No age limits to vitality

MY day had started at 5:30 a.m. I was to begin serving on a civic commission. As I headed home in the late afternoon through heavy traffic I was exhausted. I couldn't help thinking, ``No wonder I'm tired. I'm about twenty years older than the other members.'' When I got home, I had time to sit down for a few minutes with the Bible and Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures, the Christian Science textbook by Mary Baker Eddy.1 I read this in Isaiah: ``Even the youths shall faint and be weary, and the young men shall utterly fall: but they that wait upon the Lord shall renew their strength; they shall mount up with wings as eagles; they shall run, and not be weary; and they shall walk, and not faint.''2

I had to chuckle at that reminder that senior citizens had no monopoly on fatigue or its remedy. The sense of weariness diminished. My turning in prayer to the spiritual support of the Bible and Science and Health constituted ``waiting on the Lord,'' which could only revive me.

There's no exclusivity to ``waiting on the Lord.'' Each of us has direct access to God, the source of true strength and wisdom.

``Waiting on the Lord'' means more than sitting around hoping that God will give us a helping hand. Effective waiting includes a growing certainty of God's allness and goodness, cultivated through prayer and through a purification of thought, as indicated in Christ Jesus' teachings. It includes a clear recognition of God's constant care for His children. ``Waiting on the Lord'' means coming to understand God as Life itself, the source of our strength and activity, which are as eternal as God.

God, Life, is also Spirit, as Jesus taught; so our existence and strength, coming from God, are actually spiritual, not material. They're not truly the product of physicality, even though they seem to be. Because divine Life is endless, there is no time limit or age limit to the expression of Life's qualities in our experience.

I had voiced two misconceptions when I mused about my weariness and age. These mistakes stemmed from the universal conviction that man is mortal, subject to depletion and limitation, with age accelerating these conditions. Admittedly, we do seem to be depletable mortals, but that's not our true selfhood, because man's nature couldn't be the very opposite of his creator's.

I had thought I was being worn out by the work I was doing. But then I read a statement by Mrs. Eddy, quoting from the Bible, that showed me I didn't have to be weary in doing good.3 I saw that the Christly impulsion to be compassionate, to serve, to heal, to solve problems, includes inexhaustible spiritual support. Just the opposite of what I had self-diagnosed!

Science and Health also states, referring to God as Mind, ``The scientific and permanent remedy for fatigue is to learn the power of Mind over the body or any illusion of physical weariness, and so destroy this illusion, for matter cannot be weary and heavy-laden.''4

Our real being is spiritual, not material. Therefore we don't have to be victimized by supposed laws which declare that matter can lose strength and vitality. We have access to the strength and intelligence we need, and we are subject to the control of divine Mind. Anything contradicting the allness and goodness of God and the inseparability of God and man is illegitimate; it's not true. It's not inevitable that mental and physical exertions will wear us out. Measuring life and activity by corporeal standards limits vitality.

The same spiritual truth that enables us to overcome fatigue can open the way to healing of sickness and injury. Clearly, Jesus was convinced of the unity of God and man and of the present possibility for bringing out man's God-given purity and wholeness. He knew there is a spiritual solution for human needs, and his teachings show us the way to begin following his example.

Through prayer we can come to feel our oneness with our Father, God. We can progressively put off conventional beliefs about material cause and effect, which falsely predict fatigue. We can claim dominion, as Jesus did, and demonstrate our God-given strength.

I was able to do this the following two equally busy days on duty with the civic commission, and I went home stimulated by the entire experience.

1The Discoverer and Founder of Christian Science. 2Isaiah 40:30, 31. 3See Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures 79:29-31. 4Ibid., p. 217.

You can find more articles like this one in the Christian Science Sentinel, a weekly magazine. DAILY BIBLE VERSE: Brethren, be not weary in well doing. II Thessalonians 3:13