Articles

While we may feel the need to fix problems in our life, we can relinquish personal control and understand and experience God’s ever-present harmony.

Desperate circumstances, strained relationships, perilous events, even physical beatings and imprisonment—the Apostle Paul knew them all. In a letter to the Christian church at Corinth he recounts his sufferings for Christ, then makes a startling statement: “I take pleasure in infirmities, in reproaches, in necessities, in persecutions, in distresses for Christ’s sake: for when I am weak, then am I strong” ( II Corinthians 12:10 ).

One evening I was driving home from work and got pulled over for speeding. While I was waiting for the police officer to give me a ticket, I prayed.

In the book of Acts we read, “And at midnight Paul and Silas prayed, and sang praises unto God: and the prisoners heard them” ( 16:25 ). Paul and Silas had been beaten and thrown in prison, and had their feet bound in the stocks, and yet they continued to glorify God in songs and prayer.

Like the disciples in the Bible, many of us may find it tempting, when discouraged, to go back to old ways of thinking and acting. And if we revert to those familiar ways, we may find we come up empty, as some of Christ Jesus’ disciples did after one long, fruitless night fishing near the end of their three years with him.

I’ve been asked before why a student of Christian Science would choose prayer to resolve an issue when a simple medical procedure or treatment is available. Of course, the answer to that will always be individual, but for many folks part of it may have to do with the ultimate goal, what they’re really after.

You, who have stepped into the wilderness— “loneliness; doubt; darkness”  1 — before your foot moved to start the journey, angels came. Like the angel touched Elijah’s shoulder, as he tried to sleep away his trouble alone under a desert tree, and commanded him, “Rise up and eat,” so you are told, “Rise up, eat.

“The hands of Zerubbabel have laid the foundation of this house; his hands shall also finish it; .  .

Christ Jesus instructed his followers: “When thou prayest, enter into thy closet, and when thou hast shut thy door, pray to thy Father which is in secret; and thy Father which seeth in secret shall reward thee openly” ( Matthew 6:6 ). Jesus then gave what is well-known to Christians as the Lord’s Prayer.

The author shows how when we fill our thought with spiritual truths, sin and sickness lose their reality in our consciousness and disappear.