The Uninterrupted Government of God

THERE is a poster of a cityscape at night that I like quite a lot. Written above silhouettes of skyscrapers are the words ``God governs." This simple thought often helps me to remember that the spiritual authority of God is always there to turn to, whatever kind of government we live under.

We can appeal to God's authority through our prayer. Prayer gives us a sense of God's overriding and self-enforcing law of good. The spiritual fact of God's law governing us touches every aspect of our daily lives. In fact, the Bible tells us in I Timothy, ``I exhort therefore, that, first of all, supplications, prayers, intercessions, and giving of thanks, be made for all men; for kings, and for all that are in authority; that we may lead a quiet and peaceable life in all godliness and honesty. For this

is good and acceptable in the sight of God our Saviour."

As we prayerfully let God be at the center of our thoughts and learn more of Him, we will increasingly discover and demonstrate practically how our lives are truly governed. For instance, one thing we can discern from the Bible about God is that He is divine Mind. So the recognition that He has sole governance of our being empowers us to expect to experience an intelligent unfoldment of events both in our nations and in our individual lives.

This was illustrated to me when the company I was working for had become idle. Many reasons seemed to make the lack of activity logical. These reasons were constantly discussed in idle talk, for which lack of work left plenty of time! And the conversations were full of resignation to a recessionary economic climate and doleful acceptance of circumstances seemingly beyond our control. One day as I came to work, it dawned on me that this underemployment was suggesting that proper government could be absent . I could see that lives that are governed correctly--by God--include fullness of activity.

As I prayed further, I came to understand something of the fact that government really is entirely of God, the eternal governor, and is therefore completely uninterruptible. Contrary to appearances, everything was being intelligently governed, at that moment and always, down to the most minute detail. I also glimpsed that, as is true of all things genuinely good, true government is in and of God, unchanging Spirit. In our case I could see that this meant that the need for our skills was not random, was n ot at the mercy of material conditions, economic swings, or human decisions. That same week demand started to increase until the workplace became a hub of normal activity. I felt that spiritual insight had illumined for me the true presence of God's control where a lack of government had appeared to be.

In fact, all healing by prayer is just such a process of demonstrating the presence of God-governed action where it has seemed absent. Mary Baker Eddy, who discovered and founded Christian Science, points to Christ Jesus' healing work as proof of God's government. In reference to the Saviour's raising of Lazarus from the dead, for example, she writes in her book Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures: ``Who dares to doubt this consummate test of the power and willingness of divine Mind to hold man

forever intact in his perfect state, and to govern man's entire action?" The Bible teaches that man is made in the image and likeness of God, by God, who governs as well as creates him. You and I truly are that man. As we realize this more clearly, we will increasingly prove for ourselves and for the world that God, good, governs!