PART I
LESSON 186.
Salvation of the world depends on me.
W-186.1. Here is the statement that will one day take all arrogance away from every mind. 2 Here is the thought of true humility, which holds no function as your own but that which has been given you. 3 It offers your acceptance of a part assigned to you, without insisting on another role. 4 It does not judge your proper role. 5 It but acknowledges the Will of God is done on earth as well as Heaven. 6 It unites all wills on earth in Heaven's plan to save the world, restoring it to Heaven's peace.
W-186.2. Let us not fight our function. 2 We did not establish it. 3 It is not our idea. 4 The means are given us by which it will be perfectly accomplished. 5 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. 6 What is given us to do, we have the strength to do. 7 Our minds are suited perfectly to take the part assigned to us by One Who knows us well.
W-186.3. Today's idea may seem quite sobering, until you see its meaning. 2 All it says is that your Father still remembers you, and offers you the perfect trust He holds in you who are His Son. 3 It does not ask that you be different in any way from what you are. 4 What could humility request but this? 5 And what could arrogance deny but this? 6 Today we will not shrink from our assignment on the specious grounds that modesty is outraged. 7 It is pride that would deny the Call for God Himself.
W-186.4. All false humility we lay aside today, that we may listen to God's Voice reveal to us what He would have us do. 2 We do not doubt our adequacy for the function He will offer us. 3 We will be certain only that He knows our strengths, our wisdom and our holiness. 4 And if He deems us worthy, so we are. 5 It is but arrogance that judges otherwise.
W-186.5. 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. 2 Accept the plan you did not make instead. 3 Judge not your value to it. 4 If God's Voice assures you that salvation needs your part, and that the whole depends on you, be sure that it is so. 5 The arrogant must cling to words, afraid to go beyond them to experience which might affront their stance. 6 Yet are the humble free to hear the Voice which tells them what they are, and what to do.
W-186.6. Arrogance makes an image of yourself that is not real. 2 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. 3 You are not weak, as is the image of yourself. 4 You are not ignorant and helpless. 5 Sin can not tarnish the truth in you, and misery can come not near the holy home of God.
W-186.7. All this the Voice for God relates to you. 2 And as He speaks, the image trembles and seeks to attack the threat it does not know, sensing its basis crumble. 3 Let it go. 4 Salvation of the world depends on you, and not upon this little pile of dust. 5 What can it tell the holy Son of God? 6 Why need he be concerned with it at all?
W-186.8. And so we find our peace. 2 We will accept the function God has given us, for all illusions rest upon the weird belief that we can make another for ourselves. 3 Our self-made roles are shifting, and they seem to change from mourner to ecstatic bliss of love and loving. 4 We can laugh or weep, and greet the day with welcome or with tears. 5 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.
W-186.9. Is this the Son of God? 2 Could He create such instability and call it Son? 3 He Who is changeless shares His attributes with His creation. 4 All the images His Son appears to make have no effect on what he is. 5 They blow across his mind like wind-swept leaves that form a patterning an instant, break apart to group again, and scamper off. 6 Or like mirages seen above a desert, rising from the dust.
W-186.10. These unsubstantial images will go, and leave your mind unclouded and serene, when you accept the function given you. 2 The images you make give rise to but conflicting goals, impermanent and vague, uncertain and ambiguous. 3 Who could be constant in his efforts, or direct his energies and concentrated drive toward goals like these? 4 The functions which the world esteems are so uncertain that they change ten times an hour at their most secure. 5 What hope of gain can rest on goals like this?
W-186.11. 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. 2 There is no doubt of its validity. 3 It comes from One Who knows no error, and His Voice is certain of Its messages. 4 They will not change, nor be in conflict. 5 All of them point to one goal, and one you can attain. 6 Your plan may be impossible, but God's can never fail because He is its Source.
W-186.12. Do as God's Voice directs. 2 And if It asks a thing of you which seems impossible, remember Who it is that asks, and who would make denial. 3 Then consider this; which is more likely to be right? 4 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? 5 Let not its voice direct you. 6 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.
W-186.13. His gentle Voice is calling from the known to the unknowing. 2 He would comfort you, although He knows no sorrow. 3 He would make a restitution, though He is complete; a gift to you, although He knows that you have everything already. 4 He has Thoughts which answer every need His Son perceives, although He sees them not. 5 For Love must give, and what is given in His Name takes on the form most useful in a world of form.
W-186.14. These are the forms which never can deceive, because they come from Formlessness Itself. 2 Forgiveness is an earthly form of love, which as it is in Heaven has no form. 3 Yet what is needed here is given here as it is needed. 4 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. 5 Salvation of the world depends on you who can forgive. 6 Such is your function here.