Facing a Challenge?
WHEN we are facing troubles that are disturbing and persistent, it may seem that we can't avoid feeling tired, overburdened, even fearful. We may tend to wear down under such circumstances until we simply give up and conclude that the problem is something that is inescapably ours. If there is something in our experience that is tiring us, that we can't seem to resolve, we can find practical help by turning to God through prayer. Looking to God during times of trial is natural and uplifting. Our active listening for His direction allows His goodness to illumine our spiritual sensibilities and point the way to a solution. A long-drawn-out problem begins to fade as we grow in our spiritual understanding that God is good, that His goodness is all-powerful, and that it prevails.
God's goodness is always available, because He is ever present, and He loves His creation. As we can learn through study of the Bible, God's love for His children is unending.
Coming to understand that God is good and trusting His perfect government bring release from difficulties, and this shows us the baselessness of evil. Despite the suffering that plagues humanity, evil is without a real cause, because it doesn't originate in the one infinite God.
Our creator couldn't promote evil and its machinations. He couldn't empower a force against Himself. Therefore evil isn't the legitimate power it appears to be, and it's on this basis that we can gain dominion over it, see its supposed influence in our lives diminish.
It's so helpful to take a stand in our prayers for the absolute spiritual truth of existence. For instance, we can realize, in relation to whatever challenge we may be confronting, that because God, Spirit, fills all space, evil has no actual, God-supported existence. And because God is omnipotent, His goodness is infinitely more powerful than the difficulties confronting us. We can realize that our genuine, spiritual selfhood as God's child is governed by Him, by good, and therefore our life and act ions are God-governed, God-sustained.
Christ Jesus' life clearly proved our creator to be wholly good. His healing works, reflecting divine power, show that God never ordains illness or disease but rather order, health, peace, and so forth. The Way-shower relied on God's goodness. It was the center of his life and actions. We too can learn to rely on divine goodness and increasingly demonstrate it in our lives.
When our preconceived ideas of God yield to a spiritual sense of His nature--and of our own genuine selfhood as His likeness--we find our lives regenerated. Conforming to divine law in thought and action, identifying ourselves as reflecting divine good, we find we are governed by God and His peace, His care, His joy, rather than by self-will or fear.
Yielding to God's will is a joyful task. It's done moment by moment, day by day. Yielding to the peace of God and to the pure desire to help others enables us to feel His goodness and establishes our lives on a firm foundation.
We find Him "a very present help in trouble,'' as the Psalmist sang. We discover He is always available to lean upon, always present to guide and govern. As Mary Baker Eddy, the Discoverer and Founder of Christian Science, puts it in Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures, "Each successive stage of experience unfolds new views of divine goodness and love.''
Certainly God's goodness is seen throughout the Scriptures in the lives of those who sought Him. And it can increasingly be seen in our lives as we look to Him in challenging times--and always.