Need more order in your life?

WHEN the car keys disappear or the children won't hang up their jackets, we may feel annoyed or frustrated. When a whole life is disordered -- when health is at a low ebb or we're enduring long-term unemployment or we have failing grades or relationships -- this can be tragic, and may tempt us to feel there is no solution. Don't give up! There's a way to order every part of our lives, a way that can restore confidence and joy, even when these have seemed out of reach for a long time. The Bible points to this way. For example, we are told in Genesis that ``God saw every thing that he had made, and, behold, it was very good.''1 And in Isaiah we read, ``Thou [God] wilt keep him in perfect peace, whose mind is stayed on thee: because he trusteth in thee.''2

Trying to bring order to chaos can present a problem when we attempt it from a merely material standpoint. As important as discipline and rules are, as helpful as outlines and schedules can be, these may not be enough to help us achieve our goals if they're employed without some understanding of the spiritual law that underlies all lasting order.

I found this out when, after my recovery from a long bout with ill health, the woman who had been helping keep my house in order found herself unable to continue the work. So I was confronted with a new challenge: how to maintain my newfound health as well as the orderly atmosphere established by my former helper. Added to this was the lifelong picture I had of myself as inherently disorganized, a pack rat who couldn't discard even things outworn. Not much to rejoice about here!

But help was at hand. I had recently begun studying Christian Science, and as a result of that study and the healing that followed I had become acquainted with the term Principle as a synonym for God. In deepening my understanding of this name for Deity, I had found references both in the Bible and the Christian Science textbook, Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures by Mary Baker Eddy,3 which pointed to the fact that God is the only real lawgiver. And I had begun to see that I could trust my life to this loving divine Principle.

I began to rethink everything from the standpoint of what I really was -- not a hopeless mortal stuck with a trait called disorderliness but the spiritual offspring of God, obedient to divine Principle. I derived great support from this statement from the Christian Science textbook: ``Harmony is produced by its Principle, is controlled by it and abides with it.''4 This helped me to keep clear in thought just who it is that is harmonizing and ordering everything in the universe, including me: God. And it was apparent to me that His law made chaos impossible.

This spiritual view helped me carry out my tasks with more joy and freedom than I had ever experienced. Seeing myself as being governed by divine Principle made it natural and normal to demonstrate the divine order. I referred often to the line in the Lord's Prayer that supports our expectancy of good right where we are: ``Thy will be done in earth, as it is in heaven.''5

Mrs. Eddy offers as the spiritual interpretation of those words: ``Enable us to know, -- as in heaven, so on earth, -- God is omnipotent, supreme.''6

As I lived in accord with this healing message, a wonderful feeling of order emerged. My health continued to improve, my home was a pleasant place to be, and keeping it in order was no longer a chore but a joyful opportunity to prove what I was learning about the infinite authority of divine Principle.

It would be foolish to claim that in the years since then my home has never been messy or that I've never been challenged by sentimentality to save some possession that really needed a new home. But I can say that knowing where to turn for help makes all the difference. And the struggle to act in accord with divine law is lessened to the degree that it's clear to me that man's true identity is the eternal reflection of Principle, naturally obedient to the one God.

Continuing reliance on divine law has not only kept me in good health but has enabled me to help others find order and well-being to be natural and expectable.

1Genesis 1:31. 2Isaiah 26:3. 3The Discoverer and Founder of Christian Science. 4Science and Health, p. 304. 5Matthew 6:10. 6Science and Health, p. 17. DAILY BIBLE VERSE O how love I thy law! it is my meditation all the day. Psalms 119:97