourself that He means what He says.” It tells us we can “learn from…experience that this is true” (1:3). It suggests that we take God’s promises and “test them out” (2:1).

I know that my confidence in the Course has increased over the years and continues to increase as I continue to test out its promises. It gives us pretty explicit instructions for Workbook practice, and promises that it will change the way we think about everyone and everything in the world. It promises peace of mind. It promises release from guilt. And what I am finding is that as I make a sincere effort to do what it tells me to do, I experience what it says I will experience. In short: it works.

We can sit around judging the propositions of the Course until we are blue in the face, discussing whether or not the Course will work as it says, and we will learn nothing. But if we try it, if we test it out, if we practice what it says to practice, we will inevitably find out that it does work, and our conviction of its truth will grow unshakable.