Article April 19, 1982 Issue

God places us

AVICE M. SAINT

Abraham, who lived almost as many years before the birth of Christ Jesus as we live after it, heard God's message to take his people to a place where they would live and prosper. Obeying God, he led his people to Canaan and there found a good land of pasture, trees, and water. Today, as then, the fact is that God places us right where we need to be when we obey His leadings.

Sometimes we may be concerned as to whether we are in the most appropriate place in regard to work, home, travel, or human relationships. If this is the case, the answer is to turn to God, to subordinate material sense to the spiritual perception of God, good. There are certain steps we need to take, however, if our turning to God is to be effective—namely, to watch, pray, and work. Mrs. Eddy, the Discoverer of Christian Science, often speaks of this need, and in the opening chapter of Science and Health writes, "Prayer, watching, and working, combined with self-immolation, are God's gracious means for accomplishing whatever has been successfully done for the Christianization and health of mankind."^{Science and Health, p. 1.}

The need to watch our thinking is continuous. Are we giving the limitations of human belief a foothold in thought—limitations such as chance, age, lack of opportunity, and the poor state of the economy? These are really not determining factors. Self-examination—a sort of mental quality control—helps us separate true thoughts, which have their source in God, from the false, which originate in a finite sense of things. As Paul tells us, we must bring "into captivity every thought to the obedience of Christ."^{II Cor. 10:5.} Christ, the true idea, gives us the truths that help us see through the falsities of material limitations.