Inspiration that God provides reveals a landscape that is entirely spiritual and constantly a distinct reflection of God’s essence and nature. Absent from this divine landscape are physicality and all material limitations. God causes each of us to exist spiritually, and we remain permanently intact as evidence of God’s perfect work. To recognize just a hint of the glorious nature of God and God’s perfect, spiritual creation is the foundation for prayer that cleanses and cures.
With God and His flawless manifestation comprising all of reality, prayer does not function to exclude real evils; instead, it brings us into the solid realization that evils, such as illness, lack, hatred, and death, are not constituents of the landscape of God’s creation in the first place, and therefore aren’t to be battled as genuine enemies. In contrast with sensory input, divine inspiration affords accurate, comforting views of God’s perfect, entirely spiritual and good reality.
Jesus certainly felt compassion for those suffering with afflictions, yet he loved God so much that the divine inspiration he received in prayer took precedence over any dire allegations suggesting evil’s presence or action. To a man he met who’d been living with the misery of having a nonfunctioning, withered hand, Jesus said, “Stretch forth thine hand.” The biblical account then relates, “And he stretched it out: and his hand was restored whole as the other” (Mark 3:5).
Prayer does not exclude real evils; it brings us into the solid realization that evils are not constituents of God’s creation.
From the biblical record, we can’t tell specifically how God inspired Jesus to pray that day. Yet, it’s clear that divine inspiration was the catalyst for healing. Inspiration, Christian Science reveals, doesn’t confront bad or good material symptoms; it unveils the onliness and immutability of the spiritual creation that God is loving and maintaining as flawless.
Taking a cue from Jesus’ example, when we are praying and have a moment of pure inspiration, it is very good practice to hold our ground by sticking with what we have been given by God. We worked for the gain and it is important to retain it. This insight from Mary Baker Eddy, the Founder of Christian Science, is encouraging: “One moment of divine consciousness, or the spiritual understanding of Life and Love, is a foretaste of eternity” (Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures, p. 598). She then discusses the benefit of obtaining and retaining this exalted view.
As we retain a clear, conscious feeling and love of reality, it gradually becomes evident that every difficulty is a false impression, not a threatening physical or mental actuality. It’s a mistaken belief about divine creation. It is well to note that it’s only within our thought that mistaken belief is labeled as imperfect matter.
As soon as we begin to recognize that such appearances actually are only lies about divine reality, we begin to feel more confident in our prayers. The events we call accidents or the mental or physical disorders we believe have brought about distressing symptoms are singularly lies—lies about God and God’s perfect creation. Such lies are no person’s lies. They are just mistaken views. We certainly are not required to own them, believe them, or grip on to them.
Here is a key point: We don’t pray to improve or upgrade a lie. Certainly our perspectives improve as our understanding of God and man expands. But the lies themselves regarding God and His creation, being wholly false impressions of reality, cannot be improved. Rather, within the precinct of our thought we simply correct the lie, the mistaken view.
Are we obligated to execute this corrective process alone? No, employing the inspiration that comes from God, good, we will have reality revealed to us. Discerning reality, we are now thoroughly equipped to expose, denounce, and correct any lie about perfect reality. Then, following the example of how Jesus prayed and practiced, what is required of us is steady agreement with God.
Revealed reality involves a beautiful change of thought. This is the definition of answered prayer. By the way we have willingly welcomed God’s pure view into our thoughts, we prove the invalidity of a lie about God and man.
One summer years ago, I had a very enjoyable job working in a lumberyard. One afternoon a stack of freshly milled, heavy boards fell onto my hands. Upon seeing this, I looked away from the appearance of bodily damage and surprised myself by quickly becoming so engrossed in God’s presence and action that I felt a serenity that came with divine inspiration—inspiration that opened a new world to me.
What is required of us is steady agreement with God.
Like walking out of a cold cave into the warm sunlight, what I saw about myself as God’s unchangeable, spiritual creation relieved me of the normally expected fears about accidents and revealed a landscape possessed by God and God alone. I was inspired to see that no destructive action was truly ever present or even possible, and therefore nothing was present to cause fear or damage to God’s spiritual creation. Only God and the brilliance of God’s work were shining there. My relief from pain was immediate, and in grateful humility I gladly continued on with my work with no evidence of damage or even a mishap.
As God’s image we aren’t intimidated by the world’s numerous fears about God’s spiritual creation. This isn’t because we are brave. We aren’t intimidated because we are intelligent, guided by the supreme authority of the universe. “There is divine authority for believing in the superiority of spiritual power over material resistance” (Science and Health, p. 134).
The divine inspiration that we choose to love, we will retain and then experience. So, our deep love for God’s creation and goodness always is paramount. In prayer, we can close our eyes and feel this divine goodness present within. Then we open our eyes and behold the landscape of Spirit all around. “See the goodness of the Lord in the land of the living,” says the Bible (Psalms 27:13).
In prayer, the moment we are divinely inspired and see the goodness of the Lord, what should we do? We should hold right on to that view. We should hold on to that feeling! Mary Baker Eddy counsels, “Hold in yourselves the true sense of harmony, and this sense will harmonize, unify, and unself you” (Message to The Mother Church for 1900, p. 11).
From a winning position, we denounce the notion that here on God’s harmonious, spiritual landscape, materiality has potency or place. Despite what appear as mortal threats, we are poised in our knowledge of truth and willingly follow the Bible’s counsel, “My beloved brethren, be ye stedfast, unmoveable, always abounding in the work of the Lord, forasmuch as ye know that your labour is not in vain in the Lord” (I Corinthians 15:58).
