Articles

My parents liked to travel and my childhood was full of many wonderful adventures. I don’t remember every museum, monument, and church we toured, but I remember how Mom prayed before each trip and throughout our vacations.

To quiet the clamor of worldly thinking, many people meditate. Others hike in the wilderness or go on a religious retreat.

Christian Scientists believe in, honor, and obey the Ten Commandments as given to Moses by God thousands of years ago. Many of them, such as the commands not to kill or steal (see Exodus 20:13, 15 ), have been embraced by society and have become part of everyday life.

I had been wondering why churches were closing their doors. Then I realized a more productive question to ask is: What attracted people to Christianity and Christian Science in the first place? Specifically, how did Jesus build his global, spiritually prosperous church? What does prosperous mean? According to Webster’s 1828 American Dictionary of the English Language, it means: “Advancing in the pursuit of any thing desirable; making gain or increase; thriving; successful.

We learn in Christian Science that God is omnipotent, omniscient, omnipresent. And since God is good, we would naturally expect His government to be good—to be fair and just, to express kindness, honesty, incorruptibility.

There’s an expression that “scales fall from someone’s eyes” when they have a revolutionary insight or gain a completely new perspective and understanding. It refers to the Damascus experience of Paul (then known as Saul) when, after he became blind, he was visited by Ananias and, as the Bible describes, “immediately there fell from his eyes as it had been scales: and he received sight forthwith” (see Acts 9:1–18 ).

It matters what we think. Every day, we entertain thousands of thoughts.

It’s my daily practice to pray with the ninety-first Psalm from the Bible, as I was once told that it’s referred to as the “Soldier’s Psalm” because it is so filled with the thought of protection. One morning, I felt particularly guided to pay close attention to this line in the psalm: “Thou shalt tread upon the lion and adder” ( verse 13 ).

Several months ago I came across a wonderful article titled “ ‘ Refugee is not a profession ’ ” in the Spanish edition of The Herald of Christian Science (Anni Ulich, December 2018). As I read it, tears of gratitude welled up in my eyes.

The remarkable Old Testament story of Sarah’s servant Hagar is one worth revisiting. Difficulties in the home prompted Abraham, Sarah’s husband, to send Hagar and her son away into the wilderness with only a bottle of water and some bread.