We really begin to live when we look to God, divine Spirit, for all good. As God, and not matter or people, is understood to be the source of happiness and well-being, human experience blossoms in good—in health, accomplishment, fulfillment. The Scriptures say: "Put not your trust in princes, nor in the son of man, in whom there is no help.... Happy is he that hath the God of Jacob for his help, whose hope is in the Lord his God." 1
Christian Science reveals that God is unchanging Love. The law of Love blesses each one of us impartially and continuously. There is no changeableness in divine Love. God, Life, Soul, Mind, perpetuates eternally changeless good, the substance of the real man.
When the spiritual nature of God as Love is understood, true selfhood, or God's idea, is recognized as the expression of good. The consciousness of good, its strength and permanency, bears witness to Mind's presence and action. In possession of all of the spiritual qualities of God, true selfhood reflects the stability of the infinite.
To understand and demonstrate in some degree that the consciousness of health does not lapse into disease, or happiness into sorrow, or integrity into moral weakness is vitally important. We need to relinquish belief in the supposed reality of negative mortal mind and matter and awaken to the fact that the only true substance of being is God and His reflection.
Receptivity to good is determined by a wholehearted willingness to change our view of existence from the false to the true sense of being and to consistently maintain the true sense in consciousness. The understanding of spiritual good exposes as nothingness the evils that need to be overcome. Pride and human will surrender to true humility—to identification of ourselves with God as His idea. We rise above the love of the world, which makes us vulnerable to frustration and disappointment, elements of the belief of life in matter. We become aware of divine Love's conscious presence as we progressively abandon the material sense of existence for the spiritual.
The good that represents God develops in our experience as consciousness is spiritualized. Misunderstandings between people, impositions, and hatred are unknown in the atmosphere of harmony in which we all really live. Knowing this and consistently expressing unselfed love, spiritual happiness, and integrity, we find health and well-being becoming the substance of our thought and life.
What about the confusion in everyday living, the conflicts, injustices, and discontents? Mortal discords objectify conditions of mortal mind. Mortal experience can be likened to a dream at night. Sometimes it is pleasant, sometimes discordant. Whatever form it takes, it is never the reality of being. The belief in a selfhood apart from God produces all sorts of difficulties. But as the erroneous sense of identity is exchanged for the real, good—God's self-expression—comes into view.
Materiality, conflicting motives, misguided affections, are mortal instabilities, which may appear in forms of sin, sickness, and discord. Since mortalmindedness produces human difficulties, true healing must include a change in human consciousness, and the offending error needs to be eradicated by God's spiritual idea.
Trying to change people and even praying for them to change is not the effective way to heal frustration and conflict. Praying to change a sick body into a healthy one is not the way to attain spiritual healing. The material view of existence needs to be replaced with the spiritual, and as this is done healing takes place. One stops yearning for physical relief and is healed in the measure that consciousness, regenerated spiritually, adopts the truth of being as the existent reality.
When love takes the place of resentment, impatience gives way to patience and fretfulness to spiritual inspiration. As the spiritual qualities of being govern consciousness, divine Mind establishes a healthy state of being in the areas of human experience that need healing. Motives and affections are spiritualized and human desires conform to God's government of His idea. Indeed, one's attitude changes radically from seeking happiness and health in matter to expressing life in and of Spirit.
The rearrangement of a dream does not destroy the dream. A dream is destroyed when one is awake. Similarly, the solution to complex human difficulties comes from waking up to the perfection of divine Mind. Healing comes as we acknowledge our identity to be Mind's self-expression rather than a mortal struggling to get freedom, health, or peace. The identity of God's idea is completely different from its supposititious opposite, life in and of matter. When spiritual being is admitted to be the only reality, the erroneous belief that there is a mind separate from God is destroyed along with its self-imposed inflictions. In Science and Health Mrs. Eddy writes, "'Let there be light,' is the perpetual demand of Truth and Love, changing chaos into order and discord into the music of the spheres." 2
Christ Jesus told others that the solution to the ills of the flesh did not come from corporeal selfhood but from divine Mind. He said: "I can of mine own self do nothing" and "My Father worketh hitherto, and I work." 3 Jesus knew that the Christ is Mind-illumined consciousness of being.
Human bodies are healed and lives harmonized in the degree that human thought conforms to the spiritual strength of true consciousness. Mrs. Eddy says, "As when an acid and alkali meet and bring out a third quality, so mental and moral chemistry changes the material base of thought, giving more spirituality to consciousness and causing it to depend less on material evidence." Then she adds, "These changes which go on in mortal mind serve to reconstruct the body." 4
Whether we need to determine if we should change jobs or location, or need to make an intelligent decision concerning a business problem, the spiritual forces of divine Mind in consciousness can be relied on and utilized. Mind's ideas actually exist right where the confusion seems to be. As these ideas are identified, the resulting radical change of outlook brings healing. Often, seemingly insurmountable difficulties give way to wonderful solutions, which bless all concerned.
The unchanging presence of divine intelligence constitutes all true being. As this is understood, the illusion of life in matter is destroyed and God's government of His idea is demonstrated. The spiritual power of the Christ restores the sense of health and well-being, which has never been really lost—only hidden by false belief.
Human emotions that go from one extreme to the other evidence an undisciplined and indulgent sense of mortal self. A so-called artistic temperament or inherited imbalance is not a valid reason for yielding consciousness to erratic behavior. Such debilitating characteristics give way to the unchanging nature of real being, cherished and expressed.
How blessed we are that Christian Science has revealed to us the spiritual, healing law of God! The presence and influence of the Christ are continuously powerful in individual consciousness and manifest divine Love's healing power. All we need to do is turn to the Christly influence, submit to it, and be blessed.
