Peace is also an experience. It is the experience that happens when everything is in perfect timing, just as it should be. This is a big one and it helps you to see why you need to focus on this for a year. Just accepting things as they are is peaceful. The minute we feel like we have to fix things we know that something is wrong. Is there anything in your life you are trying to fix or change? Anything in the experience of your work? Just think about what so many of us say then. It’s often something
like “This isn’t right! It’s got to be different.” And the minute we think it’s got to be different, we lose our feeling of peace.
So, what if we become aware of that feeling and really began to believe that there is a divine order to this Universe? There is an infinite Power in this Universe and it knows exactly what needs to be happening exactly when it needs to be happening. And what if we become aware that nothing is apart from God, or as someone else said, “I like to spell God with two o’s (GOOD)”, and there’s nothing apart from good? If I really get that, then I stay in the experience of peace. The minute I feel like something’s got
to change, I lose peace. Peace doesn’t mean that everything is going to go the way I like it. Peace doesn’t mean that everything is necessarily what we call “going well”. Peace is the experience of knowing that there is a Divine Presence and a Divine Power and it is all Good and that knowing is underneath everything, even what may look like chaos on the outside. That’s a really important distinction.
Peace doesn’t mean that suddenly when you say, “I choose peace.” you get it. Why don’t I experience it at every single moment? There’s a big difference between feelings and emotions. And the war may rage. Things may happen. I’ve had a hard week! Let me tell you all about it. All the little stuff, every single thing, that could have possibly caused me to lose my peace happened. Nothing major, thank God. Every phone call was somebody who was upset about something. You know, those silly things that aren’t yet finished
around the house. I had a choice, constantly, to go with how my emotions were carrying me at the moment or to go with the feeling of peace. The Course in Miracles says it profoundly, “I could choose peace instead of this.”
