What If?

Unique Perspectives: What if?

By Kim Stevens

What if?

There’s a workbook lesson in A Course in Miracles that I return to again and again. It’s Lesson 135: “If I defend myself, I am attacked.”

At first glance, it sounds… well, a little outrageous. What do you mean, if I defend myself I’m attacked? That makes no sense! But stick with me, because this lesson has really changed how I live.

Here’s the premise in a nutshell: Planning, in the way most of us do it, is actually a form of defense.

The Course says we give illusions full reality when we try to:

• Plan the future out of fear,

•Reactivate the past to predict what’s next, or

•Organize the present to stay in control.

I know, I know. It sounds absurd. But when you pause and really sit with it… there’s something here.

The truth is, we often make elaborate plans because we’re afraid. Afraid that we won’t be okay if we don’t plan. That the future will collapse unless we manage every detail. That we won’t be provided for unless we make it happen.

The Course says “a healed mind does not plan. It carries out the plans that it receives through listening to wisdom that is not its own.”

I just love that.

What I love most about this teaching is the freedom it offers. It’s a deep exhale. It’s permission to stop forcing and start trusting. To stop strategizing and start listening… to God, the Holy Spirit, the Universe, Your Higher Self - whatever language speaks to your soul.

I don’t do this perfectly. But more and more, I allow myself the luxury of not over-planning, and instead… noticing. I wait to see what nudges me. What inspires me. What gently pulls at my attention.

And every time I follow that, something magical happens.

This passage from Lesson 135 is my all-time favorite. I’ve said it so many times I can recite it by heart. Whenever someone I love is struggling or afraid, they’ll often text me: “Wait—what’s that thing you always say?”

And this is it:

“What could you not accept, if you but knew that everything that happens, all events, past, present, and to come, are gently planned by One Whose only purpose is your good? Perhaps you misunderstood His plan, for He would never offer pain to you. But your defenses did not let you see His loving blessing shine in every step you ever took.”

Isn’t that just beautiful?

What if every step you’ve taken, even the ones you labeled as wrong or painful, was part of a gentle plan, meant only for your good? What if the very thing you’re defending against is already being taken care of? What if you could put down your defenses, your need to plan and control… and just trust?

Really, what if?