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Two minutes early
Recently, I was in a bind. I was late leaving the house because my dog had dawdled on her walk, and it looked as if there was no way I would be at my next destination in time. Frustrated, I decided to challenge this circumstance through prayer. My desire to be prompt was a good one, as was my patience with the dog. I reasoned that both desires were intelligent, and therefore their source was God, or Mind. And if I accepted the premise that God governs His universe of intelligent ideas in harmony, then I must also admit that those ideas do not conflict.
Embracing this line of thought as I drove to my appointment, I rejected the temptation to speed and to cut off a slower vehicle at a light. Promptness, patience, courtesy, and obedience to the law are all intelligent qualities and therefore must work together to produce good results. Instead of looking at the clock in the car, I mentally insisted that God was in control of His universe, including my tiny corner of it, and that I moved according to His timetable. I arrived at my destination two minutes early.
This small experience has stayed with me. It impressed on me the value of checking my attitude frequently and letting it be reshaped, moment by moment, with what I understand to be in line with divine Principle, God. In his letter to the early Christians in Rome, the Apostle Paul put it this way: “Don’t let the world around you squeeze you into its own mould, but let God re-make you so that your whole attitude of mind is changed” (Romans 12:2, J. B. Phillips, The New Testament in Modern English, Revised Edition).
Mary Baker Eddy describes what was at work at the heart of my experience in her groundbreaking book Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures: “Belief in a material basis, from which may be deduced all rationality, is slowly yielding to the idea of a metaphysical basis, looking away from matter to Mind as the cause of every effect” (p. 268 ).
By my challenging material circumstances with higher spiritual law, what looked like an unavoidable negative outcome—arriving late to where I was headed—never materialized.
More than 2,000 years ago, Christ Jesus challenged material circumstances with God’s law and taught his followers to do so as well. How else could Paul have shaken off a poisonous viper (see Acts 28:3–5 ) or Peter walked out of a well-guarded prison (see Acts 12:1–11 )?
I am learning that you don’t have to be a Bible prophet to apply divine laws to your daily life and to experience improvements. Each of us can begin today to mentally challenge the myriad assumptions imposed on us by the world, whether it be the limitations of time, the stress of circumstances, or a negative medical prognosis. We can even challenge any mental darkness that tries to threaten world peace.
“Instead of blind and calm submission to the incipient or advanced stages of disease, rise in rebellion against them,” writes Eddy (Science and Health, p. 391 ). In the degree we challenge the “dis-ease” of material circumstances, letting Christ re-make our attitude, we experience better health, greater peace, more joy, and maybe … we even arrive where we’re going two minutes early.
—Robin Engel, Canyon Lake, Texas, US