A Lesson from My Computer

HAVE you ever found yourself feeling sad about something, and wished you could do something to make things better?

One time I was very bothered by a person I occasionally had to deal with. He seemed to be so bossy, and to think he was right and everyone else was wrong. It was difficult to discuss ideas with him. I found myself avoiding him, although I knew this wasn't improving matters. I wanted to help the situation, but didn't know how to do it. That is, until I remembered a lesson I had learned from my computer.

When I got the computer, I found that using it was different from anything I'd done before. There were some new rules to be followed, and I didn't learn them all at once. But my computer had a very useful feature that enabled me to see the commands I had entered; it was called ''show reveal codes,'' and it let me see if I had made a mistake in formatting a document. Soon I saw that with computers it's absolutely necessary to find the exact location of any error. Having done that it was simple to get things right. The ''reveal codes'' key soon became my favorite.

As I thought more about that person whose behavior I didn't like, it came to me to ask God to reveal to me just exactly what it was that I needed to know to be free from my unhappiness. That is how I prayed about it. And my mistake was revealed to me. I realized I'd been judging the man by what my eyes and ears-my physical senses-were telling me about him.

Christian Science teaches that the physical senses don't tell us the reliable truth about who we really are. The Bible says that God made man in His image and likeness (see Genesis 1:26), and God isn't physical. He is Spirit. This means we are really spiritual and express the nature of God. It had been a mistake for me to think of this man as bothersome, because this was not how God created him. I needed to correct things in my own thinking, not in that man. I needed to recognize that his real nature was like God's-loving, intelligent, just, and likable. It was as though I needed to delete from my thinking the usual way of looking at him, and instead to think of him as Jesus might have. In the book of John, Jesus is quoted as saying, ''Judge not according to the appearance, but judge righteous judgment'' (7:24).

The woman who founded the Christian Science Church, Mary Baker Eddy, wrote this about judging correctly in Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures: ''Jesus beheld in Science the perfect man, who appeared to him where sinning mortal man appears to mortals. In this perfect man the Saviour saw God's own likeness, and this correct view of man healed the sick'' (pp. 476-477). Not only did Jesus heal the sick; he also helped people to turn themselves around, even when they had been caught doing wrong.

When I saw this, I saw that I really could look at this person differently. From then on I held to the spiritual view of the man-the correct view. And I became no longer afraid of him. I stopped joining people in criticizing him. Instead I quietly thanked God for having made all creation good and harmonious. Soon the whole problem faded away for me. Our relationship even became a cordial one.

Next time you are tempted to get upset over something somebody says to you that you do not like, maybe you can remember the useful little computer key, and put that idea to work for you. You can ask God to reveal the truth to you so that you will know exactly what you need to correct in your own thinking to set matters right.

There is nothing covered,

that shall not be revealed;

and hid, that shall not be known.

Matthew 10:26

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