LISTENING to God is a rewarding activity and is akin to scientific prayer. The Apostle Paul said, "I will pray with the spirit, and I will pray with the understanding also" (I Cor.14:15). May we not say, "I will listen with the spirit, and I will listen with the understanding also"? Humbly listening to God and obediently following His divine leadings bring boundless blessings to men.
The patriarchs of old learned to listen to the Holy One of Israel. When but a child, Samuel, instructed by Eli, answered the Lord's call with, "Speak; for thy servant heareth" (I Sam. 3:10). From that time on, the Lord was with Samuel and "did let none of his words fall to the ground" (verse 19). Samuel went on to serve the Lord in a rewarding career as priest, prophet, and judge.
How we yearn to commune with the omnipotent and to know that our prayers are answered! But how do we commune with God? How do we listen? Christian Science reveals that prayer and real listening go hand in hand; and in the chapter entitled "Prayer" in Science and Health, Mrs. Eddy gives this lucid instruction (p. 15): "To enter into the heart of prayer, the door of the erring senses must be closed. Lips must be mute and materialism silent, that man may have audience with Spirit, the divine Principle, Love, which destroys all error."
When we pray, do we try to inform the all-knowing Mind of our burdens? Do we implore divine Love to give us things or to make mortal mind give up? Such prayer is likely to be of no avail. Principle, God, demands that we silence the material senses, that is, rule out ungodlike thinking and refuse to react to such undesirable conspirators as impatience and inordinate wants or to discouragement and fear. We close "the door of the erring senses" and are really listening when we trust our true desires to God, strive to live so as to show that we really do trust Him, and prepare for and expect good.
Sometimes a right idea comes, only to be ignored because we are too bent on having things work out our own way. To outline how a problem should be solved from a human standpoint and then pray to the Father to bring it to pass is not scientific and usually fails. Better and quicker demonstrations will result when we pray, "Thy will be done; not mine," and let God lead us in His own way. The door which enables us to receive "abundantly above all that we ask or think" (Eph. 3:20) is opened to such spiritually disciplined thinking.
"God is not separate from the wisdom He bestows. The talents He gives we must improve" (Science and Health, p. 6). Because in reality all reflect God, all have the talent or ability to listen and respond to good alone. Through such real listening one can confidently say: "With what clarity does the all-knowing, through His unfailing law, reveal Himself to His own! With what joy shall I rightfully accept all the ideas He has to give!"
Sometimes one may find himself listening to error instead of to Truth. He may accept the erroneous belief that he has unsolved problems that do not yield. He may even think and say, "I cannot get rid of this." Another excuse may be: "I am not good enough to be healed," or "I do not have enough spiritual understanding to meet this problem." Worse yet is the attempt to blame God with error's dereliction, saying, "God is not healing me." All this is nothing but fraudulent animal magnetism talking, which is powerless to turn our thinking away from our present perfection and likeness to God unless we listen to it and agree with its suggestions.
If we refuse to be fooled, nothing can keep us from expressing our divine nature and experiencing now the good that God has already bestowed upon us. Listening to God, we know that right where erring belief suggests self-condemnation, discouragement, or delayed healing, the unerring and unfalteringly perfect idea of Life itself is being expressed.
Do we sometimes think, "Oh, I know that's true about my real self, but . . . "? The alert student, barring his thought against unwelcome intrusions, casts out the demons of doubt and deficiency and denounces the possibility of a selfhood apart from God. Listening to divinely intelligent Mind, he knows that because there is only one God, there is only one kind of man, God's perfect man, His own reflection, forever whole, satisfied, and complete.
Born of Spirit, not matter, man's perfect selfhood has always dwelt in omnipotent Mind, in perfect peace and eternal harmony. So at all times man expresses health and holiness. Infinite Love has bestowed these spiritual blessings on its idea, man, and so-called mortal mind is powerless to make any change.
Hearing is a faculty of the divine Mind, which man reflects. Real listening is wise, spiritual discernment and does not require an auditory nerve. Acknowledging our true self hood as the image of this Mind, we can discern ever-present good, instead of accepting never-present evil. This silences the clamor of material sense for ingress into our thinking.
Through Christian Science the one ineradicable Mind redeems us from the error of listening to mortal mind's vain suppositions. "Thus saith the Lord that created thee, O Jacob, and he that formed thee, O Israel, Fear not: for I have redeemed thee, I have called thee by thy name; thou art mine" (Isa. 43:1). Just think! Our wonderful Father has delivered us from the need of listening to and accepting such mindless beliefs as failure, despair, anxiety, or fear or any argument that error is part of His beloved child. In reality man is insensible to evil; he cannot know it or express it, for Mind does not know it or express it.
Yielding to the all-impelling, spiritual Mind-force, the alert listener companions with right ideas, stands firm in times of stress, and not only starts with but sticks to good as the only reality. Thus he begins to take in the significance of our Leader's inspired words, "He who has the true idea of good loses all sense of evil, and by reason of this is being ushered into the undying realities of Spirit" (Science and Health, p. 325)
Further on, we read, "Jesus gave the true idea of being, which results in infinite blessings to mortals." The Master's example illustrates for us the way to eternal harmony. Perceiving "the true idea of good" is the result of real listening and must expand into expression, into purer lives, greater peace and harmony, yes, dominion over every belief in evil.
