There came a time in the lives of Abraham and his nephew Lot, so the thirteenth chapter of Genesis records, when they found that they could no longer dwell together because the land in which they were, was not able to support their combined herds and flocks. Furthermore, trouble arose between their respective herdsmen. Abraham, desirous of an amicable solution, bade Lot make his choice of the land he desired for his own, saying that he himself would take what was left.
Both of these men looked from the same spot. Each beheld a horizon peculiarly his own. Lot's enclosed a fertile valley wherein he conceivably visualized great increase in his wealth. He chose the well-watered basin of the Jordan, doubtless failing to recognize that a desire for personal gain was luring him away from God into the temptations and woes of materiality. Sodom, where he took up residence, was a city of much wickedness. In the course of a war waged by the several kings in this vicinity Lot and all his goods were captured, only to be rescued by Abraham. Later Lot was divinely preserved in the destruction of Sodom, but his wife, disobeying the angel's command, looked back and was turned into a pillar of salt. Lot's horizon being limited by the illusory claims of matter, his accomplishments were accordingly limited and unimportant.
On the other hand Abraham, trustingly accepting the land which was left, knew that his destiny was in the hands of God. He had followed divine guidance in leaving his homeland; and wherever he went he built altars unto the Lord and called upon His name. His quest was not primarily for pasturage but for God's directing, in accordance with the eternal law which Christ Jesus later stated (Matt. 6:33), "Seek ye first the kingdom of God, and his righteousness; and all these things shall be added unto you."
After Lot had chosen his lands and departed, God revealed to Abraham the reward of his faith and unselfishness by bidding him look in every direction from where he stood, for all which he could see was his and his seed's (Gen. 13:14,15). His faith and spiritual vision extended his horizon far beyond the perception of his fellow men. Small wonder that he has become a symbol of the faith founded on spiritual understanding.
Such faith and spiritual vision as Abraham's are attainable today when sincerely sought in the Bible and in the teachings of Christian Science. In the forty-fifth chapter of Isaiah we read (verse 11), "Ask me [God] of things to come concerning my sons, and concerning the work of my hands command ye me." The measure of our enjoyment of the harmony which God impartially bestows is limited only by our individual horizons of faith and spiritual understanding and by the degree of our obedience to the command to walk through the length and breadth of the land, honestly and earnestly searching in Mind for an ever fuller comprehension of man's true being.
The divine dictum was that Abraham's affluence was restricted to the good he could envision. Thus the clarity with which we look beyond the deceptive and limiting claims of matter and recognize God as the divine Principle of man's being determines our life purpose and expectations and the possibility of their attainment.
One's mental horizon is of immense importance. If his concept of himself and his goal is based on matter, if he depends upon the human brain for wisdom and upon material possessions for wealth, he must eventually find, as did Lot, the walls of this limited belief closing in upon him. But if he has perceived man as the beloved child of God, he is ever experiencing in increasing degree the protection, guidance, and abundance which are the heritage of all God's ideas.
Our horizon changes with our point of view. As we walk toward it, it recedes, revealing vistas before unseen. As we lift thought to behold man as the idea of God, we shall leave behind the material landmarks which measure success and happiness by mortal mind's deceptive and ever-changing standards and find daily and hourly opportunities for higher demonstrations of the divine nature. Thus the kingdom of heaven, the reign of harmony, is brought to earth.
Mary Baker Eddy writes in the Christian Science textbook, "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures" (p. 264): "Mortals must look beyond fading, finite forms, if they would gain the true sense of things. Where shall the gaze rest but in the unsearchable realm of Mind?" In the next paragraph she adds, "As mortals gain more correct views of God and man, multitudinous objects of creation, which before were invisible, will become visible." In proportion as God is seen to be divine Spirit, the only creator, whose spiritual creation, man and the universe, reflects and expresses Him, there unfolds in human consciousness such a sense of the oneness of God and man that the possibility of attaining spiritual good becomes a tangible reality. One so inspired is enabled to forsake the pettiness, fear, and suffering with which mortal mind would burden humanity, and to behold more and more of the love, joy, abundance, health, and other Christly attributes which constitute man's true selfhood.
Physical frailty, family opposition, financial lack, betrayal by friends, were a few of the problems met by our Leader. These might have resulted in a fettered, frustrated outlook had she not been inspired and sustained by her quenchless faith in God's goodness and her all-inclusive love for humanity. In her brief autobiography, "Retrospection and Introspection," she tells how in a very dark hour her horizon was enlarged by the vision of spiritual reality.
Under the heading "Emergence into Light" she records that when the cloud of mortal mind had lost its silver lining and materiality its rainbow of promise, she found the consciousness of spiritual existence wherein, as she declares (p. 23): "Being was beautiful, its substance, cause, and currents were God and His idea. I had touched the hem of Christian Science." Such vistas of reality may come to us all when the senses are silenced and we, in accordance with Paul's statement, "look not at the things which are seen, but at the things which are not seen: for the things which are seen are temporal; but the things which are not seen are eternal" (II Cor. 4:18).
To accept mortal mind's false, material presentation of man and the universe limits the scope of our capabilities and hedges us about with obstacles to happiness and success. Even though one may feel justified in striving for a specific earthly goal, no human attainment can really satisfy, since it does not possess the qualities of permanence, perfection, and completeness. If one strives, instead, for the realization that permanence, perfection, and completeness are inherent in God and therefore inhere in His expression, he is seeking the kingdom of God and may be confident that whatever is needed in the human economy will be made manifest. Only in this way can one find freedom from anxiety and true peace of mind.
The master Christian, in giving the recipe for a full and satisfying life, did not advise us to strive for material riches or position. He bade us in effect to seek within ourselves the kingdom of God; to achieve that state of consciousness wherein faith and love prevail and man is seen as God's idea, possessing all good by reflection. With perfection as the only horizon we need not make a wearisome ascent from materiality to spirituality. The new heaven and the new earth which appeared to St. John, devoid of pain, sorrow, and death, are the ever-present spiritual facts of being here and now.
