One might not think of everyday finances as being an area that needs God's input. But given the tension, unhappiness, misunderstanding, and even court battles that money matters can cause between parents and children and brothers and sisters and uncles and cousins and aunts, it's a good idea to find out the will of the one Mind, God, in these decisions.

It doesn't matter whether the amount of funds a family is dealing with is a lot or virtually nothing. When there are differences among family members about how or if to spend it, we can take this first important step: we can get control of our own thinking by seeking God's will for us, praying earnestly, "Show me the best thing to do here."

"Show me?" someone may be thinking. "What about what the others are planning to do?" Yet you and I are never responsible for what someone else thinks or does. What we can do (and it is no small contribution to harmony and right solutions) is to find out what God wants us to do individually.

The Psalmist prayed to God, "Cause me to hear thy loving-kindness in the morning; for in thee do I trust: cause me to know the way wherein I should walk; for I lift up my soul unto thee" (Ps. 143:8). Immeasurable spiritual light and direction can be ours as we pray along these lines.

The fact is that the unerring, intelligent Mind, God, who has made man and the universe, hasn't left His creation to govern itself. If decisions actually rested on our shoulders, we might indeed feel overwhelmed at times. But we are in reality the eternal reflection of the infinitely resourceful Mind, which directs and impels all right activity.

What is it but a belief in several minds, in conflicting personal egos, that can cause conflict among family members when financial issues arise? When we counter this belief by acknowledging and realizing that the divine Mind alone is governing all concerned and holding them in love, stress and anger are curtailed. Peace comes, not on the shaky basis of mere human agreement or appeasement, but through the understanding that God's law of harmony is in continuous operation.

In Science and Health, Mary Baker Eddy points out: "The children of God have but one Mind. How can good lapse into evil, when God, the Mind of man, never sins? The standard of perfection was originally God and man. Has God taken down His own standard, and has man fallen?" (p.470)

It is our duty to view all human affairs in a Christly light, and not to accept the false, mortal view of our brother man as misdirected or self-willed. It is our privilege when confronted with potential discord to know what is true about ourselves and everybody else. This is the way our Master, Christ Jesus, handled problems: by seeing God's child in place of the mortal picture.

It isn't always easy to separate unloving or selfish behavior from our concept of another. But this scene, when looked at in the light of Christian Science, is just a false presentation of so-called mortal mind, which produces it and believes in it. None of God's sons and daughters are ever actors in it. The Christly view of man awakens one to the truth about himself and those he cares about. It causes Love's will to be expressed.

Sometimes the argument of the carnal mind is strong that loss can occur by yielding up our self-will and trusting in what Mrs. Eddy calls "God's disposal of events" (see The First Church of Christ, Scientist, and Miscellany, p.281). "If I don't look out for my interests, who will?" we may be tempted to think. It is our heavenly Father who invariably looks out for our interests as we wholeheartedly rely on His unerring wisdom and power.

In line with this, Mrs. Eddy says in Miscellaneous Writings, "O learn to lose with God! and you find Life eternal: you gain all" (p.341). If we pray that good should result in a specific human way, we are interfering with God's superior, all-wise, and all-seeing way of bringing about whatever needs to occur.

There can be another state of thought to be alert to—lurking self-centeredness, which has no real interest in our fellowman's well-being (if the truth were squarely faced up to). There is quite a moral/Christian distance between praying from the standpoint of "There can be no loss of good for God's child" (which can too often mean no loss for me personally) and "There can be no loss of good for God's children." A truly Christlike attitude prays to see God's blessings on all the parties concerned.

In Jesus' Sermon on the Mount he implores, "... that ye may be the children of your Father which is in heaven" (Matt. 5:45). No matter what may be at stake in a money/family situation, isn't this what the Father of all expects of us—to think and act in a way that shows we are His offspring? Keeping this as our focus, praying to further brotherly love, peace, and goodwill, we can count on a harmonious outcome to any decisions we're involved in.