Getting Established
Bringing a spiritual perspective to daily life
Do you have yet to get established? Are you dependent either on relatives or on social assistance? Perhaps you've graduated but have been unable to get work in your field. Maybe you don't have enough education or there are few jobs in your region. Or possibly you just haven't found your niche.
If any of this describes you, or if you face some other roadblock, take heart! You can gain your independence.
This was certainly proved true in my life. I went to university almost 10 years, studying a wide variety of subjects, all of which interested me. This study was profitable. I earned a degree, acquired some practical skills, and had many invaluable experiences. But well past the age at which most people are what you'd call established, I still had never had a permanent job. Nor was I independent financially.
However, something wonderful began to happen: I was starting to learn that God had a plan for me.
Christian Science, discovered by Mary Baker Eddy and based squarely on the Bible, teaches that God is entirely good. At the very beginning of the Bible, in Genesis, we read that He created His universe and declared it "very good." That He created us in His "image" and in His "likeness" (1:26, 31).
To be the image and likeness of God is to be the creation, the expression, of God. We express Him in innumerable qualities that reflect His nature. "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures," written by Mrs. Eddy, explains Christian Science completely. It shows that understanding the spiritual meaning of the Bible is very practical. It says this: "God is incorporeal, divine, supreme, infinite Mind, Spirit, Soul, Principle, Life, Truth, Love.... The attributes of God are justice, mercy, wisdom, goodness, and so on" (Pg. 465).
God's qualities, infinite in number, constitute eternally the fundamental bedrock of our identity. Because God and the qualities that reveal Him are perfect, our expression of them is an eminently trustworthy basis on which to build our lives. It results in stability, productivity, and progress.
Not too long after finding this out, I decided to do my best to embody five specific qualities that I love very much - humility, purity, perfection, compassion, and joy. At the start of the day, and often during the day, I would try to think thoughts that were characterized by these attributes and to act consistently with them. I thought of this as a way of not just saying a prayer but actually living my prayers - worshiping God in practice, you might say. This led me into a profession in which I help people in very practical ways. It also allowed me to gain financial independence and, along with my wife, to establish a home.
The Founder of Christianity, Christ Jesus, never taught that good is a long way off, dependent on human circumstances, hanging on the approval of others. On the contrary, he often talked about the "kingdom of heaven" as present reality. Christian Science teaches that it is knowable, findable, to the degree that one's thought is open to the infinite opportunities and possibilities of God. Of good itself. Jesus emphasized that God meets our needs - for food, drink, clothing, and everything else it's right for us to have. He said, "Seek ye first the kingdom of God, and his righteousness; and all these things shall be added unto you" (Matt. 6:33).
To seek the kingdom of God is to strive to see His government here and now. Under this government we all express His attributes in our own individual way. Truly permanent, full-time employment can be seen as generously living with good at every moment. Doing this with great consecration changes us, profoundly, for the better. When we express the pure qualities that have their origin in God, we attain the highest form of worship. And this is practical, satisfying our human needs completely.
While worshiping God is enjoyable, fun, even relaxing, it does require the very best of us at every moment. Consecrating ourselves to God and to helping others releases you and me from worry and enables us to find good in our lives. It marks the path to freedom and confidence and concrete progress.
In truth, we have always been established in God. Are now. Always will be.