Lesson 14: God did not create a meaningless world.
Being told that God did not create a meaningless world can seem harshly critical or genuinely liberating depending on where you are at when you encounter this lesson.
It is easy to misunderstand the title of this lesson and interpret it as since God created the world, it must have meaning even when it seems bleak and terrifying, unjust and unrewarding.
To be perfectly clear, Jesus is explaining that this world is meaningless, and because it is meaningless, we can be sure it is not God-created. Therefore, it must be man-made; dreamed up by ego.
Jesus tells us that we will, “…let go the thoughts we have written on the world, and see the Word of God in their place.” Imagine our words are darkness and as we allow them to be erased, the Light beneath them is revealed. But Jesus warns us that this process, even though it truly is salvation, can be experienced as “quite difficult and even quite painful.”
In the text, Jesus says, “Undermining the ego’s thought system must be perceived as painful, even though this is anything but true.” T-4.11.5:1
Now comes the reassurance on which we must rely:
“Some of them [the early steps towards salvation] will lead you directly into fear. You will not be left there. You will go far beyond it. Our direction is toward perfect safety and perfect peace.“
The purpose of Lesson 14 is to experience a thought reversal–a shift in perception as to who the maker of the world is. God creates an ongoing, infinite, eternal, loving state of Mind … not planet earth. This is not meant to minimize or deny what we experience as worldly problems–it is meant to awaken us to the face that we are dreaming a bad dream about a world that does not exist.
