Ideas that bless us abundantly

IN any creative endeavor, whether we're an artist, a writer, a homemaker, a teacher, or an entrepreneur, we look for fresh and innovative ways to express the useful thoughts that are constantly flowing to us. We may sometimes pause and ask ourselves, ``Where do these thoughts come from?'' Some people may conclude that they originate in the human brain and are therefore dependent on our particular inheritance, environment, or education. But others acknowledge that God is the only creator and therefore the source of all intelligence. Christ Jesus' life illustrated this. He understood his relationship to God as that of Son to Father, and he looked to his Father for the spiritual concepts he needed to carry out his mission as Teacher and Saviour. He represented Christ, the spirit of God, in everything he said and did.

If we today are stuck for a way to complete a project -- either one of our own or one that will improve the lives of others -- we can turn to God in prayer and humbly acknowledge Him as the source of our intelligence. Christian Science teaches that man expresses this intelligence; it shows an entirely spiritual concept of man as God's idea -- His reflection. In Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures, Mary Baker Eddy, the Discoverer and Founder of Christian Science, gives us this illuminating perspective on God and man:

``GOD: Divine Principle, Life, Truth, Love, Soul, Spirit, Mind.

``MAN: God's spiritual idea, individual, perfect, eternal.'' And then follows a dictionary definition of idea: ``An image in Mind; the immediate object of understanding. -- Webster.''1

This explanation of man from a spiritual standpoint opens up a vast horizon of possibilities for all of us. We begin to realize we no longer have to rely on some personal ability, but instead we can acknowledge that the one Mind, God, is constantly expressing His originality and perfection throughout His creation. And each one of us reflects this knowledge.

But someone may ask, ``How can I be sure that what is coming to my thought is from God?'' The Christian Science textbook, Science and Health, asks a similar important question: ``How are veritable ideas to be distinguished from illusions? By learning the origin of each. Ideas are emanations from the divine Mind. Thoughts, proceeding from the brain or from matter, are offshoots of mortal mind; they are mortal material beliefs. Ideas are spiritual, harmonious, and eternal.''2

It takes humility and perseverance on our part to learn to make this distinction, for it requires us to outgrow the perception that we have a mind of our own separate from God. And we do not always achieve a clear assurance without some struggle. Yet as a limiting sense of mind in matter yields to the reality of man as the intelligent expression of the one Mind, we find we have the same recourse to God that Christ Jesus had, and the right answers we need will be found.

Following Jesus' example, turning to God as the source of all right, spiritual ideas, can help to satisfy the deep spiritual hunger in the world today and so alleviate lack. A correspondent for The Christian Science Monitor who was covering a number of countries said he felt it was fundamentally a famine of ideas that many people of the world were facing. ``...there's a hunger for ideas that lead to new research, new crops able to withstand drought. There's a hunger for new farming methods....

``There's a need for new incentives for farmers so they can grow the food that's in such urgent human need.''3

We can pray to be receptive ourselves to the spiritual ideas God is constantly imparting to His creation. How grateful are we for the fresh divine concepts we have received this year, this past month, or even this very day? The more we acknowledge God as the source of all intelligence and see ourselves, and everyone else, as ``the immediate object of understanding,'' the quicker will men and women find solutions to their pressing problems.

No red tape, greed, or corruption can curtail the flow of right ideas that are readily available to enrich humanity. In God's well-ordered universe there is no lack; God's outpouring love is always adequate to bless every one of His children abundantly.

1Science and Health, p. 115. 2Ibid., p. 88. 3The Christian Science Journal, March 1985, p. 148.

This is a condensed version of an editorial that appeared in the May 2 issue of the Christian Science Sentinel. - NO BIBLE VERSE TODAY -