Be not
content with littleness. But be sure you understand what littleness is, and why you could
never be content with it. Littleness is the offering you give yourself. You offer this in
place of magnitude, and you accept it. Everything in this world is little because it is a
world made out of littleness, in the strange belief that littleness can content you. When
you strive for anything in this world in the belief that it will bring you peace, you are
belittling yourself and blinding yourself to glory. Littleness and glory are the choices
open to your striving and your vigilance. You will always choose one at the expense of the
other.
Yet
what you do not realize, each time you choose, is that your choice is your evaluation of
yourself. Choose littleness and you will not have peace, for you will have judged yourself
unworthy of it. And whatever you offer as a substitute is much too poor a gift to satisfy
you. It is essential that you accept the fact, and accept it gladly, that there is no form
of littleness that can ever content you. You are free to try as many as you wish, but all
you will be doing is to delay your homecoming. For you will be content only in magnitude,
which is your home.
There
is a deep responsibility you owe yourself, and one you must learn to remember all the
time. The lesson may seem hard at first, but you will learn to love it when you realize
that it is true and is but a tribute to your power. You who have sought and found
littleness, remember this: Every decision you make stems from what you think you are, and
represents the value that you put upon yourself. Believe the little can content you, and
by limiting yourself you will not be satisfied. For your function is not little, and it is
only by finding your function and fulfilling it that you can escape from littleness.
There
is no doubt about what your function is, for the Holy Spirit knows what it is. There is no
doubt about its magnitude, for it reaches you through Him from
Magnitude. You do not have to strive for it, because you have it. All your striving must
be directed against littleness, for it does require vigilance to protect your magnitude in
this world. To hold your magnitude in perfect awareness in a world of littleness is a task
the little cannot undertake. Yet it is asked of you, in tribute to your magnitude and not
your littleness. Nor is it asked of you alone. The power of God will support every effort
you make on behalf of His dear Son. Search for the little, and you deny yourself His
power. God is not willing that His Son be content with less than everything. For He is not
content without His Son, and His Son cannot be content with less than His Father has given
him.
I
asked you earlier, “Would you be hostage to the ego or host to God?” Let this
question be asked you by the Holy Spirit every time you make a decision. For every
decision you make does answer this, and invites sorrow or joy accordingly. When God gave
Himself to you in your creation, He established you as host to Him forever. He has not
left you, and you have not left Him. All your attempts to deny His magnitude, and make His
Son hostage to the ego, cannot make little whom God has joined with Him. Every decision
you make is for Heaven or for hell, and brings you the awareness of what you decided for.
The
Holy Spirit can hold your magnitude, clean of all littleness, clearly and in perfect
safety in your mind, untouched by every little gift the world of littleness would offer
you. But for this, you cannot side against Him in what He wills for you. Decide for God
through Him. For littleness, and the belief that you can be content with littleness, are
decisions you make about yourself. The power and the glory that lie in you from God are
for all who, like you, perceive themselves as little, and believe that littleness can be
blown up into a sense of magnitude that can content them. Neither give littleness, nor
accept it. All honor is due the host of God. Your littleness deceives you, but your
magnitude is of Him Who dwells in you, and in Whom you dwell. Touch no one, then, with
littleness in the Name of Christ, eternal Host unto His Father.
In
this season (Christmas) which celebrates the birth of holiness into this world, join with
me who decided for holiness for you. It is our task together to restore the awareness of
magnitude to the host whom God appointed for Himself. It is beyond all your littleness to
give the gift of God, but not beyond you. For God would give Himself through
you. He reaches from you to everyone and beyond everyone to His Son’s creations, but
without leaving you. Far beyond your little world but still in you, He extends forever.
Yet He brings all His extensions to you, as host to Him.
Is it
a sacrifice to leave littleness behind, and wander not in vain? It is not sacrifice to
wake to glory. But it is sacrifice to accept anything less than glory. Learn that you must
be worthy of the Prince of Peace, born in you in honor of Him Whose host you are. You know
not what love means because you have sought to purchase it with little gifts, thus valuing
it too little to understand its magnitude. Love is not little and love dwells in you, for
you are host to Him. Before the greatness that lives in you, your poor appreciation of
yourself and all the little offerings you give slip into nothingness.
Holy
child of God, when will you learn that only holiness can content you and give you peace?
Remember that you learn not for yourself alone, no more than I did. It is because I
learned for you that you can learn of me. I would but teach you what is yours, so that
together we can replace the shabby littleness that binds the host of God to guilt and
weakness with the glad awareness of the glory that is in him. My birth in you is your
awakening to grandeur. Welcome me not into a manger, but into the altar to holiness, where
holiness abides in perfect peace. My Kingdom is not of this world because it is in you.
And you are of your Father. Let us join in honoring you, who must remain forever beyond
littleness.
Decide
with me, who has decided to abide with you. I will as my Father wills, knowing His Will is
constant and at peace forever with itself. You will be content with nothing but His Will.
Accept no less, remembering that everything I learned is yours. What my Father loves I
love as He does, and I can no more accept it as what it is not, than He can. And no more
can you. When you have learned to accept what you are, you will make no more gifts to
offer to yourself, for you will know you are complete, in need of nothing, and unable to
accept anything for yourself. But you will gladly give, having received. The host of God
needs not seek to find anything.
If you
are wholly willing to leave salvation to the plan of God and unwilling to attempt to grasp
for peace yourself, salvation will be given you. Yet think not you can substitute your
plan for His. Rather, join with me in His, that we may release all those who would be
bound, proclaiming together that the Son of God is host to Him. Thus will we let no one
forget what you would remember. And thus will you remember it.
Call
forth in everyone only the remembrance of God, and of the Heaven that is in him. For where
you would have your brother be, there will you think you are. Hear not his appeal to hell
and littleness, but only his call for Heaven and greatness. Forget not that his call is
yours, and answer him with me. God's power is forever on the side of His host, for it
protects only the peace in which He dwells. Lay not littleness before His holy altar,
which rises above the stars and reaches even to Heaven, because of what is given it.
A Course in Miracles
Chapter 15