Limited access?

SOME highways, meant as they are for steady, speedy travel between major points, have limited access. That is, not all roads meeting the highway will actually yield entry to the big road. What's true of roads, however, is not true of our relationship to God. Here, everyone has equal and full access to the creator.

For us to see this clearly, it helps to understand the nature of God and the way He has created man. God is infinite Spirit, as we can learn from the Bible. Therefore He is not limited to a particular place or time in the way that a corporeal being would be limited.

That's the key to our unlimited access. Since omnipresent Spirit cannot be restricted to a particular place or period, our access is assured because God and His healing Christ are always at hand. And since this omnipresence cannot possibly be influenced by human differences (race or economic circumstances or level of education or religious background, for example), it is equally available to all. Such an understanding is more than an abstract idea. It changes us and brings healing into our lives.

The basis of our ability to commune with God, to approach Him in prayer and feel something of His healing power, is not only His omnipresence as the one perfect Mind, as universal Spirit; it's also the true nature of man. Because God is Spirit, the man of His creating is spiritual, inseparable from Him. Although it seems otherwise, and may require much patience and persistent effort to begin to grasp this fact, still, in truth, man is spiritual, the image of God, never for an instant separate from his creator. So we always have access to God's healing power and love.

God's love is unbiased. There is no grading of man as His likeness. What God gives, He gives in completeness to each individual identity in His creation. ``Love is impartial and universal in its adaptation and bestowals,'' writes Mary Baker Eddy, the Discoverer and Founder of Christian Science and author of its textbook, Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures. And she adds, ``It is the open fount which cries, `Ho, every one that thirsteth, come ye to the waters.'''1

In our highway system, barriers preventing access to the big roads are solid and, of course, must be respected. But what appear to be barriers blocking our access to God are not legitimate -- not on the map of Spirit, if you will -- and can be removed through prayer.

Of course, prayer doesn't change God. Nor does it change the spiritual man that God created. But it does move our thinking into line with the truth of omnipresent divine Spirit and of our perfect spiritual individuality. It brings to the surface of thought the fears, sins, or misconceptions that may be obstructing our well-being and enables us to be free of them.

Understanding that God's work, including man, is already complete means that our true selfhood was never confronted by a barrier. This is the highest standpoint for our prayer, because we have recognized God and man as they truly are, and this makes healing possible.

Because continued prayer can show us more of the specifics of God's man, of what's spiritually true of each of us, it can help eliminate all kinds of barriers, including the feeling that we are unworthy and therefore not able to commune with our heavenly Father.

We might also be reluctant to turn to God because we feel we just don't know the words, because praying is something we have never really done much of. But prayer isn't as much a matter of words as it is honest desire. And remember, we all have the purest, most powerful prayer right in our Bibles. It is the one given by Christ Jesus -- The Lord's Prayer, which begins, ``Our Father which art in heaven, Hallowed be thy name.''2

There is no special fraternity of those who have privileged access to God. Though he himself is unique in history, Christ Jesus ``hath made us kings and priests unto God,''3 as it says in Revelation. With God, there is no hierarchy, or even a bureaucracy! We are all in that close circle of His spiritual family!

1Science and Health, p. 13. 2Matthew 6:9. 3Revelation 1:6.

You can find more articles like this one in the Christian Science Sentinel, a weekly magazine. DAILY BIBLE VERSE: Do not I fill heaven and earth? saith the Lord. Jeremiah 23:24