Where to Go?

Where can you go to get the best answers to your questions? The best solutions to your problems? Accurate direction? Stay tuned!

I was serving as a volunteer in a library at a summer resort. Nothing was familiar to me, especially the computer, which was a hand-me-down from someone I'd never met. And I was asked to load software onto this computer. (I got the job because no one else on the staff considered himself or herself to be even remotely computer literate.)

Things went well at first, but it was not long before a snag developed. The computer screen posted a message that I couldn't decipher. I started over again - same result.

I grasped for a solution to this problem. A few thoughts came, but none of them worked. My desire to solve the problem prompted me to dig deeper. This meant it was time to pray.

What good would prayer do? you may ask. Well, prayer brings me close to God. It calms troubled thinking and opens the way for me to receive healing thoughts, that is, thoughts that bring healing to human situations.

This time my prayer brought me another thought. It wasn't about software and hard drives. It was this: God is always communicating to His perfect idea, man (inclusive of all of us, men and women). There isn't a moment when this communication isn't going on. There is no way that we could be separated from or could separate ourselves from this divine communication.

I recalled what Christ Jesus said, according to the book of John in the Bible: "I and my Father are one" (10:30). Christian Science shows that we are each inseparable from God; its textbook says, "As a drop of water is one with the ocean, a ray of light one with the sun, even so God and man, Father and son, are one in being" (Mary Baker Eddy, "Science and Health With Key to the Scriptures," Pg. 361).

A realization of, a conscious understanding of, the unity I have with God started me toward a practical solution to the computer problem. Remembering that God was speaking, I simply listened for His guidance, which I knew would lead me to take the steps necessary to complete the software loading procedure.

It was really simple; the thought came that the computer disk was faulty, a possibility that I hadn't considered before. I phoned a supplier and requested another disk. When it arrived, I inserted it into the computer, and the loading process proceeded perfectly. (The disk supplier was surprised that this could have been what the problem was.)

Does God tell us about computer disks? No. But because God is Spirit, and because He made His creation spiritual, to express His nature, God does reveal that His creation is always intact and expressing goodness. God is also divine Mind. His perfect intelligence always is present, and every problem you and I encounter is always solvable through His power. Prayer is what brought my thinking to the point of receptivity to the spiritual messages God always is imparting.

Prayer isn't just for times when we're in trouble of some kind. Paul the Apostle advised the Thessalonians to "pray without ceasing" (I Thessalonians 5:17). We can pray wherever we are, whatever we are doing, and at any time. Prayer is simply turning to God in one way or another. We can pray when busy or when not; when standing in a long line and even when waiting for a computer to load! The answers to prayer can be instantaneous. Time isn't a factor with God, since time is only a measurement of mortality, while God and all He has made is immortal and immeasurable.

So now you know where I went to get the best solution to my problem with that computer. You can also find in God the same unerring direction. It's immensely satisfying to tune in to God's messages. The more I do, the more I realize I don't want to miss any of them!

For he performeth

the thing that is

appointed for me:

and many such things

are with him.

Job 23:14