LESSON 166 I am entrusted with the gifts of God.

1. 1All things are given you. 2God’s trust in you is limitless. 3He knows His Son. 4He gives without exception, holding nothing back that can contribute to your happiness. 5And yet, unless your will is one with His, His gifts are not received. 6But what would make you think there is another will than His?

2. 1Here is the paradox that underlies the making of the world. 2This world is not the Will of God, and so it is not real. 3Yet those who think it real must still believe there is another will, and one that leads to opposite effects from those He wills. 4Impossible indeed; but every mind that looks upon the world and judges it as certain, solid, trustworthy and true believes in two creators; or in one, himself alone. 5But never in one God.

3. 1The gifts of God are not acceptable to anyone who holds such strange beliefs. 2He 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 to be pressed to treachery against himself. 3He must deny their presence, contradict the truth, and suffer to preserve the world he made.

4. 1Here is the only home he thinks he knows. 2Here is the only safety he believes that he can find. 3Without the world he made is he an outcast; homeless and afraid. 4He 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.

5. 1Yet in his lonely, senseless wanderings, God’s gifts go with him, all unknown to him. 2He cannot lose them. 3But he will not look at what is given him. 4He wanders on, aware of the futility he sees about him everywhere, perceiving how his little lot but dwindles, as he goes ahead to nowhere. 5Still 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.

6. 1He seems a sorry figure; weary, worn, in threadbare clothing, and with feet that bleed a little from the rocky road he walks. 2No 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. 3Yet 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?

7. 1This is your chosen self, the one you made as a replacement for reality. 2This is the self you savagely defend against all reason, every evidence, and all the witnesses with proof to show this is not you. 3You heed them not. 4You 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.

8. 1You cower fearfully lest you should feel Christ’s touch upon your shoulder, and perceive His gentle hand directing you to look upon your gifts. 2How could you then proclaim your poverty in exile? 3He would make you laugh at this perception of yourself. 4Where is self-pity then? 5And what becomes of all the tragedy you sought to make for him whom God intended only joy?

9. 1Your ancient fear has come upon you now, and justice has caught up with you at last. 2Christ’s hand has touched your shoulder, and you feel that you are not alone. 3You even think the miserable self you thought was you may not be your Identity. 4Perhaps God’s Word is truer than your own. 5Perhaps His gifts to you are real. 6Perhaps 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.

10. 1God’s Will does not oppose. 2It merely is. 3It is not God you have imprisoned in your plan to lose your Self. 4He does not know about a plan so alien to His Will. 5There was a need He did not understand, to which He gave an Answer. 6That is all. 7And you who have this Answer given you have need no more of any­thing but this.

11. 1Now do we live, for now we cannot die. 2The wish for death is answered, and the sight that looked upon it now has been replaced by vision which perceives that you are not what you pretend to be. 3One walks with you Who gently answers all your fears with this one merciful reply, “It is not so.” 4He 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.

12. 1Yet He reminds you still of one thing more you had forgotten. 2For His touch on you has made you like Himself. 3The gifts you have are not for you alone. 4What He has come to offer you, you now must learn to give. 5This is the lesson that His giving holds, for He has saved you from the solitude you sought to make in which to hide from God. 6He has reminded you of all the gifts that God has given you. 7He speaks as well of what becomes your will when you accept these gifts, and recognize they are your own.

13. 1The gifts are yours, entrusted to your care, to give to all who chose the lonely road you have escaped. 2They do not understand they but pursue their wishes. 3It is you who teach them now. 4For you have learned of Christ there is another way for them to walk. 5Teach them by showing them the happiness that comes to those who feel the touch of Christ, and recognize God’s gifts. 6Let sor­row not tempt you to be unfaithful to your trust.

14. 1Your sighs will now betray the hopes of those who look to you for their release. 2Your tears are theirs. 3If you are sick, you but withhold their healing. 4What you fear but teaches them their fears are justified. 5Your 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. 6You are entrusted with the world’s release from pain.

15. 1Betray it not. 2Become the living proof of what Christ’s touch can offer everyone. 3God has entrusted all His gifts to you. 4Be witness in your happiness to how transformed the mind becomes which chooses to accept His gifts, and feel the touch of Christ. 5Such is your mission now. 6For God entrusts the giving of His gifts to all who have received them. 7He has shared His joy with you. 8And now you go to share it with the world.