What a rousing message Paul sent to the church at Corinth! "Behold, now is the accepted time; behold, now is the day of salvation." II Cor. 6:2; compare Isa. 49:8. Paul's purpose, one Bible commentary explains, was "to underscore the urgency of immediate acceptance of God's grace." The Interpreter's One-Volume Commentary on the Bible (Nashville, Tennessee: Abingdon Press, 1971), p. 817.
How immediate is our acceptance of good? Do we tend unconsciously to postpone our own salvation by making it conditional on a passage of time, or a change in material conditions, or on what others do? Do we look back on the past as embracing more good than the present holds? What prevents us from accepting the nowness of all good? Understanding, now? Regeneration, now? Healing, now?
When God revealed Himself to Moses as "I AM," Ex. 3:14. He revealed His present individuality, His eternal unchangeability. "Going to be" could not properly describe either God or His perfect creation. God's messenger, the Christ, brings the message of a present, not future, salvation. In Revelation we read, "Now is come salvation, and strength, and the kingdom of our God, and the power of his Christ: for the accuser of our brethren is cast down, which accused them before our God day and night." Rev. 12:10.
Fear cannot torment the one who trustingly stays in the now—knowing that his true identity is God's spiritual idea, man, who lives eternally in God's ever-present care. Safety is here and now because God is here, now and always. Healing power is here right now because the healing Christ, Truth, is ever present. Only if there were a far-off God or a postponed salvation would there be a reason for straining toward the future or projecting back into the past. The fact that God is I am is our reason and authority for working in, staying in, and gratefully rejoicing in the now.
"Now" implies immediacy of accomplishment, present existence. It refers to man's coexistence with God as His eternal expression. It keeps thought "here," anchored in timeless spiritual reality, instead of "there" in either the past or the future. Mrs. Eddy, the Discoverer of Christian Science, observes, "We own no past, no future, we possess only now." The First Church of Christ, Scientist, and Miscellany, p. 12. Then why not enjoy what we already possess?
Two foes of individual peace—fear and regret—can be largely overcome by insistence upon staying in the now. Fear is often associated with the future. Contemplation of some looming challenge or supposed threat can spoil our present, rob us of the joy and peace that are rightfully ours. As we know from experience, many of the things we worry about never happen, but the human inclination is to go right on worrying about the future instead of thanking God for present protection and supply.
Regret, of course, involves the past, which has no place in the nowness of spiritual reality. How much happier our lives would be if we would take to heart the words of a familiar hymn:
Henceforth my heart shall sigh no more
For olden time and holier shore:
God's love and blessing, then and there,
Are now and here and everywhere.Christian Science Hymnal, No. 238.
But how can we stay in the now when the past—or the future—keeps drawing our thought like a magnet? It's not easy, but the old adage "Practice makes perfect" certainly applies. Claiming man's God-given dominion, we can be a law to ourselves. We can progressively discipline thought to focus on present good, present opportunities, present possibilities. God is. Man is God's constant reflection. When we stay with that fact, we stay in the now.
Gratitude for what is the spiritual fact is a form of prayer that keeps us in the now. We don't have to wait for God's law to become law to any situation. It already is, always has been, and always will be. Staying in the now and praying in the now enable us to demonstrate that law in our daily experience. Healing doesn't hinge on the past and needn't be postponed into the future. Christian Science offers a present salvation.
In our family we have seen the healing results of staying in the nowness of man's unity with God. One night I was wakened by my husband, who said that his hands were throbbing and felt strange. When I turned on the light, it was evident that he needed immediate help. Both hands were swollen to twice their normal size. My first thought was concern that we could not call for Christian Science treatment. We had recently been transferred to a different naval base, and the telephone at our new home was not installed as yet. But then came the comforting reassurance "You can call on God! He's right here, right now."
I opened Science and Health by Mrs. Eddy, which was on the night stand, and began reading aloud. In a passage about the method of metaphysical healing, this sentence stood out: "Both Science and consciousness are now at work in the economy of being according to the law of Mind, which ultimately asserts its absolute supremacy." Science and Health, p. 423. This statement of the immediate working of God's law in the human scene awakened us to the eternal operation—the absolute hereness and nowness—of that perfect law. Through the rest of the night we affirmed and declared that His law of universal order ruled out any swelling or disorder; that His law, the law of Love, ruled out any pain or fear. The next morning we were able to get to a phone and call the Christian Science Wartime Minister in the area. He requested that my husband come to see him. I offered to drive him into town, but my husband decided that he should make the effort himself to drive the several miles to the minister's office. This was about three o'clock in the afternoon.
No reference was ever made to the physical condition, but for half an hour the two discussed together the one creator, Spirit, God, and the consequent perfect, spiritual nature of His creation, including man. At the end of the visit, the Wartime Minister invited us to be his guests at dinner that evening. He said he wanted to take us to a special restaurant where fried chicken was served in little baskets and eaten with the fingers. Ruefully contemplating his still swollen hands, my husband wondered how he would manage this challenge. With confidence in God's law of healing, however, he cheerfully went forward. He even managed to shave himself, albeit clumsily, before we left for our six o'clock dinner date.
As the three of us sat at the table, waiting to be served, we observed with awe and gratitude that the swelling was receding before our very eyes. My husband's hands were perfectly normal by the end of the meal, and he had no further problem with them. I thought of Christ Jesus' healing of the ten lepers. As Luke records: "And when he saw them, he said unto them, Go shew yourselves unto the priests. And it came to pass, that, as they went, they were cleansed." Luke 17:14. As my husband trustingly went forward despite the physical sense testimony, he too was healed.
This experience has been a beacon of promise to us over the years whenever the darkness of discouragement or fear has tried to come in during a time of challenge. Staying in the now of spiritual reality, the now of divine perfection, frees us from the hypnotism of delay and time, and the mesmerism of material symptoms and conditions.
The Psalmist glimpsed the blessing and promise implied in the fact of Spirit's omnipresence and declared, "God is our refuge and strength, a very present help in trouble." Ps. 46:1. And Mrs. Eddy states with authority, "Faith in divine Love supplies the ever-present help and now, and gives the power to 'act in the living present.'" Miscellany, p. 12 Reason enough, surely, for consciously staying in the now!
