It is our purpose in prayer to consciously express love for God—to acknowledge and show appreciation for the activity He manifests as proof of His presence and power. God is ever expressing Himself in the activity of His qualities and Mind-formed spiritual concepts, and man is ever reflecting activity.
Only when the human consciousness is unaware that God is the only Being, that all doing is His doing, does there appear to be an absence of qualities we can relate to His nature or an absence of ideas we can identify with His knowing. This seeming absence of God and His nature and knowing we call mortality and mortal-mindedness. But the only nature and the only knowing must be God's, and this assures us that all action truly occurring is spiritual, wise, and a blessing.
The understanding that infinite, divine activity is the only true activity nullifies mortal mind's claim to have produced erroneous action in an individual, a family, a church, or in a community, social, or economic group. To the degree we each claim and express Christly qualities that have their source in God, and also accept as our consciousness spiritual concepts or ideas of Truth, we experience the scientific, healing action that proceeds from the divine cause, God. This is evidenced humanly in provision, protection, redemption, restoration, health, happiness.
The Psalmist declared that God "holdeth our soul in life." Ps. 66:9. God's self-revealing activity is always active where we are and can be realized as we yield to the Christ, Truth. As man, God's spiritual idea, we are children of Light and not wanderers in darkness. The truths of Truth dispel the misconceptions of mortal mind, and it is our divine right to utilize, without interference, our spiritual senses so that we clearly perceive the activity of good in the realm of reality. Mrs. Eddy states in the Christian Science textbook, Science and Health, "Knowing that Soul and its attributes were forever manifested through man, the Master healed the sick, gave sight to the blind, hearing to the deaf, feet to the lame, thus bringing to light the scientific action of the divine Mind on human minds and bodies and giving a better understanding of Soul and salvation." Science and Health, p. 210.
What God knows, and causes to exist, is divinely scientific, spiritual activity, since true Science is Mind's knowing. It is mortal mind that is concerned with the overaction or nonaction of matter or what persons are doing or not doing. Mortal mind's belief that matter is substance leads it to the measurement of matter's increasing or decreasing action, matter's metastasis or stoppage or sluggishness, matter's performance or progress. But the only substance God knows is His own spiritual good—good that He has created to fulfill the divine purpose by glorifying Him and manifesting His intelligence and cherishing care. Science and Health assures us, "Every object in material thought will be destroyed, but the spiritual idea, whose substance is in Mind, is eternal." Ibid., p. 267.
Since substance is spiritual good, shouldn't we be considering spiritual activity instead of material action in regard to all questions of supply and demand? As the human consciousness accepts as real and substantial the divinely imparted concepts or ideas that proceed from Spirit, we can begin to see the magnitude of our heritage, the treasures of the God-created kingdom of heaven within each of us. We will then become increasingly free of the curse "to till the ground" Gen. 3:23. and its limitations.
When we expect provision for supply to come from persons and matter, we are influenced by economic theories, the actions of the financial world, the activity of the marketplace, the doings of supplier and consumer, the movement of merchandise, the operations of management and labor, all of which involve mortality, active or inactive, material quantity and material quality. It would be well for us instead to watch closely and care more for our spiritual "bank accounts." We can then quite properly ask ourselves: What qualities of Principle and Love, what ideas of Mind or Soul, do I have at hand in my spiritual account with which to meet the needs of this day? What will I draw upon and identify with when the material senses testify to a lack or absence of God's substance; when I am confronted with disloyalty, dishonesty, poverty, cruelty, anger, apathy, inaction, or overaction? Will I look to mortal mind's suggestions, or will I immediately seek, claim, and use the spiritual good God is supplying, knowing that spiritual supply is a scientific activity of infinite and perfect Principle that resolves every human demand? The ideas of Truth, already established, nullify every lie of mortal mind; and the qualities of God, already available, preclude and overcome every mortal trait.
Mortal mind would have us deceived into believing that matter has life in it, and that the belief of life in matter will determine our ability to function. This is mortal mind's dream, not scientific knowing about the scientific action of divine good. What mortal mind believes is what matter evidences.
Once when I visited an individual in a hospital, I found him with one arm hanging limply by his side. He explained that it was paralyzed, completely useless. When being X-rayed, he had heard one attendant explain to another that he had had a stroke and his left arm had been made inactive because of it.
Within minutes a nurse, familiar with his case and care, entered the room, noted the limp arm, and asked what had happened. He explained. She appeared to be startled and left the room hurriedly. Fifteen minutes later she returned and, smiling happily, announced that the attendant in the X-ray room had mistakenly taken the card of another patient, and the notations about the stroke and affected arm were references to the other patient. The man listened carefully and then, convinced that there had been a mistake, with great effort and tender coaxing from nurse and visitor, slowly moved one finger; then, after considerably more effort, moved them all. It was several hours before he could finally lift the arm and triumphantly hold a glass of water.
The experience shows clearly that it is mortal mind's own belief that declares for or against material action. When the mistaken belief was uncovered and rejected, the man was free of its imposition, limitation, restriction. The Christian Science textbook states: "Anatomy finds a necessity for nerves to convey the mandate of mind to muscle and so cause action; but what does anatomy say when the cords contract and become immovable? Has mortal mind ceased speaking to them, or has it bidden them to be impotent? Can muscles, bones, blood, and nerves rebel against mind in one instance and not in another, and become cramped despite the mental protest?" And Mrs. Eddy asks, "Is man a material fungus without Mind to help him?" Science and Health, p. 160.
Because God, Mind, is All, and action begins with Mind, there is no mortal, material mind capable of causing voluntary or involuntary erroneous action. There is no thinking matter that can impede, deter, depress, delay, destroy, the activity of God's qualities and ideas. Christ Jesus demonstrated the government of the divine Mind over the human body. Understanding the living, active Christ to be his own divine sonship, he perceived the identity of his brother man to be God's pure and perfect spiritual expression, actively glorifying Him.
In Psalms we have this promise: "The Lord redeemeth the soul of his servants: and none of them that trust in him shall be desolate." Ps. 34:22. To be desolate is to be fruitless, barren: it is to be lifeless, stagnant, or asleep. But God is the one Life, and man's living is proof of His existence. The Christ, God's representative ever present, is with each of us to impel us to wake and act in a Christianly scientific way as our loved Way-shower did. Since true Science expresses God's divine intelligence and this intelligence motivates all action, let us accept, expect, and gratefully rejoice in the scientific action that is infinite and eternal.
