Walking hand in hand with God
Getting to know God as more than an abstraction makes His healing power, presence, and love a more tangible part of our daily lives.
How I admired my next-door neighbor, Joyce. She loved God. And it showed. On her kitchen wall hung a plaque that said, “Nothing can happen today that the Lord and I can’t handle.” For Joyce, life was a day-by-day walking hand in hand with God. I wanted to feel that close to God, too.
I’d learned in Christian Science Sunday School that God is Love. In fact, I’d learned seven Bible-based names for God that describe His nature: Love, Principle, Mind, Spirit, Soul, Life, and Truth. But they were just words to me; they seemed textbook-y. I vowed right then and there to give them attention.
I’d just begun reading a biography of Mary Baker Eddy, a follower of Christ Jesus and the discoverer of Christian Science. I saw that God was her constant companion, and she looked to Him for everything – for direction, protection, correction, and healing.
There’s a simple analogy Mrs. Eddy gives in her book “Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures”: that each of us is to God as a ray of light is to the sun (see p. 361). A ray of light can’t be unready, unable, or unwilling to shine. It can’t have any gaps in its shining. It can’t fizzle out from shining, either. All it can do is shine. Just as you can’t have a ray of light without the sun, neither can you have the sun without its rays.
So as God’s spiritual reflection – made in God’s very image, spiritual and perfect as our Maker, and always connected to Him – we are as important and precious to God as He is to us.
With this inspiration (straight from God!), my relationship to God became more important and more real to me. Taking those seven names for God, I began to think of man (which includes everyone) as God’s shining, and began to claim this closeness to God for myself:
As Mind’s shining, we express understanding and clarity.
As Principle’s shining, we express certainty and invariability.
As Soul’s shining, we express joy and satisfaction.
As Spirit’s shining, we express substantiality and strength.
As Truth’s shining, we express perfection and freedom.
As Life’s shining, we express vitality and spontaneity.
As Love’s shining, we are the very loved of Love, loving and lovely in every way.
All of these are true for each of us, for we are His.
Those seven names for God were now beginning to mean something profound to me. God was so much more than a three-letter word. Not long after, I took Primary class instruction in Christian Science. And that’s when those names really came to life!
That was years ago, but I still often enjoy making a new, spontaneous list – inspired, not intellectual – of God’s qualities, with the goal of expressing them more fully. This makes every day an experience of walking hand in hand with God. It shows me how palpable is God’s presence, how ready is His power. Everything we do all day can be done with God, by God, for God – to glorify God.
Some days I enjoy focusing on one of His names in particular. For instance, that biography quoted Mrs. Eddy as saying, “The first thing I do in the morning when I awake is to declare I shall have no other mind before divine Mind and become fully conscious of this and then adhere to it throughout the entire day. Then the evil cannot touch me” (Robert Peel, “Mary Baker Eddy: The Years of Authority,” p. 242).
What becoming “fully conscious of this” says to me is, Then not one confused, fearful, mean, anxious, stupid, or selfish thought is truly mine. Recognizing such thoughts as counterfeits of the divine Mind empowers us to rise above them. As the Apostle Paul said, “We have the mind of Christ” (I Corinthians 2:16). The Mind of Christ – that’s God.
As I continue to grow in my understanding of God, my desire to obey His will grows too, and also my conviction that God’s will for all is just as good as He is. In Mrs. Eddy’s “Miscellaneous Writings 1883-1896” is this invitation and promise: “Those who know no will but His take His hand, and from the night He leads to light” (p. 347).
Care to join me in taking God’s hand today?