Sustained by God

It often seems that people’s needs are far from being met. But Christian Science explains how the right perception of God meets all our needs, overcoming any sense of lack with the understanding that God is guiding and supplying each and every one of His children. This is the Science of God’s ever-present goodness. This truth brings the proof of God’s unfailing supply when our prayer is founded on the rock, Christ.

Christ Jesus met every need he encountered. To take just one example, when Jesus fed the thousands with a handful of bread and a few fish on two separate occasions (see Matthew 14:13–21 and Mark 8:1–9), he was demonstrating God’s law of supply. This demonstration was founded on Jesus’ understanding that God is our creator, and that the infinitely sustaining supply of that all-knowing source is always present. He proved that reality is spiritual: the kingdom of heaven, in which good is infinite, never lacking.

It was a call to see my friend and his family as completely sustained by God, never for an instant outside His allness.

A while ago, a friend and business associate told me of a scary situation he and his family were experiencing. The Internal Revenue Service was coming down hard on him for taxes he owed and didn’t have the cash to pay. In just a couple of days he and his family would be evicted from their home, and everything they owned would be repossessed to clear the debt. My friend asked for my prayers, expressing hope for a miracle, some way for this need to be met.

To me the situation was a call to see my friend and his family as completely sustained by God, never for an instant outside His allness. In this allness, supply and demand are in perfect balance: God eternally demands the expression of infinite good and eternally supplies it. My friend and I talked about Christ Jesus’ capacity to meet all manner of urgent needs. Mary Baker Eddy, the Discoverer and Founder of Christian Science, puts it this way in her textbook Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures: “Divine Love always has met and always will meet every human need. It is not well to imagine that Jesus demonstrated the divine power to heal only for a select number or for a limited period of time, since to all mankind and in every hour, divine Love supplies all good” (p. 494).

I prayed for a good while, until I felt a clear sense of God’s infinite goodness and man’s full access to this goodness. I trusted that God’s supply and harmony for my dear friend’s family would be made evident. 

Then, a few days later when we were back on the phone for our business with each other, he joyfully brought me up to date. The day of the eviction had come, and there did not seem to be any hope left that his family would avoid this horrendous displacement. His son, wanting to take a break from the gloom, decided to go out and get the mail. He did, and came running back to the house shouting, “You won’t believe it! We got a check!” Their business had some invoices open with customers, but the due dates were way into the future, and they had asked for early payments and been declined. Handing his dad the check, which more than covered the IRS’s immediate payment requirement, the son said, “Mom and Dad, this is for sure a God thing!” We laughed and rejoiced together in this proof of God’s care, and in his son’s instant recognition of the source of this wonderful turn of events. We agreed that there was no question at all that prayer is an effective tool for meeting every need.

We agreed that there was no question at all that prayer is a powerful tool for meeting every need.

When we pray to clear out the belief that we are subject to claims of lack—whether it be economic or physical—we see that the supreme ascendency of Truth is a reliable source for good. And we will experience this goodness immediately, reliably, when we follow Christ Jesus’ instruction: “Therefore take no thought, saying, What shall we eat? or, What shall we drink? or, Wherewithal shall we be clothed? (For after all these things do the Gentiles seek:) for your heavenly Father knoweth that ye have need of all these things. But seek ye first the kingdom of God, and his righteousness; and all these things shall be added unto you” (Matthew 6:31–33).

Jesus taught that every one of us has an inseparable relationship to God and expresses God’s infinite supply, or divine goodness. That relationship, understood, gives us God-given dominion over every aspect of our experience. We can be busy practicing that wonderful sense of spiritual dominion that we express as God’s “image and likeness” (Science and Health, p. 3). 

In his wonderful Sermon on the Mount, Christ Jesus spoke of what we should expect from the trusting understanding our prayers bring us: “Blessed are they which do hunger and thirst after righteousness: for they shall be filled” (Matthew 5:6). What kind of blessing was Jesus indicating? Perhaps it is encouraging to hear God’s promise: “Prove me now herewith, saith the Lord of hosts, if I will not open you the windows of heaven, and pour you out a blessing, that there shall not be room enough to receive it” (Malachi 3:10).

Infinite good, infinite supply, from the infinite and perfect source: God. They’re right here, right now; and spiritual goodness and supply are reliable, trustworthy, and accessible. Really!