Agency

Agency, the ability to make our own choices and control our own circumstances, is something that many of us prize. In human experience, however, it often seems as though one individual or group’s agency comes at the expense of another’s.

Perhaps it seems right to use our time and resources to help family and friends, but then we can’t move forward with our own plans. Or maybe we’re assigned a task but not given the resources or authority to carry it out. What can we do then? A Bible account hints at a path forward.

The story tells of an apparently hopeless situation, with a city under siege and out of options. Victory by the enemy king seemed inevitable. But, the Bible reports, one “poor wise man” had an idea. And that idea saved the city (see Ecclesiastes 9:14, 15).

In the Bible story, the “great king” attacking the city believed he was using his agency to deprive the city’s inhabitants of theirs. The wise man, in exercising his wisdom, did not actually deprive the king of the agency to carry out his evil plan; in reality, the king had no such power. In the universe of God, Love, agency is the ability to do only good, for each individual, as the offspring of divine Love, possesses and expresses only good and works in harmony with every other child of God.

This also means that agency is never something outside of us that we have to get. The Bible assures us that God created His children in His image and likeness (see Genesis 1:26, 27), including the full ability to express every element of His infinite goodness and limitless spirituality. That ability is within us right this moment.

In reality there is neither agency to do evil nor an evil agent – an actor able to carry out evil – and as we align our thoughts and actions with God’s love and law, our agency actually increases. That is, we have an enlarged ability and expanded opportunities to do good, along with an unfolding recognition that nothing can stand in the way of the good we’re striving to do.

The Bible records this holy declaration: “I have set before thee an open door, and no man can shut it” (Revelation 3:8). And the discoverer of Christian Science, Mary Baker Eddy, cites Jesus’ assertion of our inherent agency, “The kingdom of God is within you” (Luke 17:21), and adds, “Know, then, that you possess sovereign power to think and act rightly, and that nothing can dispossess you of this heritage and trespass on Love” (“Pulpit and Press,” p. 3).

The best example of this is Christ Jesus. He knew that he had no other Mind than God, so not even storms, the combined fury of the local and national governments, or a sealed tomb could prevent him from doing God’s will. We may not yet be up to walking on water as he did, but we’ll still find that our efforts to be and do good will pave the way to an increased power to do so.

One morning, on a day when I was scheduled to fulfill an office at my branch Church of Christ, Scientist, I woke up with symptoms that included loss of my voice. I began to think about making arrangements for a substitute.

Suddenly, it struck me that I was believing that illness had robbed me of the agency to fulfill that office. I remembered this citation from “Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures” by Mrs. Eddy: “The illusion of material sense, not divine law, has bound you, entangled your free limbs, crippled your capacities, enfeebled your body, and defaced the tablet of your being” (p. 227).

I realized that serving God and blessing humanity through church work was being obedient to divine law. Therefore, divine law was maintaining not only my capacity to serve but also my ability to express health. I had not lost, and never could lose, my agency to do right. It is an attribute of God that I eternally reflect.

My voice immediately began to return, and the other symptoms began to ease as well. By that evening I was able to perform my church function with complete freedom.

If we want more agency, more control over our lives, the way to get it is to conform ourselves to who we actually are – God’s beloved children. Then doors will open that no one can shut!

Adapted from an editorial published in the March 10, 2025, issue of the Christian Science Sentinel.