Prayer for travel
Many people today are traveling, spending more time in planes, trains, buses, boats, cars, and even spacecraft. Some of these people but are praying about their travel.
The Apostle Paul journeyed much around the eastern Mediterranean in days when transportation was not nearly as safe and convenient as it is today. Perhaps part of his prayer for that travel is revealed in his words to the Athenians as Acts reports them: "In him [God] we live, and move, and have our being." n1
n1 Acts 17:28;
Christian Science emphasizes the two facts behind Paul's insight -- that God exists, and that man is inseparable from Him. It also shows us, in accord with Bible teaching, that God is ever present and all-knowing. He is the source of all true, and therefore, good, action.
Man, inseparable from God, is not actually a mortal as we all seem to be. He is the perfect image, or idea, of the divine Mind, the precious child of the God who is Love.This is the man we truly are, because God's creation must express His nature.
To reason carefully along these lines as they apply to one's travel is to pray about one's travel.This prayer has a transforming effect on consciousness; it lifts our thought above anxiety about connections or food or language barriers to a higher, spiritual perspective from which we can see man as God's spiritual image, so immediately at one with infinite good that there can be no mistakes, misunderstandings, or conflicts. Through prayer we're able to see that God's individual ideas are controlled by Him, by perfect Principle, and are therefore in harmony with one another.
Speaking of the eternal unity of God and man, Mary Baker Eddy, the Discoverer and Founder of Christian Science, writes, "This is the Father's great Love that He hath bestowed upon us, and it holds man in endless Life and one eternal round of harmonious being." n2
n2 Miscellaneous Writings,m p. 77
As a result of prayer, we feel the incomparable joy of being close to God. We also see our travel unfold smoothly.
However, there's a very important issue related to prayer for travel -- and, in fact, to all prayer. It's one's motive. The highest motive is to glorify God. God exists as infinite good, and He creates His ideas to express this good. The basic issue in travel problems is not that we are inconvenienced, but that God is believed to be less than all-controlling good. Our humblest motive for prayer is not that our mortal schedule be met but that God's immortal design be fulfilled; not that we be convenienced, but that He be glorified.
When we see our travel as a small expression of His perfect omniaction, we do not think of God as in matter or mortal movements. That would be pantheism and not Christian Science. Rather, we let the Christ, God's healing power, lift our thought high enough so that we gain at least a glimpse of the orderly unfoldment of God's plan, wherein man forever glorifies Him as all-powerful and omniactive.The prophet apparently glimpsed this spiritual reality when he wrote, "Bring my sons from far, and my daughters from the ends of the earth; even every one that is called by my name: for i have created him for my glory.' n3
n3 Isaiah 43:6, 7.
No matter where we are or where we're going, we too can love this spiritual idea: that man glorifies God. Through it we will feel God's nearness and our dearness to Him. At the same time our human plans will be harmonized, and perhaps in important and lovely ways we never expected. DAILY BIBLE VERSE A man's heart deviseth his way: but the lord directeth his steps. Provers 16:9
