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Loving, not blaming
When I was having a rough day some time ago, I began ruminating on all the reasons I felt things were going so badly: Our preschooler had wakened at 3:30 that morning, my husband was out of town, and our new cat was being troublesome, especially at night when we were trying to sleep. All I was focused on was, How can I make my day, my life, easier?
Well, making life easy wasn’t exactly Christ Jesus’ message to us. He certainly didn’t take the easy road himself. But Jesus did solve problems, and he proved that the effective way to do that is to lift our thought into a greater understanding of ever-present spiritual harmony. He said, “The kingdom of God is within you” (Luke 17:21).
The kingdom of heaven can be found now. We don’t have to wait for human circumstances to change.
I have come to realize that the kingdom of heaven—the atmosphere of health, harmony, love, dominion, joy, and freedom—can be found here and now, through our oneness with God, infinite Mind. We don’t have to wait for human circumstances to change. The Christlike activity of God is always at work in human consciousness, revealing the way to healing.
So, back to my rough day. The selfish solution to make everything better was to give the cat back to the shelter where we had adopted him. I don’t like to make blind decisions based on human will, though, so I decided to ask God what to do about the cat. As I reached out in prayer, the message that came was: What if you just loved him? This was a whole new thought. I had been listening to all the reasons this cat was making my life difficult instead of focusing on the love and affection that had impelled us to adopt him.
Through prayer, I began to see our cat, Joey, as a beautiful, spiritual idea of God, and I felt compassion and humility toward him. I was also able to feel a greater sense of calm about the day in general, despite my lack of sleep. The frustration of the day completely melted, and everything became more harmonious.
A few days later, I realized I was feeling so settled and peaceful that I hadn’t even thought about our home as being anything less than harmonious. Our cat now seemed a valued member of the family, and his nighttime behavior had improved.
When we’re confronting challenges, it can be tempting to get caught up in the problems, blame others, and stew over all our reasons for feeling or behaving badly. But the problems we need to solve stem from false mental concepts that need to be corrected through prayer. And when we turn to God for answers and yield to divine Love’s leading, we find the kingdom of heaven within—not dependent on circumstances—giving us peace and inspired solutions that benefit everyone.