Finding God Everywhere

There is a man in Israel who goes down to the Sea of Galilee every day to pray. As he prays, he takes a scoop of water in his hands and pours it over his face. This is not a ritual or some form of personal baptism. It is a simple and deliberate act to remind him of something very special.

He says that what is contained in this handful of water is the same as the whole of the Sea of Galilee. And as he pours the water over his face, he remembers that what is contained in his prayer partakes of a greater whole. He acknowledges that when he prays he is communing with God, and that he is one with the "whole good," which is God; his prayer acknowledges his unity with all the elements of divine power.

Sometimes we feel insignificant and unimportant - cut off and separate - even in a bustling workplace or in the midst of family life. Understanding our unity with God counteracts the belief that anything can come between us and good. This is prayer that brings healing to human life. And evidence of healing discredits the suggestion that prayer counts for little or that we are of little value.

The Science of Christ explains that we are always surrounded by good because we are always surrounded by God. And God is Love. We live in the thriving spiritual presence of divine Love. The textbook of Christian Science puts it like this: "As a drop of water is one with the ocean, a ray of light one with the sun, even so God and man, Father and son, are one in being" (Mary Baker Eddy, "Science and Health With Key to the Scriptures," Pg. 361).

One of the ways to see God is as divine Mind. Uplifted thought and inspired prayer open our understanding of Mind. And we don't need an intermediary in order to talk with God, for divine Mind is all-hearing and all-knowing and everywhere. God knows every one of us, His children, and loves each impartially. Don't underestimate or undervalue either yourself or your prayers! The divine Mind is always beholding you as spiritual - perfect and flawless. An understanding of this results in a life that is filled with more good.

If you listen to God, your heavenly Father and Mother, in the stillness of your innermost thought, you will hear His communications in the form of thoughts - angels. God is blessing you with His messages. The flow of heavenly good can't be obstructed or localized.

One person who came to know this was the Hebrew leader Jacob. His story is told in the Bible. Getting off to a really bad start by lying to his father and cheating his brother out of his blessing, Jacob flees for his life into the wilderness (see Gen., Chaps. 27, 28). Alone and desolate, with no home comforts, Jacob makes a pillow of stones and falls asleep.

Jacob then has a wonderful dream. His consciousness is filled with angels, ascending and descending a ladder that reaches to heaven. God tells him the land that he is now lying on will belong to him and to his children.

When Jacob wakes he realizes that something very special has happened. Along with God's promise has come more of an awareness of the true nature of God - that He is not a localized being (as was then generally thought), but rather is omnipresent. God will be with Jacob wherever he goes.

Jacob makes the stones he had used for his pillow into a pillar and pours oil on it. He vows that if God will keep him safe and be near him, he will return again to his father's house in peace. And this desire to be good is fulfilled.

"The Interpreter's Bible," commenting on "God's Unexpected Presence," asks, "What less likely place and time - so it had seemed to him [Jacob] - could there be for God to manifest himself?" And Dummelow says, "Jacob perceives that, though he has left his father's home ..., his father's God is still watching over him. In these early days the idea of Jehovah as the God of the universe, and not of the nation only, was not realised .... Jacob shared the beliefs of his age, and his idea of God, like his character, was ... gradually purified."

Not cut off, never separated from God, you are one with Truth and Love. And through your prayers you are blessed.