Divine Direction Versus Opinion
MAKING major decisions in our lives isn't always easy, to say the least. In addition to the numerous, and sometimes complex, factors to be considered in the decisions themselves, we may find ourselves contending with others' strong opinions about the course we should take. People's thoughtful opinions may sometimes shed light on an aspect of the decision we're facing. Ultimately, though, we ourselves must choose, because our direction in life is individual. We can make our decisions more easily when we understand that each of us has an individual, indestructible relationship to God, who governs His offspring with impartial love and wisdom.
How can God possibly help, we may wonder, when the situation is so complex, so apparently unrelated to His presence? Yet God is the one sure source of help because He is our creator and He is responsible for what He has created. Our greatest need is to be willing to listen for and yield to His direction. ``In all thy ways acknowledge him, and he shall direct thy paths,''1 the Bible urges us.
In the midst of clashing opinions it's helpful to remember what God is and who we really are as His offspring. From the Bible we learn that God is Spirit; He is the one all-knowing, divine intelligence, whose government of man is without flaw. God is universal Love, maintaining His creation in perfect harmony. When we're struggling to make a decision, this truth may seem very far from reality. But in the truest sense it's the only reality. It's the totally spiritual reality of life as the outcome of divine Spirit. Our innate spiritual sense, cultivated through prayer, assures us that harmony is the fact of existence because true existence is the product of the one all-harmonious God.
Spiritual sense tells us that we're perpetually governed by divine wisdom. It tells us that we're God's spiritual offspring, safe under His guidance. And spiritual sense enables us to see that even a complex situation can be resolved by understanding the eternal, spiritual reality of God's care for man.
Because these are spiritual facts about God and His creation, man, we have a right to feel God's presence and to discern His direction. We have a right to prove what is spiritually true of God and man, regardless of how uncertain things may look. Christ Jesus' teachings and healing works clearly point to the demand to make the spiritual truth of God's care practical in human experience.
God's care is a practical truth. It can be proved through prayer when we are willing -- even in the midst of turmoil -- to wait patiently for His direction. God's impulsions, His pure thoughts, provide the natural, clear direction we need. They aren't mixed with uncertainty. They bless rather than burden.
To grasp this guidance clearly, though, it's essential to claim our direct relationship to our creator. Ultimately, we're subject to Him alone. As Mary Baker Eddy, the Discoverer and Founder of Christian Science, says, ``Man is tributary to God, Spirit, and to nothing else.''2 And she also writes: ``Human opinions are not spiritual. They come from the hearing of the ear, from corporeality instead of from Principle, and from the mortal instead of from the immortal.''3
When the way is unclear, we're not being naive by turning to God. In worshiping our creator and trusting His guidance, we're taking the most effective action possible.
1Proverbs 3:6. 2Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures, p. 481. 3Ibid., p. 192.