When something goes missing
Praying to see more clearly that God’s goodness is always present opens the door to healing apparent lack in our lives.
Sometimes in our lives it can seem like something is missing, and that if we could only find that missing piece, we would feel whole, complete. It might be the warmth of companionship, needed employment, or health. What to do?
One place to start is the fundamental and universal truth of God’s word: “I am the Lord, and there is none else, there is no God beside me: I girded thee, though thou hast not known me” (Isaiah 45:5). God is caring for us right at this and every moment, and as infinite Spirit, He fills all space. Because there is no other presence or power beside God, nothing can truly be missing.
This is a very forward-impelling perspective to come to. Praying from the spiritual basis of God’s wholeness and completeness enables us to rethink what can seem like a futile search for things or for changes on the human scene that we aren’t seeing. It’s right to experience needed change and to have the things we need.
I’ve found that a good jump start comes from asking ourselves what we are praying for (and believe me, I have asked this question many times over the years): Are we praying to fix, fill in, or change an empty feeling, space, or circumstance? Or are we sincerely seeking God’s guidance toward seeing His already present goodness for everyone?
The teachings of Christian Science elucidate the reality of God’s totality, pointing to God as all-powerful Spirit and Love, whose creation – including all of us – is entirely spiritual, without material limitation or confines. It follows that as God’s spiritual offspring, each one of us expresses through reflection the entire spectrum of God’s infinite attributes, such as wisdom, joy, and freedom – not later, after finding a missing puzzle piece, but now.
Mary Baker Eddy, the discoverer of Christian Science, wrote this enlightening passage in her pioneering book “Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures”: “Man and his Maker are correlated in divine Science, and real consciousness is cognizant only of the things of God” (p. 276). One dictionary defines the word “correlate” as “to place in or bring into mutual or reciprocal relation; establish in orderly connection” (dictionary.com).
Christ, God’s message of truth that Jesus demonstrated, communicates to each of us our perfect correlation with God – our inseparable relation to Him. This makes possible the perfect correlation of every God-given needful and right idea – “the things of God” – wherever it is needed in our lives. Christ shows us the orderly unfoldment of the indissoluble substance of our lives, which we already include.
Over the decades, I’ve had numerous situations where something in my life – such as an object, companionship, or health – appeared to be absent or wanting. These turned into occasions to pray to see, for example, God’s ever-present goodness and its correlation with the outpouring of that goodness. Rejoicing with confidence in the union of ideas governed by Spirit always opened the way to God’s direction, leading to adjustments for the better.
So prayer in Christian Science is not about making things appear in order to fill voids. It’s about our inherent ability to grasp the eternal substance and unity of all the good, useful, God-given ideas that are present every moment. Praying in this way shifts our thought from a material to a spiritual basis, which naturally results in changes to our experience. This expansiveness of thought enables us to see the impossibility of something being lost or missing within God’s creation.
God’s message of the unification of all spiritual good is a blessed guide – and can never go missing.