One morning I was feeling discouraged. Nothing I had been praying about seemed to be budging, and it felt as if so much work needed to be done! On top of that, I was exhausted and just wanted to stay home. However, I love serving others, and I love listening to God. I had a full day planned, including serving in the Christian Science Reading Room. I called a colleague and friend to support me in prayer and set out in my car.
Listening to the weekly Christian Science Bible Lesson found in the Christian Science Quarterly—which includes readings from the Holy Bible and Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures by Mary Baker Eddy—I trusted that my thought would be lifted. I’ve found that inspiration from the Lesson always has this effect.
One of the roads where I drove that day was being widened. Road workers were going about this task with great gusto, and had been doing so for several weeks. Huge piles of rock and stone and sand were being moved with amazing speed, gullies were being filled, and blasting was being done to clear the way. Large rocks were being broken up and made into smaller pieces to make a better support for the new road.
I was looking at all this when suddenly certain phrases from the audio Bible Lesson caught my attention. This was the passage being read: “Take away wealth, fame, and social organizations, which weigh not one jot in the balance of God, and we get clearer views of Principle. Break up cliques, level wealth with honesty, let worth be judged according to wisdom, and we get better views of humanity....
“To ascertain our progress, we must learn where our affections are placed and whom we acknowledge and obey as God” (Science and Health, p. 239).
With this, I saw the road work in a new light—an analogy for my own situation. The piles represented thought piles, which can be moved with ease and hope, given the right tools. The clearing was for a road of progress. The blasting was a clearing away of unneeded and unhelpful thoughts. The filling in of gullies pointed to divine Love, God, being understood and filling our hearts with love.
I saw that the day was a beautiful one after all, with work to do, but with great promise!
A quotation from the Bible clearly came to mind, where Jesus says to his disciples: “If ye have faith as a grain of mustard seed, ye shall say unto this mountain, Remove hence to yonder place; and it shall remove; and nothing shall be impossible unto you” (Matthew 17:20). I suddenly realized that like the highway workers looking at the mountains of sand and rock as the foundation for the road, I could look at the mountains of work I needed to do not as an insurmountably heavy burden or impenetrable obstacle, but as an opportunity. Our innate ability to listen for, and hear, God’s inspiration brings progress and harmony.
Then I considered with deep gratitude the opportunity I have been given lately, as a Reader in my branch Church of Christ, Scientist, to read “the scientific statement of being” from page 468 of Science and Health every Sunday, which brings out that substance is spiritual, not material. The ideas in this statement are so powerful that—when we embrace them with our whole heart—hatred, fear, and sickness are blasted away, and we gain a clarifying view of life. We realize that imprisoning discord of any kind is not hard fact, and a deeper view of reality lifts us up and takes us to a new understanding of what is true.
Healing results from this new view. The way is paved; peace reigns more fully in our lives. As we go about our daily work with a desire to serve God, we are allowing divine law to lift our thought and motives. This removes the “mountains” of heavy rumination and breaks up the roadblocks of fear or illness, revealing blessings, harmony, and newness.
As I thought about this I laughed, and then I rejoiced. God had answered my prayer. With this inspiration, discouragement was replaced with hope and joy. I saw that the day was a beautiful one after all, with work to do, but with great promise!
Then I heard this crowning idea in the last words of a song played at the end of the recording of the Bible Lesson: “... by serving, love will grow” (Elizabeth Charles, Christian Science Hymnal, No. 360). Love did grow in serving that day. And the work was done that day—with gusto and productivity. In service to God and our fellow man, our expression of God’s infinite love can never stop growing.
God prepares the way for us as we prepare our thought for Him, as we turn to Him from the wilderness of loneliness and doubt. As the book of Isaiah puts it: “Prepare ye the way of the Lord, make straight in the desert a highway for our God. Every valley shall be exalted, and every mountain and hill shall be made low: and the crooked shall be made straight, and the rough places plain” (40:3, 4).
We can serve God, divine Love, and be blessed in serving. Letting Love lead us, we are lifted out of dark valleys, crooked thoughts become good, rough times are smoothed, and peace and joy fill our hearts. The effects of this change of thought are felt as well as seen. It could be a small change or a large one, but each moment of regeneration helps us to move along with more ease and comfort and joy.
Spirit, the synonym of Mind, Soul, or God,
is the only real substance.
—Mary Baker Eddy
Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures, p. 468
