Article August 17, 1987 Issue

Don't be anxious, be spiritually expectant

With all our "expert" planning for our own welfare, we often overlook our basic need: to yield to God's goodness and power.

Karen Daub Bedinger

When I was a student looking for my first apartment in an unfamiliar city, I felt desperate because I had a limited budget and no car. I needed to locate reasonably priced housing that was within walking distance of campus, church, and shopping. My search began with prayer. I don't mean that I put in a request with God for an apartment. What I did do was pray to realize more of my completeness as a child of God, a child who includes the spiritual qualities associated with home.

I began by cherishing what I wanted to see expressed in my home—love, beauty, peace, order, joy. There was no need to fill out a request form or write out a list of preferences to submit to God for action. I knew that man as God's spiritual offspring already has all good.

Because God is Soul and because man is Soul's likeness, man expresses peace, joy, and beauty. Because God is Principle, man manifests order. I knew that by loving and nurturing spiritual qualities in thought, by realizing they were part of my true identity, I would more clearly perceive them in my experience. Trusting God to care for me, I looked through the newspaper for apartment advertisements. The first place I looked at was too expensive; then a vacancy sign across the street from it caught my eye. However, since that place looked even more expensive, I ignored it. What I found elsewhere was too far away, beyond budget, or ill-kept. I felt my options had run out.

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