Gaining Perspective
On holiday last summer in Switzerland, I took a cable car up Le Salve, a mountain overlooking Geneva. The view was great! And it was cool and fresh up there as well. I had a lovely time taking in the scenery and watching the paragliders soaring on the thermals.
When I first arrived in Geneva, I felt very confused and wondered how I was ever going to find my way around. Being up on that mountain and looking down made all the difference; I could see how everything was laid out. It wasn't such a big city as I had thought. With the change in perspective, I had confidence I'd find my way around. And I did, quite easily. Going up higher had allowed me to see things differently.
This is what happens when we turn to God. We go up higher and get a better perspective, a spiritual one. We get an entirely new sense of existence. And this perspective changes our outlook. Instead of being down in the valleys of problems and unhappiness, we're up on the mountaintop of spiritual observation, looking out at the good way God makes us.
Far from being "in the clouds," when we adopt this view we are in a practical place. Christ Jesus called it the kingdom of heaven. You don't have to climb a mountain to find it. It's within you. Jesus went straight to God to find what was true. And doing this enabled him to heal many people.
Christian Science helps us find this same truth. The textbook of Christian Science, Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures by Mary Baker Eddy, says: "Jesus beheld in Science the perfect man, who appeared to him where sinning mortal man appears to mortals. In this perfect man the Saviour saw God's own likeness, and this correct view of man healed the sick" (pp. 476-477). You might find it worth your time to look at some of Jesus' healings in the Bible in the light of this statement.
Christian Science reveals what Jesus understood-the perfect nature of God and God's creation. Countless healings, including those of physical illness, have taken place when people have understood the perfect nature they have in relation to God.
If we are creatures of matter or dust, why are so many people searching for spiritual things? They are not satisfied with the material perspective of existence, which involves sickness and ends in death. And they never will be. They're actually reaching for that which is really theirs all along-their heritage, their identity as children of God.
Evil involves nothing but an imperfect view of ourselves as distorted, muddled, and limited. It involves many conflicting human opinions and points of view. To find the truth, we need to get up mentally higher and pray to have that same view of existence that Jesus had of one universal God governing all creation.
With this mountaintop perspective, this new understanding of God and our relation to Him, we cannot be satisfied with the doom and gloom of the mental valley. We will rise spontaneously to the altitude of inspired thought, where we can appreciate that God says of each of us, as He said of Jesus, "This is my beloved [son or daughter], in whom I am well pleased" (Matthew 3:17).
When a hot air balloon is ready for takeoff, apart from its being filled with air, other things must happen before it can rise. One is that the ropes have to be unfastened. Another is that ballast has to be jettisoned. Similarly, when our thoughts are filled with Godlike qualities of joy, love, gratitude, we are ready to take off-but not unless we cut the mortal ties and throw overboard any mental ballast, such as resentment, hatred, fear, doom. Then there's only one way to go, and that's up!
The spiritual view of creation is better than anything you'll see by taking a balloon ride. When you get a glimpse of God's perfect universe and of your own identity as indestructible and eternal, your unique place in the divine scheme of things appears. This spiritual perspective makes a real difference in day-to-day living.
You can find in-depth articles on Christian Science in a monthly magazine, The Christian Science Journal.
