Searching For Health
IF you've been struggling with sickness and have failed to find healing, don't give up hope. There is a dependable source of healing. "With God all things are possible, Christ Jesus tells us in Matthew. It is possible to be healed of longstanding, even supposedly incurable ailments through the power of God. We need never doubt God's power and willingness to heal!
Jesus' example and teachings show us how to find freedom by turning to God. He healed countless diseases, even raised the dead, and he effected these healings entirely by acting on his understanding of God as the only real power over man and thus over man's health.
In Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures, the Discoverer and Founder of Christian Science, Mary Baker Eddy, gives a clear explanation of how Christ Jesus healed. And she also shows us how we can follow his example and turn to God's care in every need. Speaking of Christ Jesus, she writes: "Explaining and demonstrating the way of divine Science, he became the way of salvation to all who accepted his word. From him mortals may learn how to escape from evil. And elsewhere in Science and Health she p oints out: "Jesus beheld in Science the perfect man, who appeared to him where sinning mortal man appears to mortals. In this perfect man the Saviour saw God's own likeness, and this correct view of man healed the sick.
My wife and I learned something of what this means when we were expecting our first child. Partway through the pregnancy the attending physician diagnosed my wife as having gestational diabetes. From a medical point of view, it would be necessary for her to begin taking insulin in order to prevent complications from developing later in the pregnancy.
We asked the physician to give us a few days to pray before starting the insulin treatment. We are Christian Scientists, and we wanted to heal the problem through Christian Science. She consented. Over the next week my wife and I prayed earnestly for the healing answer we needed. We knew from the many healings we'd already had that God heals, so it was natural for us to depend on Christ, Truth, for healing now.
To experience this healing power, however, we needed to be obedient to the demands of following Christ Jesus. As we read in Matthew's Gospel, Jesus urged, "If any man will come after me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross, and follow me. To us, this meant that we needed to rely wholly on God for healing.
We prayed to understand better that it wasn't a certain diet or a particular condition of the blood that gave man perfect health, but God. God is the giver of all good, and we could rely on Him to meet all our needs. God regulates and governs man's life, not matter or material conditions. And because man--our real individuality--is spiritual, created by God, Spirit, no harmful, material element could disrupt his being.
When we returned, as we'd agreed, for a follow-up test, the results confirmed that a healing had taken place. There was never a recurrence of the problem, and our baby was born in perfect health.
Christ Jesus is not around in person; we cannot turn to him personally for healing, as many did in Bible times. But the Christ, Truth, that empowered him and inspired his healing and teaching is always present. And the Bible and Science and Health tell how each of us can turn to this spiritual power and be healed, completely and permanently.
