Rename that tune

Bringing a spiritual perspective to daily life

In one vintage rock song, a female singer opines that "to know him" (her boyfriend) "is to love him." Sometimes when this tune would run through my head, I'd mentally translate the song so it went, "To know Him [God] is to love Him."

This really sums up a lesson I have been learning for several years: that whoever we are, whatever our current situation, our God is one God, and is entirely wonderful. God is the infinite Love. The pure Mind. The boundless Spirit. The profound Soul. The perfect Parent. The eternal Life. The unwavering Principle. And the universal Truth.

If we get a glimpse of God in any of these aspects, we can't help but adore, love, worship, and be endlessly grateful to Him. Whatever trouble we may currently be facing is not caused or created by God. We can ultimately prove this - see that the cause is actually some misapprehension of God. And see that the renewed recognition of God's true nature will bring the resolution we need.

This might seem like a novel idea if you have not already experienced a spiritual healing - which could be defined as gaining an understanding of God and of your relationship to Him.

Genuine knowledge of God includes comprehending ourselves as God's cherished sons and daughters. According to the Bible, man - used generically to mean all men and women - is made to image God, to be the divine Mind's reflection. Then, any conclusion we accept as true about ourselves, or about our neighbor, would identify what we hold to be true about God, our source.

For instance, if we feel like failures, or are seeing others as failures, we are really accepting that there must be some failure in God. It would have to be found in the source in order to be found in its reflection.

Reasoning from the point of view that God is infinitely pure, though, we find we aren't truly an interwoven mesh of good and evil. Despite appearances, we each must be perfectly pure, the true reflection of good. This reasoning is actually prayer. It provides the grace to improve ourselves.

This kind of prayer helped me one day at work in dealing with a visitor whose behavior was very offensive to me. I prayed to see that this woman's reflection of God must be as pure as He is. I was seeking to see God's purity expressed in His child.

Within minutes this woman's language and attitude changed for the better. As a matter of fact, we even ended up talking together briefly about spiritual things. And she really valued an idea that I shared with her from the Bible. It was Christ Jesus' statement that God is always attentive to our individual situations: "Your Father knoweth what things ye have need of, before ye ask him" (Matt. 6:8). This woman requested that I write this verse down for her. Within a week she had found new employment, after having being unable to do so for some time.

Knowing God in that instance helped me love Him a little more. It helped to solve that modest, everyday problem. And the knowledge of God and of what characterizes spiritual creation can turn around other, more troubling situations. It can heal disease as well.

"Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures," a book written to illuminate the spiritual message of the Bible, explains that "it is our ignorance of God, the divine Principle, which produces apparent discord, and the right understanding of Him restores harmony" (pg. 390). This was written by Mary Baker Eddy, who discovered Christian Science. Her own proofs of this statement's validity included healing people of cancers, clubfeet, and insanity through such spiritual understanding.

Anyone can see discord start to fade from daily living by understanding who God is more clearly. It's then that we definitely find that to truly know God is to love Him/Her. And to love our neighbor better, too.

I am the Lord thy God from the land of Egypt, and thou shalt know no god but me: for there is no saviour beside me. I did know thee in the wilderness, in the land of great drought. Hosea 13:4, 5