Deep choices

Given the choice, most of us would rather listen to birds sing than to freeway traffic roar. Most of us would rather look at a serene sunset than at a chaotic junk yard. Probably all of us would rather feel healthy than sick.

However, most of us also believe that we have little if any choice about what we hear or see or feel. We believe that the matter around us and in us decides that for us. It's something like dinner in the army - you take what they give you.

But we do have a choice. We are not merely draftees in an army of material sensations. Each of us is God-endowed with spiritual sense. However, we're not always aware of, or awake to, this capacity. Through spiritual sense we can perceive the perfect spiritual reality that is right now present, although the coarse material senses can no more discern it than an AM radio can pick up FM transmissions.

Two of the deepest facts of spiritual reality are that God is infinite good and that man is His perfect and precious spiritual offspring. God, divine Love, is present everywhere, always. He creates and controls all that really exists, and all is good. These facts of spiritual reality rule out the actual presence of evil.

To the material senses these truths seem absurd. But our spiritual sense recognizes them as wise and powerful. To the degree that we deeply choose them, understand and live by them, they gradually transform our consciousness from a material base to a spiritual base, from fear of evil to trust in good, from false beliefs based on a material sense of existence, to true understanding based on a perception of Spirit, God, and His perfect spiritual creation.

Such deep changes in human consciousness naturally have an effect on our lives and health. Most people at least glimpse the effect that thought has on the body. For instance, the thought of grief may bring tears to an actor who is deeply involved in his part. If emotions can have such an effect on our bodies, isn't it logical that spiritual awareness, which works at a far deeper level of consciousness, would have a far deeper effect on us?

The Bible consistently teaches that it would and shows that it does. For instance, when Christ Jesus and his disciples saw a man blind from his birth, the disciples accepted the physical evidence as a fixed reality caused by sin. But when the Master looked past that evidence to the deep spiritual reality, he healed the man. He said, ''Neither hath this man sinned, nor his parents: but that the works of God should be made manifest in him.'' n1

n1 John 9:3

Following the teachings of the Master, Christian Science today presents this same approach to healing. The Discoverer and Founder of Christian Science, Mary Baker Eddy, writes: ''Entirely separate from the belief and dream of material living, is the Life divine, revealing spiritual understanding and the consciousness of man's dominion over the whole earth. This understanding casts out error and heals the sick, and with it you can speak 'as one having authority.' '' n2

n2 Science and Health With key to the Scriptures, p.14.

One day some years ago one of our children was doubled up with abdominal pain. At least that is what the material senses saw. At first I tried to convince my daughter to stop thinking of herself as a sick mortal and instead to see herself as the perfect spiritual idea of God. But we got nowhere. So I turned to God and prayed for pure spiritual understanding. Gradually I became at least a little more aware that she already was, in reality, this spiritual idea. This truth unfolded in my thought like a giant flower of light. As it unfolded, the belief that she was a sick mortal fell away from my thought. To me, only God and His creation were real and present. The choice was made.

She immediately relaxed and went naturally to sleep. Before long she woke not only healed but with little recollection of the whole experience.

There are many in this world who long to be well, and they can be. When we come to realize that we all long to glorify God by being spiritually rather than materially minded, we will do the study and pray the prayers that are necessary to attain spirituality. We will choose to serve God, not mammon. And our lives will be more harmonious as a result. DAILY BIBLE VERSE Teach me thy way, O Lord; I will walk in thy truth. Psalms 86:11