Messengers of Love
A Course in Miracles uses the beautiful metaphor of messengers of love. These messengers are essentially envoys that we send out in search of love. And they return to us what they found.
There are also corollary agents known as messengers of fear. They, too, are sent out in search of what they value – in this case, fear – and they also return to us their “treasures”.
So, we have these two sets of messengers that we send forth into the world to bring us their findings.
But here’s the catch. We only get to send and receive one set of messengers at a time. And we know which ones we’ve sent by how we feel.
The messengers of fear “are trained through terror, are merciless even to its friends, and look for what can suffer.” (T-19.IV.A.12, T-19.IV.B.3) And what they serve up to us is every form of awfulness: fear, shame, anger, sadness, and every other negative emotion. Whenever we experience anything other than peace, we can be certain that we first sent out messengers of fear.
Conversely, the messengers of love always lead to the wonderful feelings of peace and joy. “They will see only the blameless and the beautiful, the gentle and the kind. And they will return with all the happy things they found, to share them lovingly with you. Be not afraid of them. Theirs are the messages of safety, for they see the world as kind.” (T-19.A.14)
So the next time we’re feeling unhappy or angry or fearful, we can remember that we must have sent out our messengers of fear. And now we can choose instead to send love’s messengers.