You deserve to be healed

Everyone deserves to be healed, because everyone is loved by God.

That may seem to be a bold statement, especially if you’re wondering if healing is even possible for some challenge you’re facing. But if there’s one thing we can learn from reading the Bible – in particular the teachings and healings of Christ Jesus – it’s that God loves each and every one of us, and that our complete and unconditional acceptance of this love inevitably leads to healing.

Granted, much of what we achieve in life appears to be the result of a lot of hard work. However, in Christian Science we learn that whatever we are required to do in order for healing to take place – whatever misconceptions of God, or of ourselves as His beloved creation, may need to be prayerfully dispensed with – becomes a lot easier through a deeper appreciation of what God is already doing. And if there’s one thing we can count on God to do, it’s to love.

Jesus certainly knew this, and was able to help others see it as well. For instance, following the resurrection, Jesus’ disciples were on a boat, fishing, and he was standing on the shore. Jesus called out, “Friends, have you caught anything?” (John 21:5, Contemporary English Version). “No,” they answered, even though they’d been at it all night.

But rather than suggesting, “Just give it a little more time,” Jesus told them to toss their net on the right side of the boat. They did, and it was then filled with fish – the implication being that their success wasn’t about putting in more time or effort but rather changing their approach. It was about being both receptive and responsive to Christ’s encouragement to see that, in fact, their need had already been met by a constantly loving and every-need-supplying God.

For us, it may not always seem so easy. For instance, sometimes we’re perhaps not as responsive as the disciples were to Christ – that is, to the persistent expression of God’s grace that Jesus embodied. Or we’re ruminating about how long we’ve been dealing with some problem instead of yielding to Christ’s revelation of the allness of God’s goodness. And yet it’s this very Christ – this divine assurance that we actually deserve to be healed – that is able to disarm and ultimately destroy every “Why me?” and “Why aren’t my prayers working?” that would appear to stand in the way of progress.

I remember a time when I was able to gain at least a glimpse of this assurance. A longstanding pain in my lower back and one leg had left me feeling sorry for myself. But then a much-needed reminder that God truly loves one and all, including me – that none of us could become separated from this love, or from one another – brought about a surprising yet welcome mental adjustment. Healing quickly followed (see “Healed of severe back and leg pain,” Christian Science Sentinel, August 31, 2020).

So what is it that would delay healing, have us feel unloved by God, or make us believe we don’t deserve to be healed? It’s what St. Paul refers to as “the carnal mind” (Romans 8:7) – that is, a supposed consciousness apart from God, from divine Mind. And how do we resist the temptation to identify this so-called mind, along with all its flaws and limitations, as our own? By affirming, as Paul did, that “we have the mind of Christ” (I Corinthians 2:16). This means that we reflect, and were created to express, the Mind that’s always and only conscious of God and God’s love.

One of the wonderful “side effects,” if you will, of being conscious of God’s love for us is that it naturally results in our being more consistently loving of others – more patient, more compassionate, more forgiving. And what happens when we’re more consistently loving of others? We become even more conscious of that universal divine Love that excludes anything and everything unlike itself, the Love that heals.

Even when healings don’t happen as quickly as we would like, there should never come a time when we stop insisting on the fact of God’s love for us, even the all-presence and power of divine Love itself. As Mary Baker Eddy, the Discoverer and Founder of Christian Science, puts it: “The power of Christian Science and divine Love is omnipotent. It is indeed adequate to unclasp the hold and to destroy disease, sin, and death” (“Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures,” p. 412).

Originally published as an editorial in the Jan. 17, 2022, issue of the Christian Science Sentinel.