It didn't happen to GOD

DELI HOFFMAN

How many times today did you have to choose between a good thought and a bad one? Do you know about the time when Christ Jesus had to choose which thoughts he would listen to?

Well, this is another true story—about a little boy who found out about thoughts. He learned to choose between God's thoughts, which are good, and evil thoughts, which bring trouble by tempting one to do wrong.

Ricky lived in a house that had very slippery floors. The kind of floors that are great fun to slide on. And oh, could he slide when he took his shoes off! Mom and Dad didn't think much of his zooming down the hall. They would remind him that it wasn't safe. He shouldn't let himself be tempted to do foolish things, they said.

Ricky also knew from attending a Christian Science Sunday School the story of how the devil—not a real person but error that gives us wrong thoughts—tried to make Jesus do wrong things. But Jesus understood the devil's tricks. Jesus knew that error, or evil, could never really do something to him. It only suggested wrong or bad thoughts and made them sound like good ideas.

Anyway, Ricky listened to the whispered thought, "What fun you miss by not sliding down the hall!" So one night just before bedtime, he took one more slide. Whee, it was slippery! And then BOOM! His head hit the doorjamb.

Mom came running and looked at him in that special loving way which meant she was praying for him. He said, "I'm all right. You don't have to work for me. I'll pray for myself."

Now, the "work" he spoke of was prayer as he had been taught in Christian Science. It was knowing the presence of God and the perfection of the man that God created.

Ricky couldn't read many words, but he knew the word "God." Sometimes when he wasn't feeling just right, he would open his mother's book called a Concordance to Science and Health by Mrs. Eddy. He found the word "God" and saw how often it was mentioned. Even though that was almost the only word he could read, it made him feel close to God. It helped him to remember that God loved him, and that he was God's reflection. Mrs. Eddy says, "As the reflection of yourself appears in the mirror, so you, being spiritual, are the reflection of God."^¹ His parents had told him what reflection means. You stand in front of a mirror, and the picture in the mirror is your reflection. If you raise your hand, so does the reflection. It can't do anything unless you do it first. It is obedient to you.

So that night, after Mom had tucked him into bed, he thought, "I won't think about the bump on my head. I'll remember what it means to be God's reflection, perfect like Him." So he fell asleep thinking about God.

At breakfast, when his mom saw him, she was very happy. The great big lump on his head was gone. She knew that this was a Christian Science healing he had worked out for himself. Mom asked how he had prayed. Ricky told her about being God's reflection. He grinned and said, "I knew it would have to happen to God before it could happen to me. And it didn't happen to God, so it really didn't happen to me!"

From then on Ricky knew he would choose more carefully between the thoughts that came to him. Were they from God, or were they the whisperings of the devil? And like the Way-shower, Christ Jesus, he knew he could say to evil suggestions, "Get thee hence."^²And they would have to go!

¹ Science and Health, p. 516; ↑

² Matt. 4:10. ↑

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