Christ Jesus' loving assurance "In my Father's house are many mansions .... I go to prepare a place for you" ^{John 14:2;} can have special meaning for anyone who must move to a new location. More than a comforting statement, these words of the Master's are a powerful truth, a spiritual law, which when understood, held to, and trusted can transform what might otherwise be a difficult experience into a happy adventure, nullifying any sense of interruption or loss.

Take it from our family of "corporate gypsies." We have moved eleven times now, including one move overseas. Through each experience we have learned to trust the Father's will of abundant good for us and His tender care in imparting it to us. And God has never failed to place us in a mansion. No hundred-room castles and hundred-acre estates, true; but when we have dwelt in the Father's house He has always provided us with a well-located dwelling place that has abundantly met the needs of our whole family, individually and collectively.

This dwelling in the Father's house is a mental state—an awareness of God's, Love's, omnipresence. We dwell in the consciousness of Love as we acknowledge and accept God and His reflection, man, as the reality of being; as we become conscious of Love's complete control of, constant care for, and continuous communication with His spiritual idea, man. In reality God's perfect plan—His perpetual unfoldment of unlimited spiritual good to His ideas—is all that is going on. Man is the individual reflection of the one all-knowing, all-loving, all-acting Mind. Therefore, continual harmony and progress—unconfined, intelligent, orderly, and satisfying—are all that can constitute man's existence. As we perceive these spiritual facts and acknowledge them as law in the human realm, we will see the Christ, or Truth, governing our entire experience.

"Metaphysics resolves things into thoughts, and exchanges the objects of sense for the ideas of Soul," ^{Science and Health, p. 269;} writes Mrs. Eddy in Science and Health. To dwell in the Father's house is to do exactly that. It is to exchange one's concept of home as 14 Maple Lane, bricks and mortar, fence and trees, for the spiritual idea of home: Love's infinitude characterized by such divine qualities as individuality, joy, peace, security, purity, love, understanding, order, harmony, stability, and strength. These exist wholly independent of material surroundings. As qualities of Soul, our real home, they abide in our thought, so we can consciously take them with us wherever we go.

When looking for a place to live in a new location, how tempting can be the suggestion to make a list of "musts"—things that we feel the next house must have, such as a certain number of rooms, fireplace, garage, garden, or whatever. But how much more receptive to God's guidance we are when we go house-finding equipped instead with a mental list of the spiritual qualities of our real home in God! Then we will be led by His will, instead of willfully planning exactly what He should lead us to. As we listen for Mind's direction, we will know which house is right for us. And we'll find that divine wisdom fulfills our needs far better than mere human outlining ever can.

Often an imbalance seems to be involved in a move: too little time or money, a housing shortage, a job market deficiency, too much furniture, a too long lease.

But by dwelling in our Father's house, we can become conscious of Principle's ever-operative law of supply and demand governing its ideas. Our dwelling there demands that we turn entirely away from the human picture of insufficiency or surplus and steadfastly perceive the stable economy of Spirit, God, who continuously coordinates all good to preserve His infinite harmony. Perhaps Paul saw something of this divine order when he wrote to the Corinthians about their gift to the Jerusalem church: "I mean not that other men be eased, and ye burdened: but by an equality, that now at this time your abundance may be a supply for their want, that their abundance also may be a supply for your want: that there may be equality." ^{II Cor. 8:13,14;} Here is the Bible promise of the balanced working of Love's law. When we bear witness to this divine law, we bring it into effect in our human experience, counteracting the material so-called laws of lack and surplus.

"Each successive stage of experience unfolds new views of divine goodness and love," ^{Science and Health, p. 66} Science and Health assures us. Even though we are welcoming our new opportunity, we must be alert to the temptation to try to hang on to past good. Yearning for that better house, friendlier neighborhood, bigger school, easier job, we left behind only obscures Love's present provision for us. "The fullness of His blessing/Encompasseth our way," ^{Christian Science Hymnal, No. 65;} a hymn tells us. But in order to receive "the fullness of His blessing" we need willingness. Willingness to leave the past for the present. Willingness to accept the abundant good God has for us right now. Willingness to wholeheartedly trust God to provide for us now and every moment to come.

"Wisdom and knowledge shall be the stability of thy times," ^{Isa. 33:6.} the Bible assures us. What wisdom? And what knowledge? It is that true knowledge, grasped even in part, that God, good, is All, His power unimpeachable, and His law irreproachable. It is that wisdom which we can claim as our own now as God's, Mind's, reflection, the divine wisdom that enables us to trust His perfect provision for us no matter what the material situation appears to be. We can be confident that this knowledge and wisdom will lead us to our God-prepared mansion, where we can give and receive the most good.