God's outflow and your income

Recently, my social security check was a little larger than those of the months before, thanks to a cost of living increase. Then, my condominium assessment arrived, and it, too, was larger than before. Unfortunately, the bill's increase was greater than that in my Social Security.

For those on a fixed income, these situations can be troubling. But I like something Mary Baker Eddy said in "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures": "... to all mankind and in every hour, divine Love supplies all good." Our supply of good from God is never fixed and minimal.

Financial problems are just as subject to the spiritual laws of healing that Jesus observed as are our physical needs. The entire sentence in which that phrase appears reads, "It is not well to imagine that Jesus demonstrated the divine power to heal only for a select number or for a limited period of time, since to all mankind and in every hour, divine Love supplies all good" (p. 494).

More than once, Jesus proved God's outpouring of good by feeding thousands when there were few human resources available. And his disciples, noticing the abundance of good that always accompanied Jesus, asked him to teach them how to pray, and he gave them those amazing ideas which are now known as the Lord's Prayer.

Before giving them the prayer, Jesus addressed the question of human needs and God's fulfillment of them, saying, "Your Father knoweth what things ye have need of, before ye ask him." And after telling them how to pray, he said, "Take therefore no thought for the morrow: for the morrow shall take thought for the things of itself" (Matt. 6:8, 34). Other translations indicate that the word thought means "anxiety" or "anxious thought."

As we follow this command to "take no thought" – which is saying, basically, "Not to worry!" – a healing light begins to shine on many troubling questions, such as, Have I saved enough money to retire? Will the US Social Security program meet the challenge of retiring baby boomers? Are the pension funds out of which I am paid secure? If my country has no social security system when I retire, who will help me? We can't answer such questions with surety simply by looking at the numbers. But when we're sure of God's unchanging goodness, we're directed in ways that prove the continuity of good throughout eternity.

My husband owned a small business. We had little savings, and since he was self-employed, there was no company retirement plan. At one time there was a piece of equipment he needed to buy, but he felt that he shouldn't spend the money.

One day he was looking at this equipment, and some words from Mrs. Eddy came to thought: "God is the lawmaker, but He is not the author of barbarous codes" (Science and Health, p. 381).

My husband said he saw "barbarous codes" as cruel laws of limitation. And what he was learning of God's nature excluded the possibility of there being a law of God that would limit good in our lives and cause human suffering. For him, this enlarged sense of what law means – that God is the lawmaker and that His laws do not involve cruelty in their execution – was momentous and freeing. He bought the equipment right then. And from then on, he felt assured that there were no codes of cruelty in the laws God made.

Those solid truths – that God is the lawmaker, and that the laws of spiritual existence include no "barbarous codes" – also carried my husband through a comfortable retirement. And we all have the right to expect that "morrow" of which Jesus spoke to be bright indeed, because our income from divine Love's outpouring flows "in every hour."

Adapted from the Christian Science Sentinel.