Seeking Our Abundance in God
ONE can hardly go through a day without seeing or hearing of hunger, poverty, homelessness. We may feel helpless to do anything about them.
But there is something we can do. We can pray. This isn't just some idealistic way to comfort ourselves while people continue to suffer. Prayer reveals practical solutions to our problems. It illumines spiritual, right ideas, which come from God. Prayer can uncover the new, spiritual perspective that enables us to see what needs to be changed and how to change it. Such ideas are found when we turn in prayer to God, good.
The Discoverer and Founder of Christian Science, Mary Baker Eddy, writes in Miscellaneous Writings: "God gives you His spiritual ideas, and in turn, they give you daily supplies. . . . This sweet assurance is the `Peace, be still' to all human fears, to suffering of every sort.
God's care can seem very distant to those who have to fight for each bite of food or for a place to sleep at night. But without the peace of knowing God-given spiritual abundance, even relative affluence can leave one feeling like he is scraping and scratching to get by. Isn't it the "Peace, be still of knowing God cares for us that we are really searching for? And isn't it this peace that Christ Jesus brought to those around him? Mark's Gospel records that during a terrible storm that was sinking his sh ip, Jesus confidently turned to God's care and commanded: "Peace, be still. The sea was immediately calm.
It was Christ Jesus' obedience to divine law that enabled him to heal abnormalities--whether it was sickness, sin, storms, lack. He knew God to be the provider of all good. He acknowledged God's care for His child. Jesus was able to meet humanity's needs because he understood man's true supply to be in spiritual ideas originating directly from God.
Today, a clearer understanding of God's presence and power provides the spiritual ideas we need in our lives each day. And these spiritual ideas are ever present, just as God is. The spiritual ideas that originate in God, Spirit, have their manifestation or effect in man, the man God made in His image.
As we recognize our genuine identity as God's child, we begin to see that we can trust God, divine Love, to provide abundantly for His children. This is what enabled Jesus to say, as Matthew records, "Ask, and it shall be given you; seek, and ye shall find; knock, and it shall be opened unto you: for every one that asketh receiveth; and he that seeketh findeth; and to him that knocketh it shall be opened. As we ask, seek, and knock, through prayer, we can be spiritually assured of finding God's abundant provision. Whatever our need is we can trust the Almighty to give us all good.
Spiritual ideas are the real supply. They are indestructible. They never fade away or become useless. They have their substance in God. Everything good is an idea in the divine Mind, God. As we learn to listen to this divine Mind, we too will begin not only to hear God's direction but to follow Him. We will see that He is already giving us an abundance of spiritual ideas that show us what to do and how to do it. God is always leading, cherishing, loving His child. Turning to Him and spiritually listening
for His voice, we'll become more aware of how fully His goodness is already present in our experience. We'll find we can trust Him to meet all our needs--practically and abundantly.
