Article August 17, 1992 Issue

Are there "cycles" to God's goodness?

When we face lean times, we can find hope—and positive results—through a glimpse of the continuity of good.

Mark Swinney

Are there periods when God's goodness and power are present, and then other times when God's sustaining nature isn't so available? Sometimes the experiences in day-to-day living would have us believe so. Admittedly, there appear to be many kinds of cycles—for example, economic cycles of feast and famine. Yet are a particular country's (or a small town's) current economic conditions truly representative of the availability of God's presence?

Not long ago, I noticed that a real estate company was holding an open house at a home in our neighborhood. My wife and I were getting ready to sell some property nearby, so I walked in and, after looking around for a while, asked the agent if anyone had shown an interest in buying the house. He despondently assured me that it was just about impossible to sell any house in the present economic conditions. He backed up what he said by showing me reports with numerous statistics and facts.

For the next twenty minutes or so I felt as though I had the weight of the world on my shoulders. In a way, that was exactly what I was feeling—the world's widely accepted verdict that good is limited by all sorts of external forces and circumstances. Deep down, however, from what I'd learned from my study of Christian Science about the spiritual facts of being, I knew that the availability of God's help and power is never in "recession"; that there is no stagnation of God's unceasing care for man, His cherished spiritual creation. I also knew that prayer could help me realize this in practical ways.

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Are there "cycles" to God's goodness?

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