Article September 25, 1989 Issue

Push, push, push, or stop, listen, and yield?

Prayer is more than a stopgap, something we turn to for a quick fix when we're in trouble. And it requires us to yield to God's will in order to have permanent healing.

Sam L. Hornbeak

"HOW stupid! Ouch, that hurts! Maybe I broke something!" My thoughts tumbled, staccato-like, on top of each other. Why? In pushing to get a job done, I had just hit my kneecap with a claw hammer, with which I had been trying to open a bag of premixed concrete. I should have used the proper tool, which was only a short walk away.

After falling to the ground, I prayed for relief from the pain. But even this included elements of expediting. It was almost as if I were saying, "Please hurry and heal me, God. I've got to finish this job."

What I actually needed was to see more of my true spiritual nature. Through my study of Christian Science I knew that I was God's child and thus could claim His qualities as my heritage. For example, instead of thinking of myself as a stupid, hurried mortal—even if I felt that way right then—I realized that I couldn't possibly be stupid, because God is Mind and I express the intelligence of Mind. I asked myself, "How can any material force touch, injure, or hurt man made in God's likeness? How can anything be broken in man, who is in reality spiritual?" Because I knew, deep in my heart, that I was, in fact, spiritual, I could truthfully affirm that I could not be injured, hurt, or broken.

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