Looking to be a better healer? Then you’ll want to keep an eye out for articles like this one appearing periodically in the Journal, the Christian Science Sentinel, and The Herald of Christian Science. Their aim: to correct some of the misconceptions about Christian Science that would keep us from having the results we so desire.
What would keep us from getting the full benefit of trusting God for healing? It’s a little like asking why we might not always get the full benefit of the sun shining. From a meteorological perspective, that could be an easy enough question to answer: There might be clouds in the sky. The sun is shining, but the heavier the cloud cover, the less we benefit from the sun’s warmth and light. On a cloudless day, however, we can enjoy every bit of that radiance.
In the same way, when we’re struggling to feel the immediacy of God’s power and presence, we can ask ourselves: What clouds are drifting across my mental landscape? As I’ve practiced Christian Science healing over many decades, I’ve come to see that many of these “clouds” fall under one overarching classification—the apparent domination of material medicine. In other words, conventional medical thought has become so pervasive that it’s become part of the collective mental atmosphere; and perhaps we’ve been unwittingly influenced by it, even as we continue to turn to God for healing. There are several specific ways this influence might be interfering with our healing work.
The impulse to fix
As a newcomer to Christian Science, I thought that healing involved fixing something. In other words, if there was a problem, prayer was applied to repair or fix it. Based on the medical model I’d grown up with, it seemed natural to start with the problem as a way of getting to a solution.
However, Christian Science explains that effective prayer starts with God. It’s definitely a 180-degree change from a traditional approach to problem-solving. But this is the basis on which Jesus, the Way-shower, healed; it is what he taught and exemplified. We experience healing as we recognize that God’s creation is always intact. It is spiritual, whole, inviolate, complete, so it doesn’t need to be fixed. Our job is to shift our focus from the outward evidence of the senses to the spiritual fact, and this pristine, untouched reality is then experienced.
We experience healing as we recognize that God’s creation is intact. It is spiritual, whole, inviolate, complete.
When seen from this vantage point, a physical challenge is not something that needs fixing, but an opportunity to see what is really true. And this God-based view doesn’t include disease or sin.
Time as a factor
Another misconception I had about healing that was corrected as I practiced Christian Science was that time is required for a return to health. Christ Jesus’ example also helps here. Through his healing practice, he showed how all that’s necessary for complete physical restoration is a clear recognition of reality—what God knows. To Jesus, time was not a factor. The Gospels are full of examples of all kinds of physical ailments—even long-standing ones—being healed instantly, simply because he was so conscious of God’s unwavering goodness.
The subtle belief that it takes time to be healed could be an obstacle to witnessing more instantaneous healing. So, in our prayers, it is good to be alert to this. If we think we’re trying to change a physical body, that could take time. But how long does it take to change a mental concept? A nanosecond? Christian Science healing involves a shift of thought from a limited sense of what’s real and possible to God, the infinite All.
Diagnosis
Another impediment to effective healing is the temptation to physically diagnose. Since this is mandatory for traditional medical practice, is it any surprise that the impulse to Google symptoms, ask others about them, or take in the messages of advertisements would be so prevalent? A physical diagnosis is fairly universally thought of as integral to finding a remedy; but from a Christian Science perspective, this can actually impede progress in healing, because a material diagnosis works from the premise that we are biological organisms on a path dictated by the claims of mortality. Christian Science takes an opposite view—that we are completely spiritual, governed by God’s laws of health and harmony, which are absolute and supersede any other claim to law.
In my own journey, it was helpful to find this perceptive observation from Mary Baker Eddy, who had extensive healing experience of her own. In her textbook on Christian Science, Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures, she writes, “A physical diagnosis of disease . . . tends to induce disease” (p. 370). She makes it clear that rather than it being a physical condition, disease is, and should be treated as, thought. A material diagnosis generates fear, leading in the wrong direction by justifying the impediment to be overcome.
What’s needed for healing is to know what’s spiritually true, and not the details of what’s wrong. I am consistently finding that staying on God’s side effectively deals with whatever the issue is, whether or not I know what it might be called medically.
The silver bullet
Sometimes I find there’s a pull to try and find the perfect person to help us with healing, or the perfect passage that someone else thought was helpful from the Bible or Mrs. Eddy’s writings to remedy the situation. This isn’t very different from searching for the right medication or form of treatment in order to get the desired results.
But healing in Christian Science involves regeneration of thought—a shift away from believing in a physical basis of existence to recognizing the spiritual reality of being. This can happen in infinite ways as we open thought to God and His unlimited spiritual ideas.
Freeing ourselves from all the above misconceptions empowers us to see more quick and definitive healing—even in dire situations. Here’s an account from a friend who was traveling in a remote section of Asia:
Freeing ourselves from medically based misconceptions empowers us to see quick and definitive healing—even in dire situations.
“I suddenly lost use of my left arm and hand. I was in absolute agony. As I prayed, I was reminded that we are ‘in the kingdom’—this is a reference to Jesus’ teaching that ‘the kingdom of heaven is at hand’ (Matthew 4:17)—and nothing bad can possibly enter in. So I focused on this idea alone, because it was the only thing I could think to do.
“I reasoned that I’d been doing work that represented certain qualities of God, good. I was gripped by this idea. Nothing impeded this, not even the loss of the use of my arm and the acute pain. In a certain sense, this was ‘being in the kingdom’—being conscious of God, good—untouched.
“This made complete sense to me. Interestingly, the pain disappeared, because its reality did not seem logical or possible in this expanded context. But being free of pain—and regaining the use of my arm and hand—was not the ultimate point, since ‘not having a negative’ is not an authentic positive. What was especially helpful was this realization of the kingdom.”
As my friend’s example shows, no element of a medical approach was necessary for healing to occur. Instead, what brought healing was his shift in thought away from what appeared to be wrong to the perception of what was already real, present, and powerful—God’s absolute allness and goodness, and God’s love for His creation.
Staying in this consciousness of good is the road that leads out of whatever “cloud cover” we’re facing into the brilliance of Truth, which shows us we’re already and always whole.
