Chapter Eighteen
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HomeContentsChapter_Twenty
1. Healing and Faith
2. Sin versus Error
3. The Unreality of Sin
4. The Obstacles to Peace
5. The First Obstacle: The Desire to Get Rid of It
6. The Attraction of Guilt
7. The Second Obsacle: The Belief the Body is Valuable for What It Offers
8. The Attraction of Pain
9. The Third Obstacle: The Attraction of Death
10. The Incorruptible Body
11. The Fourth Obsticale: The Fear of God
12. The Lifting of the Veil
The Obstacles to Peace
As peace extends from deep inside yourself to embrace all the Sonship and give it rest, it will encounter many obstacles. Some of them you will try to impose. Others will seem to arise from elsewhere; from your brothers, and from various aspects of the world outside. Yet peace will gently cover them, extending past completely unencumbered. The extension of the Holy Spirit's purpose from your relationship to others, to bring them gently in, will quietly extend to every aspect of your lives, surrounding each of you with glowing happiness and the calm awareness of complete protection. And you will carry its message of love and safety and freedom to everyone who draws nigh unto your temple, where healing waits for him. You will not wait to give him this, for you will call to him and he will answer you, recognizing in your call the Call for God. And you will draw him in and give him rest, as it was given you.
All this will you do. Yet the peace that already lies deeply within must first expand, and flow across the obstacles you placed before it. This will you do, for nothing undertaken with the Holy Spirit remains unfinished. You can indeed be sure of nothing you see outside you, but of this you can be sure: The Holy Spirit asks that you offer him a resting place where you will rest in him. He answered you, and entered your relationship. Would you not now return his graciousness, and enter into a relationship with him? For it is he who offered your relationship the gift of holiness, without which it would have been forever impossible to appreciate your brother.
The gratitude you owe to him he asks but that you receive for him. And when you look with gentle graciousness upon your brother, you are beholding him. For you are looking where he is , and not apart from him. You cannot see the Holy Spirit, but you can see your brothers truly. And the light in them will show you all that you need to see. When the peace in you has been extended to encompass everyone, the Holy Spirit's function here will be accomplished. What need is there for seeing, then? When God has taken the last step himself, the Holy Spirit will gather all the thanks and gratitude that you have offered him, and lay them gently before his Creator in the name of his most holy Son. And the Father will accept them in his name. What need is there of seeing, in the presence of his gratitude?