How is it 'supposed to be'?
This article was adapted from an article in the Feb. 10, 2014, issue of The Christian Science Journal.
Several years ago, I placed my house on the market to sell with the brave intent of moving clear across the country. However, months went by and there was no sale. I lowered the price twice, and made some minor cosmetic changes to make the property more appealing. Still there was no sale. Then I wondered if maybe this failure to sell was a “sign” from God that I wasn’t supposed to move after all. But then I thought more deeply about it.
If a student of mathematics has trouble solving an equation, that wouldn’t be a “sign” that the problem isn’t solvable. The student knows that because the principles of mathematics are already established, the solution has already been established. She also knows that she is fully capable of understanding and applying those principles correctly in order to find the right answer.
I realized that the fact that my house had failed to sell just meant that my house had not sold, and that believing that circumstance was a “sign” was superstition. To conclude that each event in our human experience – both good and bad – must have divine authority, is as unscientific as believing that the roll of the dice or the numbers on a lottery ticket are sanctioned by heaven.
It was my deep and earnest desire to understand God differently – not as another name for "fate," but as the divine Principle at work in my life. Turning away from human speculation about what was “supposed to be,” I focused on gaining an understanding of the true idea of what God is. The study of Christian Science had introduced me to God as an exact, dependable, invariable, and loving divine Principle governing our lives, including even necessary decisions like housing. Such peace followed these realizations! All confusion and uncertainty vanished as I reasoned from the basis of God being divine Principle. Within a month, the house sold, I moved, and settled into a new place. My peaceful understanding of my spiritual “home” stayed with me, much like a snail has its shell everywhere it goes.
What truly is “supposed to be” requires no anxious waiting for unseen mysterious forces to come into play and coalesce a plan. The fact is that God, good, is the only cause. Harmony and order are the effects. Speculation about what is humanly “supposed to be” must give place to these divine facts.
God’s will is invariable good, and can have no other conclusion but good in our lives.
The Monitor's founder Mary Baker Eddy writes: “Immortal Mind is God, immortal good; in whom the Scripture saith ‘we live, and move, and have our being.’ This Mind … is the divine intelligence, or Principle, of all real being; holding man forever in the rhythmic round of unfolding bliss, as a living witness to and perpetual idea of inexhaustible good” ("Miscellaneous Writings 1883–1896," pp. 82–83). Understanding this true condition of our existence gives us a foundation upon which to build our expectations of the right resolution to any questions we face.
This article was adapted from an article in the Feb. 10, 2014, issue of The Christian Science Journal.