Recovering what is lost

When something we possess is not there when we need it, what have we lost? To a superficial, material sense of things, we've lost a physical object, without which we can't be as useful or as happy as we would be were it still in our possession. But through the absence of this missing item, material sense - the limited viewpoint inherent in earthbound, materially based thinking - is making a more subtle declaration: that some power or influence exists which is able to separate us, not just from physical objects but from the God-given ability to express the order, dominion, and peace that are eternal attributes of God. As we come to better understand what is being claimed by the material sense of things, and how impotent that false sense is when confronted with the truth of being, we will be able to heal the apparent loss of objects from the same basis that Christ Jesus healed the apparent loss of health, sight, and life.

God, infinite Spirit, has no knowledge of material objects or their location. Matter is a human concept, a temporary human phenomenon that will ultimately disappear as the reality of God and His ideal spiritual creation becomes clearer to human consciousness. But while eternal Spirit cannot include a knowledge of material things, Spirit, God, can and does know the perfect order and completeness of His creation, including man. Our Father-Mother does know that we lack nothing, and that no power or influence exists (because He is all-power, all-presence, and all-knowledge) that can deprive His creation of a single quality of its total and perfect completeness.

If when something valuable disappears we feel a loss of dominion, this temporary blindness to divine Love's ever-presence can be overcome by denying in our actions and thoughts the claim that material sense can separate us in any degree from our true, spiritual identity and completeness. And such prayer is inevitably effective in restoring to us whatever we legitimately need.

''Seek, and ye shall find,'' n1 promised Christ Jesus, and it is an invariably demonstrable law of God that when we seek to understand and strive to manifest our true spiritual nature - strive to express greater love and purity, following Jesus' example - we will find ourselves to be missing nothing that we need. The spiritual truth of being, understood and practiced, frees us from inharmony.

n1 Matthew 7:7.

In her writings Mary Baker Eddy, the Discoverer and Founder of Christian Science, refers to God as the very Principle of the universe, as Truth and Life. She states: ''Harmony is produced by its Principle, is controlled by it and abides with it. Divine Principle is the Life of man. Man's happiness is not, therefore, at the disposal of physical sense. Truth is not contaminated by error. Harmony in man is as beautiful as in music, and discord is unnatural, unreal.''n2

n2 Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures, p. 304.8

When material sense claims that we've lost something, this is an opportunity to gain experience in trusting the operation of God's law. Refusing to respond to the false evidence of discord restores our spiritual sense of unity with the omniscient creator who cannot be - or allow His creation to be - separated from one iota of infinite good.

When we're freed from the fear that anything can ever separate us from our own completeness, the objects we need are more quickly found - and less likely to be lost. DAILY BIBLE VERSE 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. . . . Your Father knoweth what things ye have need of, before ye ask him. . . . Lay not up for yourselves treasures upon earth, where moth and rust doth corrupt, and where thieves break through and steal: but lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust doth corrupt, and where thieves do not break through nor steal . . . . Seek ye first the kingdom of God, and his righteousness. Matthew 6: 6, 8, 19, 20, 33 2 Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures, p. 304.

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