How deeply have you pondered the fact that your identity, your very being or real selfhood, is the deliberate, explicit expression of God and of His will? The entire creation is the consummation of His will. Manifesting the infinite "I AM," His ideas or children are unique in their individual identity.
The infinite divine Mind, God, is the self-creative intelligence, eternally revealing only goodness, perfection, harmony. Since the aspects of "will" include purpose, motivation, and determination, these aspects must be consistent with His nature, infinite Love, Life, Truth.
In the universal prayer we know as the Lord's Prayer, we pray, "Thy will be done in earth, as it is in heaven."Matt. 6:10. Mankind's quest for God, the awareness of His power and presence in human experience, is fulfilled only by understanding His will for all His beloved children here and now.
Our aim, therefore, is to seek the answer to the important question "What is God's will?" The answer, beginning to dawn in human consciousness, brings to light the purpose of man's existence and his relation to the eternal scheme of things, for which so many seem to be searching. Glimpsed even in a degree, the practical application of recognizing God's will brings improvement to the individual in regard to health, success, happiness, human relationships, and environment.
Strictly speaking, God's will is, not eventually will be, done. His will encompasses and activates all, and this all can never be anything but good. God's allness is infallible, complete, and irreversible. How could the purpose of an infinite, omnipotent God be inconsistent with His basic nature? Since the one divine Mind, or Principle, creates and sustains the entire universe, including man, it surely must follow that any apparent deviation from the harmony of that creation is not of His doing or in accordance with His will. Any appearance to the contrary is a mirage of evil and cannot touch the real man. Man, as well as the whole universe, is the exemplification of the perfect will of God.
The frequently heard legal phrase "acts of God," used to denote the destructive effects of so-called natural forces beyond the control of humanity, has no proper place in the lexicon of the Christian metaphysician. Divine Mind's activity is always good and always changeless—a fact we can demonstrate.
Mankind is prone to attribute afflictions or misfortunes to the will of God. Blindly accepting illness, lack, failure, wars, pestilence, and so on, as the result of God's volition is a gross misrepresentation of the divine character. Because God is All and because He is good, He cannot decree an effect unlike Himself. The belief that misfortunes are sent to punish humankind is based on an anthropomorphic or human concept of God. What then can one say to those who pitifully cry, "Oh, why did this happen to me?"
If God did not send it, where did it come from? Since it cannot be part of His perfect universe and His deliberate plan, it can only be part of the pervasive mortal belief in the supposed reality of both good and evil as propounded by the Garden of Eden's allegorical serpent, the father of all lies. Realization of God's innocence surely undermines suggestions or predictions of ill fortune.
To impute to God any evil or imperfection is to dishonor Him. The infinite creator could not express an intent to fasten suffering on His beloved offspring. The all-power of the omnipresent, loving Father cannot be limited, although error may claim a longstanding, unyielding, or serious malfunction of the human mind or body. But no baneful circumstance can be of His making.
Prayers in Science are for the recognition and demonstration of the divine perfect will. The perfect will of God, expressed in good only, is never arbitrary, punitive, or variable, and it is always operative. This demonstration is true Mind-healing (always with a capital M) in contrast to the popular concept of mental healing involving the power of suggestion, "thinking good thoughts," psychiatry, hypnotism, blind faith—the operation of the human mind. Mortal mind healing through human will is not Christian Science. In the Christian Science textbook, Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures, Mary Baker Eddy, the Discoverer and Founder of Christian Science, writes: "The exercise of will brings on a hypnotic state, detrimental to health and integrity of thought. This must therefore be watched and guarded against."Science and Health, p. 446.
Spiritual healing as taught and practiced by Christ Jesus is indeed mental; but its mental nature and its operation derive solely from the omnipotent divine Mind as the manifestation of God's volition. In his letter to the Romans, Paul admonishes, "Be ye transformed by the renewing of your mind, that ye may prove what is that good, and acceptable, and perfect, will of God."Rom. 12:2. Healing prayer in Christian Science is the acknowledgment of the operation of that perfect will in the individual experience as a "now" reality, and the aligning of our volition, decision, and desire with that perfect will.
Challenging times cannot be wished away or destroyed by human will. They must be recognized for what they are— or seem to be—the subtle acceptance of a belief in a power apart from God. God frees us from the bondage of material beliefs. Our prayers, therefore, are not for God to change the expression of His will but for an understanding and acceptance on our part of Love's plan for His beloved child, and a consequent regenerating and ordering of our lives in accordance with that plan.
In Science, will, even though rightly motivated, is properly effective only if conformed to or tempered by the divine. Mrs. Eddy has a great deal to say about will—human will—in contradistinction to the divine. For example: "The power of the human will should be exercised only in subordination to Truth; else it will misguide the judgment and free the lower propensities." And in the next paragraph: "Will-power is capable of all evil. It can never heal the sick, for it is the prayer of the unrighteous; while the exercise of the sentiments—hope, faith, love—is the prayer of the righteous. This prayer, governed by Science instead of the senses, heals the sick."Science and Health, p. 206. How important it is to humbly pray to know the true will of God in every situation and to resist the temptation to attempt to bend the divine to the human!
But what about the use of willpower to break undesirable habits, such as the addiction to tobacco, alcohol, or drugs? The effort (although not completely healing the desire) may seem to be successful for a time. All too often, however, in times of stress or social pressure one falls for the suggestion that one puff can do no harm. As someone has quipped: "It's not hard to stop smoking. I've done it hundreds of times."
I underwent a stop-and-start process over an extended period of time in trying to break the tobacco habit. Sincere, conscientious efforts, accompanied by varying degrees of mental struggle, were often apparently successful for a few days or even months. Then, after a supposedly harmless brief relapse, the old habit would be reestablished, as strong as before.
As a student of Christian Science, I became convinced that more than human willpower would be required. A statement by Mrs. Eddy in her book Miscellaneous Writings was especially encouraging: "Be of good cheer; the warfare with one's self is grand; it gives one plenty of employment, and the divine Principle worketh with you,—and obedience crowns persistent effort with everlasting victory."Mis., p. 118.
The final demonstration of freedom was the result of sincere prayer for subduing human will along with a clear realization of the sole jurisdiction of the divine will.
The steps leading up to this healing are interesting. It was essential for me to determine the dividing line between the human and divine will and how to conform the human to the divine. I affirmed that the workings of the divine Mind are unlabored. The futility of merely personal effort was becoming apparent along with the necessity to replace human willfulness with inspired willingness. As I did this, I progressed beyond the sense of struggle into a joyful awareness of the ever-present availability of the Christ-power. I was healed—quickly, completely, and permanently.
Since God is omnipotent, there can be no other power than His. His will is invariably good, so there is no need for us to attempt or wish to change it. His government is. The keynote of creation is, "Let there be light."Gen. 1:3. For humanity the operative word is also "let." Our prayer to let His will be done acknowledges that all appearances of evil are darkness; they are destroyed at the revelation of the ever-present light.
