Working restfully

MANY people have found that faith in God's presence helps them to work less stressfully, more restfully. Trusting Him for good direction, they make better use of their labor. Also, faith in divine Love's supporting presence awakens gratitude, which makes work smoother and more productive. The results of faith are precious. But there can open up for us further progress in the harmony and economy with which we get jobs done. Faith can be gradually advanced to spiritual understanding, giving a firmer and more fruitful basis of trust in God. We can cultivate this understanding through prayerful study ofthe Scriptures and by reasoning logically about what the Bible teaches of His nature.

For instance, we might ask ourselves, How easily does God work? As the Almighty, He clearly has unlimited power. The creator of the universe, including man, doesn't have to toil arduously or suffer depletion of His resources in order to be infinitely active. These words of the Psalmist have to be true of all God's mighty creative acts: ``He spake, and it was done.''1 And as Mary Baker Eddy, the Discoverer and Founder of Christian Science, profoundly perceived, ``God rests in action.''2

Continuing our prayerful logic, we might ask, How restfully could our restfully active Maker enable us to work?

Scripture tells us plainly that God made man in His own likeness. The work of God can't be undone. So we have to conclude -- if we trust divine revelation -- that man works just as restfully as his Maker. But this restfully active man obviously isn't the physical person we think we are. God's man -- our genuine selfhood -- must be wholly spiritual, for his Maker is Spirit. Like God, he must be invisible to human sight. But again, like God, he must be perceptible, knowable by us through the spiritual sense that we all have, the faculty we use in prayer, our precious gateway to the divine.

So reason and spiritual intuition -- prayerful insight -- can join together to show us that we have an eternal, discoverable, Godlike selfhood that works restfully because it is created to express the restfully active Father of all.

This gives us a choice, doesn't it? In any job we have to do, at any point of difficulty in it, we can either think of ourselves as mortals, with limited wisdom and capacity for solving problems, or we can turn in thought to God and His creation of us. We can identify ourselves spiritually and recognize that the very power of God is working in us and that we're forever cherished by Him.

We can open our thought to Christ, Truth. The Christ, evidenced supremely by Jesus, is ``the true Light, which lighteth every man that cometh into the world.''3 And Science and Health by Mrs. Eddy states, ``Christ is the true idea voicing good, the divine message from God to men speaking to the human consciousness.4

This true idea, which we can humbly receive, shows us that we're actually spiritual, not material, having unlimited capacity for wise and good activity. This enlightenment, gained through a humble yielding to divine direction, enables us to accept a higher, God-illumined attitude toward our tasks. We listen for divine wisdom to guide our decisions and method of working. We let Godlike love for all supersede self-interest as our motivation. This spiritualization of our stance improves all that we do.

As faith in God develops into firmer understanding of our everlasting relationship to Him, a notable thing happens. The sense of ourselves as burdened, fleshly mortals becomes less dominant. We gradually stop limiting ourselves by what we thought we were. In growing measure we understand, not merely try to believe, that we're the child of God, therefore able to do good work restfully.

1Psalms 33:9. 2Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures, p. 519. 3John 1:9. 4Science and Health, p. 332.

You can find more articles like this one in the Christian Science Sentinel, a weekly magazine. DAILY BIBLE VERSE: It is God which worketh in you both to will and to do of his good pleasure. Philippians 2:13