Supporting hope in a nation’s struggle for progress
In Sudan, one step forward often seems to come with two steps back. But there’s a powerful basis on which to hope for meaningful progress: The supremacy and activity of divine good cannot stay hidden indefinitely, but inevitably make themselves known and felt.
Today, Sudan’s military and the country’s pro-democracy movement, which has been protesting the military’s authoritarian rule, signed a power-sharing document. This welcome development has brought some celebration, although Sudan’s citizens are still cautious, with the division of powers yet to be specified and uncertainty about whether the military will really give up its hold on power.
When a right idea, such as individual freedom within a just and representative government, is percolating in a nation’s collective consciousness, there is often a struggle, because entrenched positions of power don’t always want to give way. But there’s a profound basis for hope, because at the root of such struggles for progress is something deeper than what’s going on at the surface. The push for freedom and better government is being churned by quiet movements of thought that have to do with the truth of God and the real nature of every man and woman as God’s child.
Those involved in the conflict may not be aware of these deeper spiritual issues. But the real nature of every man and woman as God’s child – free and cared for – inevitably makes itself known and felt. The Bible records Christ Jesus as teaching, “Nothing is secret, that shall not be made manifest; neither any thing hid, that shall not be known and come abroad” (Luke 8:17).
Mary Baker Eddy, who discovered and founded Christian Science, writes in a sermon titled “The People’s Idea of God”: “Every step of progress is a step more spiritual. The great element of reform is not born of human wisdom; it draws not its life from human organizations; rather is it the crumbling away of material elements from reason, the translation of law back to its original language, – Mind, and the final unity between man and God” (p. 1).
The term Mind as used in Christian Science is a name for God. It brings out God’s nature as the all-knowing, all-wise, all-governing creator, whose loved children are forever one with Him. The Bible says of God: “He doeth according to his will in the army of heaven, and among the inhabitants of the earth: and none can stay his hand, or say unto him, What doest thou?” (Daniel 4:35). And, “He is in one mind, and who can turn him? and what his soul desireth, even that he doeth” (Job 23:13).
This supremacy of the divine Mind brought out in the Bible may not be widely evident in world affairs, but this doesn’t mean the truth must stay hidden, or that we can’t help the world through our understanding of this truth.
Freedom is a law of divine Mind. Whatever opposes God’s law of freedom has no foundation in God and therefore no spiritual substance, intelligence, or staying power. Oppressive human tendencies manifest what St. Paul called in the Bible the carnal mind – the worldly sense of existence as opposed to the reality of life as spiritual, created by divine Spirit. Jesus called it the devil, because it embodies all evil and tries to oppose the supremacy and activity of divine good – which is actually unopposable because God is all-powerful, as many have proved through the practice of Christian Science healing in their individual lives.
Justice, unselfishness, and uprightness are inherent in all of God’s children, because man and woman are in truth the spiritual offspring and representatives of God, reflecting God’s nature.
To the degree that spiritual truth is genuinely understood by even a relative few, the impulses of freedom reach further into human consciousness and experience, are felt in more areas of the world, and are more solidly supported. By praying earnestly for humanity with a heartfelt desire for more spiritual understanding, we actively contribute to the progress of nations.