A Much-Loved account of a healing by Christ Jesus is given in the fifth chapter of the Gospel of John. The healing occurred by the side of the pool of Bethesda in Jerusalem which was frequented by the sick. It was believed that the water of the pool was disturbed periodically by the entrance of an angel, resulting in the healing of the first sick person to enter the pool thereafter.
Jesus noted a man lying there who had been sick for thirty-eight years and who had come to the pool in the hope of receiving his healing in this manner. He had been repeatedly frustrated because he had no one to assist him into the pool after the disturbing of the water, and more active sick people had entered before him. Jesus said to the man, "Rise, take up thy bed, and walk," and the man was made whole.
Here was an individual who was weighed down by false beliefs, which are typical of those enslaving mankind today. His faith that the supposed troubling of the water by an angel would have a healing effect was tinged with superstition and mysticism and was restricted by the belief that this help was periodic and limited to a fortunate few. He did not possess the spiritual understanding of God, who is everywhere present and whose help is continually available to mankind.
Mary Baker Eddy says in "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures" (p. 13:) "Love is impartial and universal in its adaptation and bestowals. It is the open fount which cries, 'Ho, every one that thirsteth, come ye to the waters.'"
According to the sick man's belief, the healing power of the pool was used up by one person, and no more power was available until the water was again disturbed. He thought that good was limited, that there was not enough to go around, that good experienced by one individual can diminish or exhaust the blessings available to others.
This limited concept of good is encountered frequently in the business world. One may be prone to outline his career in thought and to stake out a claim to a certain position in a business organization and work toward it. Then if the position is given to another, he believes that he has suffered a personal loss and gives way to jealousy and bitterness. He thinks that someone has stepped into the pool ahead of him, has come between him and what was rightfully his.
With the object of preventing a recurrence of such a mishap, he may resort to personal influence and try to find someone who will put him into the pool ahead of the others when the water is next disturbed. In other words, he may try to ingratiate himself with some influential individual who will see that he gets the next good position that becomes available.
A right concept of God and of man's relationship to Him changes this attitude of thought. The infinite God is expressed by His infinite reflection, man, including the universe. In Science, each of us is an individual manifestation of divine Mind. In God's perfectly ordered universe there is no conflict among His ideas. Each idea has its own place, its own activity, its own ability to reflect good from God.
No one's reception of good is lessened by what his neighbor receives, because the source is infinite. One does not believe that the sunshine his neighbor's lawn and flowers receive will diminish that available for his own yard.
Each of us, then, can and should rejoice in another's accomplishment, his success, his happiness. We can see the folly of mentally limiting our demonstration of good by confining its expression to certain channels, such as a particular job, a particular individual, or a particular political and economic atmosphere. We can and should attain a more expansive attitude of thought and rise spiritually to the recognition that God is the source of all good, that good is limitless, not confined to certain human channels, but flowing from the divine source through countless avenues. We learn that opportunity knocks constantly in our experience and on doors that we did not know existed until our thought was uplifted.
We need to look to God, divine Love, for guidance and follow where He leads, by recognizing that God's true thoughts or ideas, which abound in consciousness, displace fear, doubt, and materiality. Our consciousness must be in tune with divine Mind, receptive to the light of Love, to the voice of Truth, and it can become thus only when we strive to follow Christ in our every thought and deed.
Sometimes we are led by a route that seems most inauspicious, and we may wonder at the unhappy experiences that occur. We can be sure that Joseph would not have desired to be sold into slavery by his brethren, as is recorded in the Bible. However, he was willing to trust in God's guidance, and he found his life greatly blessed and enriched as a result.
That he recognized God's guiding hand in his experience is evident in his remark to his brethren after he had been raised to a position of great power and trust in Egypt (Gen. 45:5), "Now therefore be not grieved, nor angry with yourselves, that ye sold me hither: for God did send me before you to preserve life."
This experience illustrates the truth of Paul's words (Rom. 8:28), "All things work together for good to them that love God." Mrs. Eddy makes a correlative statement in Science and Health (p. 574,) "The very circumstance, which your suffering sense deems wrathful and afflictive, Love can make an angel entertained unawares."
We may well pray in the attitude of thought that is willing to go wherever our Father-Mother God wants us to go and to do what He wants us to do. We should know that God's loving care will bless us and bring us all that we need by ways that we may never have dreamed of, since He is the source of all good. As Mrs. Eddy says (ibid., Pref., p. vii), "To those leaning on the sustaining infinite, to-day is big with blessings."
When we really lean on God alone and prayerfully demonstrate the true source of good, we shall find that good is ever operative. We need not be concerned how it will be manifested in our experience, but we can rejoice that we need no one but God, as expressed through Christ, Truth, to provide all good. We can be grateful for the human means by which good is brought to us, but we must not mistake the means for the true source, which is God.
Christian Science has found many people figuratively waiting by the pool of Bethesda for healing, supply, and success. The voice of Truth summons them to rise and take up their beds, lift up their consciousness to God as their only support, the unfailing and continuous source of all good. When they do this, they will walk confidently, "leaning on the sustaining infinite," well, successful, and happy.
