The Home I Grew up in was in a valley surrounded by snowcapped mountains. I loved looking at them. But even more, I loved hiking in them with my brother. He always taught me to look ahead and to memorize the hiking trail we were on. He reminded me not to get bogged down with the pebbles and rocks but to look where we were headed. This not only made the hike easier, but it always seemed that we got to our destination faster.
Christ Jesus' healing
works proved man's
spiritual perfection to
be permanent fact.
When I'm praying for the healing of sickness or some other trouble, I often think of those days hiking. I'm reminded to look "straight ahead," in thought, to the spiritual perfection of God and man. I don't have to create that perfection, any more than I have to create the grand mountains and their glory. The truth of being, like the mountaintop, is already present. My job is to keep my thought on that truth in order to demonstrate its presence in healing.
Christ Jesus proved through his superb healing works that man's perfection, as the outcome of Spirit, is already a permanent fact. We don't have to create it, because God, Spirit, already has. Nor do we have to force man's perfection into manifestation. It's natural for God to manifest His unflawed nature in man, in His spiritual expression. Our job is to keep our eye, or our spiritualized thought, on what truly is, being alert not to get bogged down in matter, with its fraudulent demands and commands.
In Science and Health Mary Baker Eddy writes: "The discoverer of Christian Science finds the path less difficult when she has the high goal always before her thoughts, than when she counts her footsteps in endeavoring to reach it. When the destination is desirable, expectation speeds our progress."1 This counsel can remind us of the mental standpoint so important for healing.
Our God-given spiritual sense knows, no matter what, that man is whole, complete. That is already established. It is a present fact. And nothing, no false belief, no claim or evil, no illusion or the physical senses, can alter the fact that God creates and maintains man in His perfect likeness. We simply have to keep man's wholeness in the forefront of thought as an established fact.
A few years ago our family took a short weekend trip to the mountains. We had a lovely day and were all tucked away in our beds when one of the children began to feel ill. I sat up with her for a while, praying for and comforting her. It wasn't long before she fell fast asleep. A few minutes later, one of our other children began going through the same thing. Again I sat up and prayed with her until all was well. About the time I dozed off, another child woke me up. She wasn't feeling well and wanted me to talk to her about God.
I realized that my duty that night was to see that God was in control of everyone! Instead of praying just to correct a material condition, I prayed to understand better man's relation to God. I kept in thought the perfection of God's offspring, untouched by matter and its theatrics. A clear glimpse of man's spiritual wholeness lifted my thought above the clamor. Then I noticed that the third child was fast asleep.
This time, however, I stayed awake for a while praying. I wanted a firm foundation to rest my prayers on. I wanted to feel God's presence right there, right within that room. And soon I did, and then fell asleep. But I woke up again. Now I wasn't feeling well. I affirmed my status as God's child. Suddenly, I began to laugh at mortal mind's attempt to get me to think that I was in a room full of sickness. I saw that man is God's immediate reflection. That this reflection is perfect, always at the standpoint of harmony. That it's not separated into many minds and conditions. Man, God's spiritual image, is whole, and this truth applies to everyone. I was healed. And we all woke up in the morning perfectly fine.
Man, God's spiritual
image, is whole, and
this truth applies
to everyone.
Through communion with God, through feeling His presence in the quietness of prayer, we're able to resist the temptation to focus on material conditions; to let fear or something else unprofitable for spiritual advancement grab our attention. To be successful in healing, it's necessary to keep thought up high, on the grand view ahead of us—the established fact of man's God-given perfection.
Understanding that we'll arrive at our goal sooner by prayerfully turning from fear and its enticements, we are stronger and more faithful to what we know is true. We're able to see the distractions of physical sense for what they really are: red herrings. We find the song and dance of mortal mind unappealing and unpersuasive. Our need is to keep thought with God by turning away from matter and its suggestions, and toward His divine perfection. This doesn't mean that we ignore a problem or act unwisely. It means that we're not duped into thinking that matter is an actual cause or power, or that the appearance of evil is an immovable fact. Whatever is erroneous is not a true condition, not an actual situation. It is a false belief in a power other than God, in a condition contrary to spiritual perfection. And false belief is always amenable to the healing, regenerating power of Truth.
Keep your eye on spiritual reality. Refuse to look down to matter and its complaints. You'll see the grand view. You'll see more and more clearly that you exist in Spirit, and that your God-given perfection is forever established. The result will be healing.
I will lift up mine eyes unto the hills,
from whence cometh my help. My help cometh
from the Lord, which made heaven and earth.
He will not suffer thy foot to be moved:
he that keepeth thee will not slumber.
Psalms 121:1-3
