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Stress? Not in God’s plan.

If it seems we just don’t have enough time to accomplish what we need to get done, we can put our schedules aside and seek God first. Then, God’s perfect plan comes into view. 

  • By Randal Craft

Christian Science Perspective audio edition
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Imagine this – when I decided to write an article on this topic, the thought came to me, “I don’t think I have enough time!” Ha! Isn’t it funny how that kind of message can easily come to mind while we’re completing our daily tasks?

I faced the issue of limited time during my first semester of graduate school. I had been working hard to keep up with the rigorous schedule and had planned out the remaining weeks before finals. Then, out of nowhere, some unexpected demands came my way. Wow – how was I going to find the time to fit anything more into my tight schedule?

A passage from Christ Jesus’ Sermon on the Mount came to mind, where he was talking about one’s daily needs. He explained that just as God cares for the lilies, He will certainly care for each of us. Jesus advised that we don’t need to worry about what we will have to eat or drink, or be clothed with, but rather we should first and foremost seek “the kingdom of God, and his righteousness; and all these things shall be added unto you” (Matthew 6:33). That’s what Jesus did – he put God first in his life, and the result was healing and resolution of all kinds of situations.

Well, that’s what I strove to do. From my practice of Christian Science, I knew that when we make time to turn our thought to God throughout the day, we are better able to accomplish everything else that needs to be done.

So I started the day praying to God, acknowledging Him as infinite, all-powerful, ever present, and fully good. Mary Baker Eddy, the founder of the Monitor, writes, “The infinite is one, and this one is Spirit; Spirit is God, and this God is infinite good” (“The First Church of Christ, Scientist, and Miscellany,” p. 356).

I started to realize that God is always in control, caring for His spiritual offspring, which includes each of us. This means that as God’s children, we can actually only experience unlimited goodness. It also means that time could never limit God’s infinite provision of good, because there can be no limitation in infinite Spirit.

Soon, I was freed from a feeling of stress, which was replaced by the assurance that all demands would be effectively met – even when thoughts such as “You don’t have enough time to study adequately” came along.

As I prayed, I felt an intuition to particularly study certain topics. And it turned out that the exam questions presented were those I was most prepared to answer. How grateful I was to God!

We may find ourselves thinking we don’t have the time we need to get things done. However, we can claim dominion over a sense of stress that may try to come upon us, regardless of the time of year or our circumstances. As we make time for God, following Christ Jesus’ example of putting God first, we find that we don’t need to let the pressures of time overwhelm us. And we become confident in God’s plan of infinite goodness for all. This can’t help but bless.

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Dear Reader,

About a year ago, I happened upon this statement about the Monitor in the Harvard Business Review – under the charming heading of “do things that don’t interest you”:

“Many things that end up” being meaningful, writes social scientist Joseph Grenny, “have come from conference workshops, articles, or online videos that began as a chore and ended with an insight. My work in Kenya, for example, was heavily influenced by a Christian Science Monitor article I had forced myself to read 10 years earlier. Sometimes, we call things ‘boring’ simply because they lie outside the box we are currently in.”

If you were to come up with a punchline to a joke about the Monitor, that would probably be it. We’re seen as being global, fair, insightful, and perhaps a bit too earnest. We’re the bran muffin of journalism.

But you know what? We change lives. And I’m going to argue that we change lives precisely because we force open that too-small box that most human beings think they live in.

The Monitor is a peculiar little publication that’s hard for the world to figure out. We’re run by a church, but we’re not only for church members and we’re not about converting people. We’re known as being fair even as the world becomes as polarized as at any time since the newspaper’s founding in 1908.

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