You are irreplaceable

Most people have at one time or another grappled with the fear of being replaced. We hear, for instance, of factory workers who fret about being replaced by robots, people with concerns that the growth of artificial intelligence might render many jobs obsolete, mature employees who worry about being pushed out of their jobs by someone younger, those in relationships who are anxious about being dropped for someone more attractive or successful, and others who believe their homeland is being overtaken by immigrants.

The belief that someone or something can replace us or keep us from our rightful place is no doubt disheartening. If we buy into it, we have fallen victim to the notion that life is material and mortal, that we are all competing for a piece of a limited pie and that time is running out. In recent years, some of these false beliefs have been purposely stirred up in some countries and promoted fear and hatred, leading in extreme cases to violence.

The idea that anyone can be replaced or displaced suggests that life is material and that we can’t do anything about our circumstances. The Bible’s first chapter presents a contrasting, hopeful picture of life – one in which God, Spirit, created all and where all that He made is wholly spiritual and good (see Genesis 1:26-31).

This means that we each have an irreplaceable spiritual nature and identity as God’s child, His image and likeness, and that every identity is both unique and essential to the happiness and prosperity of the whole.

This spiritual account of creation is the true narrative – the basis of Christ Jesus’ teachings and healing works. It affirms that we are equals in God’s eyes. No one is over us, under us, better than us, or less than us. We are not in competition with anyone. Each of us has a place in God’s kingdom that no one else can take, and no one can intercept the good always flowing to us from God or delay or obstruct His infinite giving.

Christian Science teaches that, individually and collectively, the family of man represents divine Love, God. Each identity is essential. Therefore, every individual is irreplaceable, distinct, with a character different from all the rest. There is no substitute for you. As God’s child, you have been given talents that are singular and needed, and there is enough room in God’s infinite universe for their expression.

Mary Baker Eddy, the discoverer of Christian Science, wrote in an autobiographical account, “Each individual must fill his own niche in time and eternity” (“Retrospection and Introspection,” p. 70).

Christ Jesus fulfilled his God-given mission by demonstrating and teaching man’s inseparable relationship to his heavenly Father, the Father of all, saving humanity from the limiting beliefs of the material senses. He showed that to spiritually understand that we are one with God – that each of us has an irreplaceable, eternal relationship to Him, and therefore to one another – heals divides.

Although Jesus was born to a Jewish mother, his disciples were Jewish, and his ministry occurred in a small Jewish region, he had an expansive healing ministry and mixed with people from various social, cultural, and ethnic backgrounds. He was motivated by divine Love rather than fear, and he looked beyond material markers of culture and race and saw others’ true, spiritual identity. This enabled him to heal a Canaanite woman’s sick daughter (see Matthew 15:22-28), a Samaritan suffering from leprosy (see Luke 17:11-16), and a Roman soldier’s servant (see Matthew 8:5-13). He understood that each of us is dear to God, and so must be to one another.

What is most needed today is this deeper understanding of God’s invariable love, and the fact that God’s plan of universal salvation includes every individual and nothing can replace His ideas or displace their harmonious arrangement.

Mrs. Eddy wrote, “Let Christian Science, instead of corporeal sense, support your understanding of being, and this understanding will supplant error with Truth, replace mortality with immortality, and silence discord with harmony” (“Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures,” p. 495).

In proportion as we do this, we recognize the brotherhood and sisterhood of man. We more readily love our neighbor as ourselves and see that each person is priceless to God and to each other. In this way, we are contributing to the peace of the world, building bridges, and removing the fear that anyone can be replaced. Everything that divine Love has made is forever irreplaceable.

Adapted from an article published in the June 5, 2023, issue of the Christian Science Sentinel.