 We continue today with chapter 25. The light you bring, minds that are joined and recognize they are, can feel no guilt. For they cannot attack, and they rejoice that this is so, seeing their safety in this happy fact. Their joy is in the innocence they see, and thus they seek for it, because it is their purpose to behold it and rejoice. Everyone seeks for what will bring him joy as he defines it. It is not the aim as such that varies, yet it is the way in which the aim is seen that makes the choice of means inevitable, and beyond the hope of change unless the aim is changed. And then the means are chosen, once again, as what will bring rejoicing is defined another way, and sought for differently. Perception's basic law could thus be said, you will rejoice at what you see because you see it to rejoice. And while you think that suffering and sin will bring you joy, so long will they be there for you to see. Nothing is harmful or beneficent apart from what you wish. It is your wish that makes it what it is in its effects on you. Because you chose it as a means to gain these same effects, believing them to be the bringers of rejoicing in joy. Even in heaven does this law obtain. The Son of God creates to bring him joy, sharing his father's purpose in his own creation, that his joy might be increased in God's along with his. You maker of a world that is not so, take rest and comfort in another world where peace abides. This world will bring you to all the weary eyes and tired hearts that look on sin and beat its sad refrain. From you can come their rest. From you can rise a world they will rejoice to look upon and where their hearts are glad. In you there is a vision that extends to all of them and covers them in gentleness and light. And in this widening world of light the darkness that they thought was there is pushed away until it is but distant shadows far away, not long to be remembered as the sun shines them to nothingness. And all their quote evil thoughts and quote sinful hopes, their dreams of guilt and merciless revenge and every wish to hurt and kill and die will disappear before the sun you bring. Would you not do this for the love of God and for yourself, for think what it would do for you. Your quote evil thoughts that haunt you now will seem increasingly remote and far away from you and they go farther and farther off because the sun in you has risen that they may be pushed away before the light. They linger for a while, a little while, in twisted forms too far away for recognition and are gone forever. And in the sunlight you will stand in quiet, in innocence and wholly unafraid and from you will the rest you found extend so that your peace can never fall away and leave you homeless. Those who offer peace to everyone have found a home in heaven the world cannot destroy for it is large enough to hold the world within its peace. In you is all of heaven, every leaf that falls is given life in you, each bird that ever sang will sing again in you and every flower that ever bloomed has saved its perfume and its loveliness for you. What aim can supersede the will of God and of his son that heaven be restored to him for whom it was created as his only home? Nothing before and nothing after it, no other place, no other state nor time, nothing beyond nor nearer, nothing else in any form. This can you bring to all the world and all the thoughts that entered it and were mistaken for a little while. How better could your own mistakes be brought to truth than by your willingness to bring the light of heaven with you as you walk beyond the world of darkness into the light. And from the workbook, lesson 194, I place the future in the hands of God. Today's idea takes another step towards quick salvation and a giant stride it is indeed so great the distance is that it encompasses. It sets you down just short of heaven with the goal in sight in obstacles behind. Your foot has reached the lawns that welcome you to heaven's gate, the quiet place of peace where you await with certainty the final step of God. How far are we progressing now from earth? How close are we approaching to our goal? How short the journey still to be pursued? Accept today's idea and you have passed all anxiety, all pits of hell, all blackness of depression, thoughts of sin and devastation brought about by guilt. Accept today's idea and you have released the world from all imprisonment by loosening the heavy change that locked the door to freedom on it. You are saved and your salvation thus becomes the gift you give the world because you have received. In no one instant is depression felt or pain experienced or loss perceived. In no one instant sorrow can be set upon a throne and worship faithfully. In no one instant can one even die and so each instant given unto God in passing with the next one given him already, it's a time of your release from the sadness, pain and even death itself. God holds your future as he holds your past and present. They are one to him and so they should be one to you. Given this world the temporal progression still seems real and so you are not asked to understand the lack of sequence really found in time. You are but asked to let the future go and place it in God's hands and you will see by your experience that you have laid the past and present in his hands as well because the past will punish you no more and future dread will now be meaningless. Release the future for the past is gone and what is present freed from its bequest of grief and misery, of pain and loss becomes the instant in which time escapes the bondage of illusions where it runs its pitiless inevitable course. Then is each instant which was slaved to time transformed into a holy instant when the light that was kept hidden in God's Son is freed to bless the world. Now is he free and all his glory shines upon a world made free with him to share his holiness. If you can see the lesson for today as the deliverance it really is you will not hesitate to give as much consistent effort as you can to make it be a part of you. As it becomes a thought that rules your mind, a habit in your problem solving repertoire, a way of quick reaction to temptation, you extend your learning to the world and as you learn to see salvation in all things so will the world perceive that it is saved. What worry can beset the one who gives his future to the loving hands of God? What can he suffer? What can cause him pain or bring experience of loss to him? What can he fear? And what can he regard except with love? For he who has escaped all fear of future pain has found his way to present peace and certainty of care the world can never threaten. He is sure that his perception may be faulty but will never lack correction. He is free to choose again when he has been deceived to change his mind when he has made mistakes. Place then your future in the hands of God for thus you call the memory of him to come again replacing all your thoughts of sin and evil with the truth of love. Think you the world could fail to gain thereby and every living creature not respond with healed perception. Who entrusts himself to God has also placed the world within the hands to which he has himself appealed for comfort and security. He lays aside the sick illusions of the world along with his eyes and offers peace to both. Now are we saved indeed for in God's hands we rest untroubled sure that only good can come to us. If we forget we will be gently reassured. If we accept an unforgiving thought it will soon be replaced by love's reflection. And if we are tempted to attack we will appeal to him who guards our rest to make the choice for us that leaves temptation far behind. No longer is the world our enemy for we have chosen that we be its friend. Amen.