Sometimes when mulling over unsolved problems, this question comes, "Why doesn't God help me more?" We may wonder, when our prayers are sincere, why we don't see quicker and better results from them. Feeling apart from God's help and separated from Him is a mental hell. However, there is a release from this question and its subsequent suffering.
This kind of questioning may mean that, at least for the moment, we're thinking of God in anthropomorphic terms. Somewhere in our consciousness our view of God is not consistent with a spiritually enlightened understanding of Him, and therein lies the source of our suffering. God needs no changing, but our concept of Him often does.
Throughout all history mankind has been putting off a mortal, hazy view of God, bit by bit exchanging it for a more spiritually enlightened concept of Him. Abraham's acknowledgment of one God and Moses' inspiration in receiving the Ten Commandments are examples of important steps in this advancement. We can see how erroneous notions of God have been overcome through the centuries, and we can realize the challenge facing us to overcome our own false beliefs about Him. Mrs. Eddy writes, "Through many generations human beliefs will be attaining diviner conceptions, and the immortal and perfect model of God's creation will finally be seen as the only true conception of being."Science and Health, p.260; These "diviner conceptions" are our answer.
The truth of God and man is contained in the Bible, but we must have a spiritually enlightened view of this truth in order to understand it and demonstrate it. Christian Science has explained to us the provable and demonstrable law, or Science, of Christianity. It is clearly consonant with the original and primitive Christianity taught by the master Christian, Christ Jesus.
The world has matured to the point of readiness to understand God in totally spiritual terms. Divine Science is the Comforter that Jesus said would come and explain all things when mankind had grown into a readiness for it. "The Comforter, which is the Holy Ghost, whom the Father will send in my name, he shall teach you all things."John 14:26; We are ready to drop our infantile mental habits and grasp God in Christianly scientific terms. We can begin to prove God's nature and His gifts to man.
When we think in terms of why God isn't helping us more, we are indulging in a wrong concept of God. Perhaps we're believing He either helps or doesn't help according to whim, or that He requires more of us than we are able to give. We may think that God is capable of withholding good, or that He penalizes or punishes. We may believe in a power apart from God called the devil, or evil (in the guise of sin, suffering, or death), which can overpower His goodness and separate us from it.
These are not spiritually enlightened views, and they find no support in the teachings of the Master, Christ Jesus, or of Christian Science. Our concept of God needs changing if we are accepting any of these suggestions. As we realize that there is a law—unerring divine government, or Science—to rely on, we quit petitioning God as a corporeal person to heal us.
Through the study of Christian Science we learn increasingly to acknowledge what God has already done, what the truth of His creation is. These acknowledgments are based on spiritual facts, not on the erroneous mortal view. The recognition of the spiritual fact acts as a law to our present human situation, bringing the spiritual reality to light in our experience.
"Ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free."8:32; This indicates a need for knowing and understanding Truth rather than for petitioning. It demands enlightened spiritual understanding. As we learn to recognize and hold steadfastly to what is spiritually true of ourselves, we come to know the truth as Jesus taught us we would, and we will see the healing and the freedom it confers. Now, as then, God is God.
"Why doesn't God help me more?" is the plea of the mortal or carnal mind that starts off with a belief of separation from God, good. Paul called this mind "enmity against God."Rom. 8:7; This argument of separation from God, good, would try to bury us in the pit of pity—self-pity—but we can rise out of this self-dug pit when we are willing to consistently put off all erroneous views of God and gain a more spiritual conception. God doesn't withhold a healing, ever; but by the very nature of His being, we are required to conform to His law in order to get the desired results. "We must recollect that Truth is demonstrable when understood, and that good is not understood until demonstrated,"Science and Health, p.323; Mrs. Eddy reminds us. Therefore an unsolved problem simply means that we need to learn more of God, dig deeper into reality. We can rejoice in God, who, as unchanging Principle, demands of us that which truly promotes our spiritual growth and progress.
Careful scrutiny of thought is required to be sure that we have a true understanding of God, and that we are not making idols of current, modern-day gods in our thinking. Superstition, scholastic theology, apathy, doubt, fear, duplicity, the widespread propaganda of diseases paraded daily before us, are but a few of the false gods we must beware of. This is not a formidable task, however. God, divine Love, supports every true desire to know Him, and Christ, Truth, is eternally present to usher us into the sanctuary of true worship and at-one-ment with our heavenly Father. The children of Israel's journey into the Promised Land could have taken less time, except for the lessons they had to learn. We can take a more direct route to our own "promised land" of health and holiness if we will willingly sacrifice our false gods and erroneous thinking. That is the demand made upon us. As Mrs. Eddy says, "Pray without ceasing. Watch diligently; never desert the post of spiritual observation and self-examination."Miscellaneous Writings, p.154.
Few of us are totally exempt from asking why? But we can progressively put off such thinking. We can leave outgrown concepts of God for the diviner conception that reveals God as total Love, as unchanging divine Principle, whose power and law is ever present and demonstrable. We can begin to grasp the fact of God as divine Mind, revealing to each of us inspiration and true knowledge of ourselves. We can mentally expand our concept of Life to include birthless, matterless, deathless being. We have the promise and potential of freedom, and as we come closer to the facts, or spiritual realities of God and man, we will find less and less a sense of separation from Him. We don't have to be in the hell of confusion and unanswered questioning.
Christian Science enables us to find the heaven of peace and confident trust above the chaos and chattering of the carnal mind. It enables us to find the quiet calm conviction of Truth and its sure demonstration. As we faithfully exercise the Christian qualities of hope, persistence, and self-discipline, coupled with a scientific enlightened view of God, we will assuredly be released from questioning and suffering and find the answers for which our prayers are searching.
