Confidence in God Overcomes Lack
THE bills had just arrived. They collectively amounted to about as much money as I had at the bank--leaving nothing over to meet the coming month's day-to-day living expenses. I wanted to honor the bills due because I feel paying my debts promptly is right and honest. But I worried that it wouldn't be sensible to be rash and leave myself penniless. Should I pay some of the bills now and delay others? I wasn't sure what to do. As a Christian Scientist, I am accustomed to turning to God in prayer. So I beg an to pray for a way out of what seemed to be a quandry.
After a time of quiet prayer I found myself gaining confidence in God's ability to meet my complete need. As I continued to pray, this sense of sureness in God's capability grew. I realized that what God, Spirit, supplied me with was spiritual--so it couldn't be measured, or limited, by pounds and pence. The good that God gives me as His beloved child is unlimited because its source is infinite. By the time I went to bed that night I had written checks to cover all the bills and had posted them. I felt s ure that what would have been rash if done on impulse would prove to be sensible because it was based on an understanding of God's infinitude.
The next morning I learned from the manager of my workplace that he had discovered an error in my wage calculations. Then and there he wrote out a check for money owed to me. It fully covered the total of the bills that I had paid the previous night. This money had been mine all along, even though I hadn't known about it as I wrote the checks.
Looking back on the experience, I can see how prayer brought my thought more into line with spiritual truth. As the Discoverer and Founder of Christian Science, Mary Baker Eddy, explains in Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures: "Prayer cannot change the Science of being, but it tends to bring us into harmony with it. Goodness attains the demonstration of Truth.
The Science of being, the truth of God's spiritual universe, includes immortal, spiritual man. This is the spiritual reality for each of us. And it is a reality in which resources are infinitely abundant because they are wholly spiritual. Created and sustained by God in His own image and likeness, as the Bible teaches, the true, spiritual man knows no intermittent sufficiency; he reflects God's own secure abundance. The good news of the Gospels is that you and I are--in reality and uninterruptedly-- that
spiritual man!
Christ Jesus showed that there is a practical way to bridge the distance between such a glorious ideal and the pictures of lack and indebtedness that seem so solid a reality for individuals and nations today. Jesus proved man's dominion over human lack by such actions as the feeding of five thousand from just a handful of loaves and fishes and by paying a tax with "a piece of money from a fish's mouth.
His example remains unmatched, but his role as the Way-shower indicates spiritual ability already in each of us to trust God prayerfully to meet our legitimate needs. And not for our own sakes only! We can contribute something very precious to the spiritual freedom of humankind now, by proving for ourselves that an inspired confidence in God is a practical way to overcome lack.
You can find more articles like this one in the Christian Science Sentinel, a weekly magazine.
