A view that heals
A local television weatherman concludes each nightly report by showing photographs of sunsets submitted by viewers. Recently, on three successive evenings, he showed pictures of one particular sunset taken at the same time by three photographers from three slightly different locations. It was amazing how dissimilar the three views were. This suggests how different standpoints produce widely varied views of existence. We tend to form judgments according to what our eyes and ears tell us, yet the physical senses report only a subjective, material point of view. They can't be relied on to tell us anything about ultimate, unshakable truth, about the spiritual reality that is the very basis of our own and everyone's well-being. The prophet Samuel was reminded, ``...the Lord seeth not as man seeth.''1 Where we see limitation, sin, despair, sickness, decay, what does God see? The Bible declares, ``God saw every thing that he had made, and, behold, it was very good.''2 It teaches that God is Spirit, the only cause, the only creator. His creation is therefore spiritual and reflects His qualities. What God created is good, and this is what He sees.
The mist of material sense and knowledge tends to hide our perception of what God sees and knows. We may feel that it's impossible to have a realistic view point unless we trust, and act on, what the physical senses are telling us. Yet as long as we stick to a limited standpoint, we won't be able to discern true, spiritual existence and the blessings it includes. This is not to ignore our own or the world's ills but to begin to see a remedy for them. It is possible through prayer and purification of thought to get a new viewpoint of what constitutes real being and to find healing as a result.
Christ Jesus most successfully saw existence from a spiritual standpoint. When those around him saw disease, deformity, lack, turbulence, and death, Jesus perceived the ever-present spiritual reality created by God. This enabled him to heal disease and sin through a clear understanding of man's true status. Christians, accepting Jesus as their Way-shower, should not deny themselves the privilege of experiencing, at least to some degree, the healing that accompanies spiritual vision.
``Mortals must look beyond fading, finite forms, if they would gain the true sense of things,'' writes Mary Baker Eddy, the Discoverer and Founder of Christian Science. She asks, ``Where shall the gaze rest but in the unsearchable realm of Mind?'' She adds later, ``As mortals gain more correct views of God and man, multitudinous objects of creation, which before were invisible, will become visible.''3
As we learn more about God, about His justice, love, and wisdom, we become more aware of what constitutes our own true nature and of how this has a present, practical application to our welfare. Comprehending the loving fatherhood and motherhood of God, we discover ways in which our needs can be supplied even if things appear hopeless. A glimpse of the indivisibility of God and man and of the creator's everlasting care can wipe out fear and anguish and forward the healing of sickness.
Despite what the physical senses say, God's complete, perfect universe is all that actually exists, because God is the only genuine creator. Mrs. Eddy writes, ``Delusion, sin, disease, and death arise from the false testimony of material sense, which, from a supposed standpoint outside the focal distance of infinite Spirit, presents an inverted image of Mind and substance with everything turned upside down.''4
It's reassuring to know that we don't have to glue ourselves to that supposed standpoint with its inverted, distorted picture of existence! Each of us has the God-given ability to glimpse something of God's creation and experience healing as a result.
1I Samuel 16:7. 2Genesis 1:31. 3Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures, p. 264. 4Ibid., p. 301. DAILY BIBLE VERSE: Open thou mine eyes, that I may behold wondrous things out of thy law. Psalms 119:18
