BUILDING CONFIDENCE IN GOD'S CARE

John Albert Hemphill

I once attended a seminar on architecture where there were two very interesting speakers. The first had impressive academic credentials. He was very articulate and presented innovative ideas that he hoped the profession would put into practice. The second speaker may not have been as articulate but spoke from his many years of experience.

There was another difference between the two. The man who gave the second talk spoke with genuine confidence because he had proved the value of the concepts in his own life. To him, these ideas were actually solid things on which he could depend.

Such conviction doesn't come from blind faith. It grows out of experience. The same holds true for building our confidence in God's presence and power.

I remember one occasion in particular when I was feeling very much alone with my problems. This became an opportunity, however, to increase my understanding that there is never a gap in God's caring. There is never a time when God's grace needs to begin, because in fact it never stops. I reasoned that if His support for me never stops, I did not need to ask for more of His grace but rather to see and acknowledge what was already being given to me in a never-ending flow of good.

The thought came to put a pencil and piece of paper in my pocket and put a mark on the paper every time I felt I had received an idea that was inspiring, in other words one that came from God. It took a full hour and a half before I made my first mark! The next mark, however, took only an hour, then a half-hour for the next, and so on. Before the day was over, it had become clear that God's good was coming all the time. It was not something that had stopped and had to be turned on again.

From this experience, I realized that I needed to acknowledge vigorously God's goodness, not as theory, but as a reality that was constantly part of my life. Each time I did this I became more convinced that the good coming to me would always continue. And the more I practiced and demonstrated this, the more it became conviction.

On page 428 of Science and Health, Mary Baker Eddy writes, "The author has healed hopeless organic disease, and raised the dying to life and health through the understanding of God as the only Life." And on the next page she continues, "We must begin, however, with the more simple demonstrations of control, and the sooner we begin the better."

What a wonderful aim, to build up one's conviction of God's absolute control. And the ability to prove it is constantly before us. We start by acknowledging it right where we are, and then our thought is lifted higher to see, acknowledge, and demonstrate more.

God speaks to everybody, all the time, and we can all hear His voice. If we listen, we will find ways to perceive His loving hand in our lives.

John Albert Hemphill
Charlotte, North Carolina

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