No loss from time loss
Many look ahead to the new year with resolutions and expectations. Others mark the occasion with retrospection. Some face the future with anxiety; some think on the past with regret.
Christian Science gives us a view of time entirely different from the commonly accepted one. Part of Mrs. Eddy's definition of "time" is "mortal measurements." Science and Health, p. 595 ; A measurement is not a force, a power, an entity that causes things to happen. Time cannot consume good and it cannot postpone good.
God is good. Because God is ever present, good is always present. Because God is eternal, good is eternal. We need to recognize the good of this moment, which is wholly spiritual and unlimited, untouched by time.
Christ Jesus related a parable in which a householder went early in the morning to hire laborers for his vineyard, both sides agreeing to the wage of a penny a day. On four other occasions as the day progressed, the householder hired more laborers. At the end of the day he paid all the same amount—a penny. Those who had worked since morning objected to receiving the same wages as those who had worked only part of the day. The householder replied to one of them, "Friend, I do thee no wrong: didst not thou agree with me for a penny?" Matt. 20:13 ;
"Unfair!" I protested the first time I heard the story. It was many years later that I began to grasp what, to me, is the spiritual point: Time does not control the amount of good in our lives.
This insight helped me greatly when one of our children suffered from asthma. The condition lasted for several years, and the child's activities were curtailed. While other boys his age were learning sports, he had to sit quietly by, unable to participate regularly or to perfect his athletic skills. Meanwhile, the whole family endeavored to learn more of God and His perfect expression, man.
The complete healing came when our son was in junior high school. He began to play tennis and improved his game quickly enough to earn a place on the school team by his second year. In high school he qualified for the swimming team and went on to compete in two international swimming meets, despite the fact that his fellow swimmers had been training since they were very young boys and he had not. What he had learned about his real being and the good that God provides every moment resulted in healing, and this included the cancellation of any supposed penalty for a late start in sports. "I will restore to you the years that the locust hath eaten," Joel 2:25 ; God promised the children of Israel.
The belief that time can inflict a penalty on man—that it can cause an irrecoverable loss that lingers to dilute present good—is mistaken. The truth is that time has no connection with good. God, all good, is always present. There has never been a time when good was absent.
As surely as time is not a thief, it is not a purveyor of good. How tempting to think of time as a healer, to hope that grief will be lessened "in time"! Or that lost strength will be regained "in time." Or that in other circumstances and at a future date there will be more happiness, more health, more peace.
This very moment is precious. Mrs. Eddy writes, "'Now,' cried the apostle, 'is the accepted time; behold, now is the day of salvation,'—meaning, not that now men must prepare for a future-world salvation, or safety, but that now is the time in which to experience that salvation in spirit and in life." Science and Health, p. 39 .
Christ Jesus healed sickness instantaneously, and Christian Scientists testify to their own instantaneous healings. Healing is always a present possibility. Even as we pray for healing not yet realized, we can acknowledge the nowness of good and of the harmony God has established for man.
