Negotiations come to a halt. People get discouraged. Such can happen when we believe that all the possibilities for finding a solution have been exhausted. Like a car running out of fuel and sputtering to a stop, we might feel as if our efforts to find the answer to some problem have simply run out of gas.

We don't need to resign ourselves to unsolved problems. There's plenty of evidence, as far back as Bible times, to show that people, many of whom believed they were left without an answer, did indeed find the answer they needed when they listened to God and were obedient to Him.

How can God be a practical help? Why should we think He has an answer we wouldn't necessarily come up with on our own? The Bible provides helpful insights. Not only does it show the limitations of the human mind, but more importantly it also brings out the limitless intelligence and supreme power of God, the divine Mind. In Isaiah we read, "My thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways, saith the Lord" (55:8).

Consider the troubling situation faced by Moses and the children of Israel when they came to the shore of the Red Sea as they were being pursued by Pharaoh and his army. It's hard to imagine that Moses, relying strictly on human means and his own view of things, would have concluded that the solution was the dividing of the sea so that could cross it! Yet, that's the direction Moses received from the Lord, and it proved to be practical. It was central to saving him and the Israelites from Pharaoh and his men.

If we're not accustomed to listening regularly to God, divine Mind, for His thoughts and ways, and to obeying His supremely intelligent and harmonious direction, to do so might seem a rather unrealistic approach to living and to problem solving. But it's not. It's actually quite natural to depend upon the one infinite Mind to provide us always with what's best for us to have and do. That's because, in truth, man is God's offspring. He is the spiritual idea of divine Mind. Therefore our identity, our nature, our whole being, actually come from God and are perfectly maintained by Him.

God always knows and supplies exactly what we need—not because He oversees a creation of deficient mortals but because He created man as His complete, satisfied, immortal, spiritual likeness and keeps him that way. He knows and provides what constitutes harmony and happiness and purposeful activity throughout His creation. Christ Jesus said, "Your Father knoweth what things ye have need of, before ye ask him" (Matt. 6:8). Jesus knew this fact and proved it under just about every kind of adverse condition you can imagine. He showed that the Christ, the true idea of God, is always present and always sufficient to heal sickness, to destroy sin, to meet all human needs.

We might wonder, though, how solutions to our problems can come from God if He sees man only as spiritual and perfect, instead of as a mortal fraught with difficulties. It may help to look at the question in a different context. Does a mapmaker need to be conscious of travelers who are lost in order to help them? Maps meet a variety of needs. Because they establish the facts, maps show the correct way to go, whether the traveler happens to be lost, or needs the reassurance to continue on the right course. The mapmaker doesn't need to be aware of the lost traveler.

What happens, then, as we listen faithfully to the one Mind for Christly thoughts? In a word: revelation. We should expect the common view (a false, material sense of things) to yield to a very different view, to a true, spiritual sense of being, to what's actually true of God and of our selfhood as His likeness. Then we understand something of what divine Mind is knowing, and how Mind is governing all. In Science and Health Mary Baker Eddy writes, "The testimony of the corporealsenses cannot inform us what is real and what is delusive, but the revelations of Christian Science unlock the treasures of Truth" (p. 70).

Through Christian Science we find the answers we need; we learn the truths that produce harmony. When spiritual truth is apprehended it may have the effect on us of reassurance, showing us that we're acting in the right way, conforming to God's will. Consider the time Jesus agreed to be baptized by John. The Gospel of Matthew tells us that a voice from heaven was heard, saying, "This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased" (3:17).

Sometimes a clear glimpse of Truth has a corrective, transforming effect, giving us an understanding of what's true and good, while at the same time exposing and rebuking some mistaken or evil thought. We could say this describes Jacob's experience the night before he was to meet his brother Esau, who he feared would seek revenge for having deprived him of his birthright. Shedding new light on Jacob's search for a solution that night, Science and Health describes him as having wrestled with a material sense of life. He then perceived a message from God. Further on, the Christian Science textbook says that this impartation from God "gave [Jacob] the spiritual sense of being and rebuked his material sense." The spiritual answer Jacob received changing his life profoundly (see pp. 308-309).

If we're at a point where we think there are no answers, the difficulty really boils down to ignorance of God's perfect thoughts and perfect ways. These thoughts are with us now and always, and they provide answers to the whole range of human needs. The Science of Christianity assures us that when we're receptive to the divine Mind, when our our prayer is to know God better and to follow His direction, we will never be without an answer. What is revealed will be just what we need.

Russ Gerber