DO YOU SOMETIMES wait for a particular report to come on the television or radio and then realize when it's almost over that you missed it because you were thinking about something else? I have been considering this recently in relation to listening to God. I've read many articles, both in this magazine and others, about people who have been wakened in the middle of the night with a strong urge to pray about something very specific. They listened, spent time in prayer, and learned at a later time that their prayer was effective in helping someone. I'd often wondered why that had never happened to me.
I found out recently that I may have been so caught up in other things that these important promptings seemed to me like background noise, and I was ignoring them. But one night after my family and I had gone to bed, I couldn't fall asleep because I felt fearful about robbery. At first I started to ignore this thought. I had too many other things to think about and didn't have time for this apparently unfounded fear. Then I realized that the most effective way to deal with fear was to pray.
I spent several hours affirming many of the simple truths that I've learned through studying Christian Science. Among the ideas that came to me were these: God's creation is good, just the way God made it, and that includes each and every one of us, with no exceptions. We all have the ability to listen to God. We all reflect Him and therefore can do only good. No one needs to want anything but what God gives, and we can trust that God will give us what we need each and every moment. Therefore, there is no basis for anyone to have a desire to steal from or injure another.
