Always Ready to Help

Bringing a spiritual perspective to daily life

An amusing statement is making the rounds in my area: "Feel free to unload your problems on God. After all, He stays up all night anyway!"

It's true that God is available 24 hours a day, but He doesn't worry for or about us. He knows us only as He created us - spiritual, perfect, without problems. This is what saves and heals us.

So what good does it do to take our problems to God in prayer? A lot, especially when we keep facts such as these in mind as we pray: (1) God is Mind, which makes Him the supreme solution-source; (2) He loves us unconditionally; and (3) we are made in His likeness.

Point one: prayer helps us solve our problems because it reveals God as the source of intelligence. We can see that God, the all-knowing Mind, the creator of all that is good and perfect, doesn't include inharmony. And what He doesn't include has no legitimacy. Expectant and heartfelt prayer to God for solutions to life's problems opens the door for answers that apply to any situation we face. In response to our prayers, these answers come as inspired thoughts that are practical, original, and understandable. They're based on divine wisdom, which is infallible.

Point two: God loves every one of His children. God is our Father and Mother, who has created nothing that could jeopardize our perfection and harmony.

Point three: we are spiritual, not material, because God is Spirit, and His offspring must be like Him in nature. He gives us, His image, dominion over inharmony (see Gen. 1:26). Fully capable of expressing God, you and I can find integrity, compassion, intelligence, and a host of other Godlike qualities natural to us. This expression supports and maintains us in the quest for solutions to our problems. There can be no fluctuation in the purity of these qualities; they are always available.

We can turn to the power of God with confidence that prayer will give us the inspired thoughts to solve our problems. It's His good power that destroys inharmony, giving us the authority to heal in His name, in the way Christ Jesus did.

Once Jesus and his disciples faced a big problem: feeding about 5,000 people who had attended a lecture he gave in a remote place (see Matt. 14:14-21). His listeners hadn't brought lunches, and there was no place nearby to order carryouts. Jesus told his disciples to feed the people. They reported they had only a couple of fish and a little bread. (Surely this wasn't sufficient to feed a crowd of that size!)

But Jesus knew that he could turn to God for the answer to this apparent lack. The Bible says: "And he commanded the multitude to sit down on the grass, and took the five loaves, and the two fishes, and looking up to heaven, he blessed, and brake, and gave the loaves to his disciples, and the disciples to the multitude. And they did all eat, and were filled: and they took up of the fragments that remained twelve baskets full."

Jesus looked to God first. We should, too, when trouble strikes. The Christian Science textbook says, "Having no other gods, turning to no other but the one perfect Mind to guide him, man is the likeness of God, pure and eternal, having that Mind which was also in Christ" (Mary Baker Eddy, "Science and Health With Key to the Scriptures," Pg. 467).

When I was a university student, I needed money for tuition. I turned to God in prayer - but not for money. Rather, I sought a spiritual solution to this problem of lack. I knew lack of needful things was no more a part of God's plan now than it had been when Jesus fed that multitude. My answer came in the form of a request for me to head the advertising department of the university newspaper. The job paid commission but no salary. I was inexperienced in this work, but recognized the offer as evidence of a divine answer to my predicament. The commissions, which had been forecast as minimal, turned out to be robust. They provided more than enough income for my schooling. And at the end of the year, I received a national award for my work that included a large monetary payment.

The power of God is always at hand. Prayer brings it to light. God provides the answers we need to whatever problem we face.

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