Have you ever attempted to duplicate someone's demonstration after listening to a testimony at a Wednesday evening meeting? And were the results disappointing? This can happen if we dwell on persons and results rather than on divine Principle, God. We learn from this failure that we cannot copy another's treatment. We may be encouraged and inspired by it, but each Christian Science healing is unique in the specific mental steps involved. We can be grateful that the truths the testifier employed are universal truths and then get ourselves actively utilizing these truths in original ways.
The Christian Science healer turns to God, to the Bible, and to Science and Health by Mrs. Eddy for fresh ideas applicable to solving problems. Focusing thought on a specific human result and how someone obtained it for himself may produce doubt and fear. But an individual inspired by God through prayer is able to relinquish material theories or laws and find the reality of being—man wholly spiritual, in the image and likeness of God, Mind.
Our Father-Mother God answers our prayers in ways that we can recognize and understand, as Christ Jesus promised us in the Sermon on the Mount. He said, "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." And: "Ask, and it shall be given you; seek, and ye shall find; knock, and it shall be opened unto you." Matt. 6:6; 7:7.
The scientific methods and motives of prayer are of such fundamental importance that the entire first chapter of the textbook, Science and Health, is devoted to the subject. A discussion of problem-solving through prayer includes this arresting statement: "Who would stand before a blackboard, and pray the principle of mathematics to solve the problem? The rule is already established, and it is our task to work out the solution. Shall we ask the divine Principle of all goodness to do His own work? His work is done, and we have only to avail ourselves of God's rule in order to receive His blessing, which enables us to work out our own salvation." Science and Health, p. 3.
For example, in working out the solution to financial difficulties through prayer, we may find ourselves turning to human means and methods instead of availing ourselves of God's rule. The temptation for us is to closely observe the successes of others, hoping to duplicate them. These highly personal, human observations can result in hours lost daydreaming, talking, telephoning, when the real need is for enlightened metaphysical work. Before we know it, we are playing the devil's game of "If," which has two forms: "What if" and "If only." It goes like this: What if I get laid off? What if I don't get this job? If only I could get a raise. If only I could get a loan. If only I could move away from here.
We can refuse to play the devil's game of "If." The Bible speaks of the God-given power to control our thoughts as "casting down imaginations, and every high thing that exalteth itself against the knowledge of God, and bringing into captivity every thought to the obedience of Christ." II Cor. 10:5. The "what ifs" of mortal doubt and "if onlys" of daydreaming are "imaginations" that can be cast down through Christ, Truth.
"If only" implies a void to be filled. But the scientific fact is that in the allness of good, God, there is no void, no empty spot. When the carnal mind's "imaginations" try to outline material solutions, we can realize that God's allness has already provided for and will ever protect His idea, man.
Sometimes the words "if only" really mean envy of another's progress. The teachings of Christian Science are explicit about how to spiritualize our thought, and this activity has nothing to do with observing, or comparing ourselves with, another person. In Science and Health we read, "The starting-point of divine Science is that God, Spirit, is All-in-all and that there is no other might nor Mind,—that God is Love, and therefor He is divine Principle." Science and Health, p. 275.
A woman who was seeking help on a family financial problem challenged a practitioner with these words: "All the testimonies about supply that I've heard always end up with the person getting a promotion, or an unexpected dividend, or some long-forgotten debtor suddenly paying his bill. None of these solutions is available to our family—I've checked them all out!"
The practitioner laughed and said, "Are you going to limit God to three solutions?" With that she turned the conversation to the infinite laws of an infinite God who is Love, available here and now. The so-called laws of economics are man-made laws, false beliefs operating in a suppositional universe made of material elements ever out of balance. Referring to the mortal dream, the Christian Science textbook states, "Upon this stage of existence goes on the dance of mortal mind." Ibid., p. 250. The patient was encouraged not to participate in mortal mind's "dance" of lack and instead to fill her thought with the idea of God's infinitude and the inseparability of God and man, His forever likeness.
The Concordances to Mrs. Eddy's writings give many references under the subhead "God is infinite." One of them reads, "God is infinite, the only Life, substance, Spirit, or Soul, the only intelligence of the universe, including man." Ibid., p. 330. The woman reasoned that the ever-presence of intelligence meant she could, through spiritual sense, recognize God's guidance and know what to do under any circumstance. Conversations and daydreaming about money and jobs ceased as her trust in God grew.
The healing idea realized through prayer is always a spiritual one, indicating man's inseparable oneness with God, the infinite All-in-all. Answers to prayer appear in a way that is humanly understandable: health instead of sickness, harmony in place of discord, abundance replacing lack.
So it was that the woman's particular financial need was met in a humanly understandable way. It was discovered that a mistake had been made at the time of closing the sale of their new home. An item in the buyer's favor had been overlooked. It was promptly acknowledged, and a check was sent. The amount? Five times what the woman had mentally outlined as her need. The seeming logic of lack had been broken. God's law of abundance prevailed.
Just what had taken place? Was the receiving of the check the demonstration? No, it was only the outward evidence or sign. The demonstration consisted of seeing more clearly God's infinity manifested impartially as a law of abundance. Suggestions of failure and the temptation to compare herself to others had been corrected through a better understanding of man's relationship to God, divine Love.
Although we are encouraged by the experiences of others, we cannot make their experience ours also. Nor can we apply spiritual truths in the same way each time. New understanding, fresh insights, are the need, and these bring joy and exhilaration to the student of the Science of Mind-healing. In the infinitude of God there is an infinite variety of truths applicable to every need.
