From recurring evil to ever-occurring good

A hefty chunk of modern thinking pictures life as a kind of cycle or orbit of recurring problems. Occasionally this cycle is mapped out by such currently-in-vogue systems as biorhythms and astrology. Occasionally it's marked by those popular age-related traumas: the 30s, 40s, 50s crises. Occasionally, too, it takes the form of recurring illness. But the common message is that certain troubles come around with expected regularity. You might call it a cycle of recurring evil.

If we fully reckon the power of good, we get an awesomely different picture, though. God is good. What is good and right has its source in God, Principle, Mind. In fact, infinite good is God Himself. And God is the one enternal power.

According to the laws of scientific metaphysics, an individual can escape recurring evils. He can move into a round of ever-occurring good, drawn by the all-powerful God.

But Christian Science makes plain that we have to understand and abide by God's law if we expect it to govern our lives. That law is set out in simple form in the Ten Commandments of the Old Testament. n1 And the summarizing two commandments reiterated by Christ Jesus in the New Testament. n2 These are the do's and don'ts for right living. But they are also things to vividly understand in their whole range of meaning.

n1 See Exodus 20:3-17;

n2 See Matthew 22:37-39;

Look, for example, at the first commandment. It implies the omnipotence of God, good, and the utter impotence of evil. But if you want this commandment to really touch your life, don't just stand back and gaze at it. Take it and relate it to yourself. See what it means to have only one God, who is good, who is Mind, who is Principle. He is in reality the one power, the one central force in your life. Realize this truth. Love it. Live it. The more you do, the more it unleashes dynamic spiritual power. The very power needed to draw you out of a defeating round of troubles and to set you on a course of good.

So we have: Do understand and love the one God. Do love your neighbor. Do remember the sabbath. Do not bow down to other gods. Do not covet. And so on. Meeting the moral demands is indispensable. But there's more to it than that. As we discern the "coming-from-God" aspect of these commands -- instead of seeing them merely as behavioral rules -- we get nearer their heart. Their divine origin instills in them spiritual power. A power that is able to rescue and redeem and even heal us. When we do our part, obeying God's law, understanding it, living it, it becomes an evil-shattering force in our lives. A force that draws us to inexhaustible good.

There is an account in the Bible of a man who had been crippled 38 years. Christ Jesus saw this man and came to him. He said, "Rise, take up thy bed, and walk." The man obeyed and was healed. But the story doesn't end there. Later the two men met again and Jesus said, "Behold, thou art made whole: sin no more, lest a worse thing come unto three." n3 That message could be broadened and delivered to each of us something like this: Once you gain wholeness and goodness, don't lose them. If you want them to stay in your life, you've got to get the victory over sin. You've got to obey the law of God. This is what holds your life on a continous cycle of good. Or brings it back to that, if it has become a round of repeating problems.

n3 See John 5:2-14;

When we deeply understand that law and obey it, it has a way of canceling out the drag of recurring troubles. And we're free to place ourselves more consistently on the cycle we belong on. Then we will find to be true what Mary Baker Eddy n4 says. We will find Mind, Principle, ". . . holding man forever in the rhythmic round of unfolding bliss, as a living witness to and perpetual idea of inexhaustible good." n5

n4 Mrs. Eddy is the Discoverer and Founder of Christian Science;

n5 Miscellaneous Writings,m pp. 82-83.

DAILY BIBLE VERSE $5My flesh and my heart faileth: but God is the strength of my heart, and my portion for ever. Psalms 73:26 .