Lasting good

``NOTHING lasts!'' How often we hear (perhaps cry out) these despairing words. A once-good relationship goes wrong; a promising job gets boring; a neighborhood that used to be lovely deteriorates. Should we just resign ourselves to the belief that good is evanescent and grab what we can?

No. There's a better answer.

Good often seems transitory. Yet we learn in Christian Science that as we shift our concept of life from a material to a spiritual basis through prayer, and strive to be the wholly good and pure man God created in His image, the resulting spiritual sense of good is enduring.

Christ Jesus assured his disciples: ``If ye abide in me, and my words abide in you, ye shall ask what ye will, and it shall be done unto you.... If ye keep my commandments, ye shall abide in my love.... These things have I spoken unto you, that my joy might remain in you, and that your joy might be full.''1

How encouraging it is to know that Jesus' inspiring words are as true for us today as they were for his disciples. As we heed them and keep the commandments to love God with all our hearts and love our neighbor as ourselves,2 we can abide in Christly love and reap its eternal blessings.

But, you may be asking, how does all this translate into my own life? How can I be a better friend to someone who doesn't speak to me anymore? What about my no-future job?

You can mentally turn away from the material scene, not to ignore it but to pray. When we turn to God in prayer and gratefully discern our true identity as His offspring, healing follows--of strained relationships, ill health, and so on. Our need is to stop arguing for the problem.

Mary Baker Eddy3 writes in Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures, ``Hold thought steadfastly to the enduring, the good, and the true, and you will bring these into your experience proportionably to their occupancy of your thoughts.''4 And elsewhere in the same book she writes, ``The good you do and embody gives you the only power obtainable.''5

Nothing is impossible to God, to infinite good. And when we mentally dwell in His kingdom, we can't help seeing clear proof of His goodness.

Not that we can map out just what form it will take. In fact, such contriving only obstructs good. But trusting God to guide us, and humbly obeying His direction, invariably lead to an appropriate solution.

I once moved halfway around the world to accept a job that was supposed to last ten years. But it ended after three years when the company's contract for a particular service was abrogated in a bureaucratic tangle.

There were many cries of ``nothing lasts!'' among my fellow staff members. But I quietly turned to God, knowing that the inner spiritual satisfaction I had found in that job could never be taken from me even though the job itself was over.

For several months I prayed ``without ceasing.'' Then one day a series of progressive moves began, none of which could have been foreseen or planned humanly, and which led eventually to the most rewarding work of my life.

True goodness is lasting. And this goodness fills our lives and resolves all conflicts as we abide humbly in the spiritual consciousness imparted by the universal power of Christ.

1John 15:7, 10, 11. 2See Mark 12:30, 31. 3The Discoverer and Founder of Christian Science. 4Science and Health, p. 261. 5Ibid., p. 192. DAILY BIBLE VERSE Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above, and cometh down from the Father of lights, with whom is no variableness, neither shadow of turning. James 1:17