It's the Starter, Not the Wiring

Bringing a spiritual perspective to daily life

An acquaintance of mine told about having car trouble. He spent considerable time under the hood, checking the wiring. Finally he took the car to a trained mechanic, who quickly diagnosed the problem as being not with the wiring but the starter.

I thought of how often in life we get all bogged down in trying to find the causes of our own problems by examining the tangled webs, the myriad of "wires," in a given situation. Christian Science has shown me that solutions come from improving one's mental view of the situation through prayer.

To me, that means starting with God. The Bible says in Revelation, "I am Alpha and Omega, the beginning and the ending, saith the Lord, which is, and which was, and which is to come, the Almighty" (1:8). The author of this clearly glimpsed that God is All.

When you face problems, it's important to know that God is good and is the source of all that is real, for this helps you to discern ideas that bring healing and resolution. The desire to follow the teachings of Christ Jesus led a woman named Mary Baker Eddy to conclude that the healing Jesus practiced was scientific; it was based on laws of God, which Mrs. Eddy discovered and named Christian Science. She wrote in Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures, "The starting-point of divine Science is that God, Spirit, is All-in-all, and that there is no other might nor Mind,-that God is Love, and therefore He is divine Principle" (p. 275).

The Bible implies that Jesus healed through the understanding of God as the only creator. His teachings show that God's creation is wholly spiritual, expressing His good nature. Spirit could not create its opposite, matter. The view of creation as involving disease, sin, and death did not influence Jesus, who proved evil to be not empowered of God and therefore to have no reality. Jesus showed that God's law of health invalidates disease for each of us. He said, "Be ye therefore perfect, even as your Father which is in heaven is perfect" (Matthew 5:48).

Sometimes we just go from one problem to another. Other times the same difficulties keep reappearing cyclically. Either way, perhaps we are stuck in the habit of checking and trying to repair the "wiring." Even just trying to be as good as we can be doesn't go far enough. We need to remember to go right to the starting point of all healing, to the truth of existence, remembering that God is All. He is the Lawgiver. He is Love.

Knowing these facts, we are reasoning spiritually. Accepting these spiritual premises, we are beginning to accept that anything opposite to God's nature must be a delusion, an inversion of the truth. Knowing you are of God's creating, wholly spiritual and perfect, even as God is spiritual and perfect, releases you from believing in the reality of any evil. Belief in the reality of discord is not adoption of the right starting point; all the rearrangement of the "wires" that takes place based on this belief won't get a person anywhere.

It's by understanding God's laws of health that we bring healing into view. Here's an example: one day I felt I was having a heart attack and was about to collapse. I called a Christian Scientist friend to pray for me; I was barely able to verbalize my need. Her simple response was to remind me that God's love was all around, supporting and sustaining me. As I recognized these statements as factual, in a very short time I felt well enough to continue with my day, and I have remained well.

Something like surgery might have fixed up the "wiring"-but by going right to "the starting-point of divine Science," by recognizing God as "the beginning and the ending" of my very existence, I was healed. Most of all, I grew in my faith that there could never be a time when I could not trust God for healing.

Healing is one of the byproducts of studying the message of the Bible as explained spiritually in Science and Health. This book shows the way to love God with all one's heart, turning to Him in every need.

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