What does God know about us?

THERE was a mournful moment when I suddenly felt that God didn't like me. I had worked so hard, done my best, and all seemed to turn to ashes. In despair I said, ``Do whatever You want with me, I've done all I can,'' and wept. Many years later, as a result of studying Christian Science, the light has shone on those dark days, and I'm beginning truly to understand something of what God knows about us, His children. We read in the Bible, ``My thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways, saith the Lord.'' 1 God is not human, finite, tossed between good and evil. He is the one infinite, eternal Being, totally good. He is Spirit, not matter. Human thought would make God limited, and the overseer of a faulty creation. It would view Him as a super-personality, echoing human emotion on a grand scale, randomly punishing some. We hear the disaster victim's heartfelt lament, ``God has just forgotten about us down here.'' And yet we find God's word in the Bible, ``Can a woman forget her sucking child, that she should not have compassion on the son of her womb? yea, they may forget, yet will I not forget thee.'' 2 The answer to the question of a perfect God and a far from perfect world can come through reasoning from a standpoint that is both Christian and scientific. If God is infinite good, there is no room for anything evil. If God is infinite Spirit, there is no room for matter, the opposite of Spirit. If God is infinite Love, there is no room for hate anywhere. And if man is the image of the one infinite God, as we learn from the Scriptures, he must be perfect and spiritual. This must be the actual selfhood of us all, despite what our eyes and ears tell us. So an unpredictable, sometimes cruel earthly life is not the reality of existence, because it doesn't express the perfection created by and known to God, infinite Mind. Mary Baker Eddy, the Discoverer and Founder of Christian Science, writes, ``God is the law of Life, not of death; of health, not of sickness; of good, not of evil.'' 3 Through Christian Science we come to see how a spiritual understanding of God and His creation can be applied in a practical, healing way in our lives. The Christian Science textbook, Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures by Mrs. Eddy, shows how even a small understanding of man as spiritual and perfect does change human lives for the better, and, most important, enables us to progress in working out our salvation. At home or work, while shopping or playing, we can actively look for such qualities as love, patience, and wisdom in ourselves and in those we meet. Even with so-called ``problem people'' we can begin to see God's goodness expressed, and this perception has a healing effect on us and on others as well. Through persistent prayer and quiet listening for God's thoughts, the revelation comes that God loves and knows every one of us as His own perfect and holy idea. By realizing God-given qualities of goodness in ourselves and others, we can find a growing peace in our lives right here on earth. We feel the uplifting, healing, regenerating presence of the Christ, God's message of good blessing humanity. So even the most difficult trials can be overcome when we stand firm and open our thought to the spiritual reality of God and man, Mind and idea. More and more we find that divine power lovingly governs our lives in wonderfully harmonious and healthful ways. ``For I know the thoughts that I think toward you, saith the Lord, thoughts of peace, and not of evil, to give you an expected end.'' 4 All that God didn't create and therefore doesn't know--sin, disease, death --must be deceptive, even illusory, unreal, incredible though this may seem. Though it appears we now dwell amid the dangers of material life, there is hope and sure deliverance. We can turn to God in prayer and hold fast to the spiritual ideal He knows. The proof of that reality will come, in His own guiding, caring way. 1 Isaiah 55:8. 2 Isaiah 49:15. 3 Miscellaneous Writings, p. 259. 4 Jeremiah 29:11.