Seek you no further. You will not find peace except the peace of God. Accept
this fact, and save yourself the agony of yet more bitter disappointments, bleak
despair, and sense of icy hopelessness and doubt. Seek you no further. There is
nothing else for you to find except the peace of God, unless you seek for misery
and pain.
This is the final point to which each one must come at last, to lay aside all
hope of finding happiness where there is none; of being saved by what can only
hurt; of making peace of chaos, joy of pain and Heaven out of hell. Attempt no
more to win through losing, nor to die to live. You cannot but be asking for
defeat.
Yet you can ask as easily for love, for happiness, and for eternal life in peace
that has no ending. Ask for this, and you can only win. To ask for what you have
already must succeed. To ask that what is false be true can only fail. Forgive
yourself for vain imaginings, and seek no longer what you cannot find. For what
could be more foolish than to seek and seek and seek again for hell, when you
have but to look with open eyes to find that Heaven lies before you, through a
door that opens easily to welcome you?
Come home. You have not found your happiness in foreign places, and in alien
forms which have no meaning to you, though you sought to make them meaningful.
This world is not where you belong. You are a stranger here. But it is given you
to find the means whereby the world no longer seems to be a prison house for you
or anyone.
Freedom is given you where you beheld but chains and iron doors. For you must
change your mind about the purpose of the world, if you would find escape. You
will be bound till all the world is seen by you as blessed, and everyone made
free of your mistakes and honored as he is. You made him not; no more yourself.
And as you free the one, the other is accepted as he is.
What does forgiveness do? In truth it has no function and does nothing, for it
is unknown in Heaven. It is only hell where it is needed, and where it must
serve a mighty function. Is not the escape of God's beloved Son from evil
dreams that he imagines, yet believes are true, a worthy purpose? Who could hope
for more while there appears to be a choice to make between success and failure;
love and fear?
There is no peace except the peace of God because He has one Son, who cannot
make a world in opposition to God's Will and to his own, which is the same as
His. What could he hope to find in such a world? It cannot have reality because
it never was created. Is it here that he would seek for peace? Or must he see
that, as he looks on it, the world can but deceive? Yet can he learn to look on
it another way, and find the peace of God.
Peace is the bridge that everyone will cross to leave this world behind. But it
begins within the world perceived as different, and leading from this fresh
perception to the gate of Heaven and the way beyond. Peace is the answer to
conflicting goals, to senseless journeys, frantic, vain pursuits and meaningless
endeavors. Now the way is easy, sloping gently toward the bridge where freedom
lies within the peace of God.
Let us not lose our way again today. We go to Heaven, and the path is straight.
Only if we attempt to wander can there be delay, and needless wasted time on
thorny byways. God alone is sure, and He will guide our footsteps. He will not
desert His Son in need, nor let him stray forever from his home. The Father
calls; the Son will hear. And that is all there is to what appears to be a world
apart from God, where bodies have reality.
Now is there silence. Seek no further. You have come to where the road is
carpeted with leaves of false desires, fallen from the trees of hopelessness you
sought before. Now are they underfoot. And you look up and on toward Heaven,
with the body's eyes but serving for an instant longer now. Peace is already
recognized at last, and you can feel its soft embrace surround your heart and
mind with comfort and with love.
Today we seek no idols. Peace can not be found in them. The peace of God is
ours, and only this will we accept and want. Peace be to us today. For we have
found a simple, happy way to leave the world of ambiguity, and to replace our
shifting goals and solitary dreams with single purpose and companionship. For
peace is union if it be of God. We seek no further. We are close to home, and
draw still nearer every time we say:
"There is no peace except the peace
of God,
And I am glad and thankful it is so."
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