your decisions July 26, 1999 Issue

How do you make big decisions? Do you discuss all the options with family and friends? Make long lists of pros and cons? Research all the ramifications?

While these may be useful steps, they may not bring the clarity necessary to make a confident decision. What's needed is spiritual light.

We hope you'll find that the prayers, spiritual study, and healing experiences authors share in this column help bring the right choices and truly satisfying decisions to light in your life.

"Your decisions will master you, whichever direction they take." MARY BAKER EDDY

Call on God... His help is immediate

By Laura Matthews

When you need help, where do you turn? You might call on a friend or a parent, a boss or a trusted counselor. Yet there is a problem-solver that is closer than the telephone, faster than e-mail, and more powerful than the best human advice. I'm talking about divine help. God.

It's never too late or too early to call on God, to pray to our loving Father-Mother. God doesn't require us to struggle along with a problem until we've exhausted every avenue before He will help. Nor does God, the divine Principle, Love, reject us or make things more difficult if we've resisted praying. He's always present and effective, rejoicing. We can experience this help immediately. Mary Baker Eddy writes in Science and Health: "In divine Science, where prayers are mental, all may avail themselves of God as 'a very present help in trouble.' Love is impartial and universal in its adaptation and bestowals. It is the open fount which cries, 'Ho, every one that thirsteth, come ye to the waters' " (pp.12-13). The Love that is God is perfect, not arbitrary or disapproving.

But what if we feel less than deserving? Christ Jesus made it plain that we do not have to earn special grace in order to call on God. In a sermon that reached thousands of people, he counseled: "Ask, and it shall be given you; seek, and ye shall find; knock, and it shall be opened unto you: for every one that asketh receiveth; and he that seeketh findeth; and to him that knocketh it shall be opened. Or what man is there of you, whom if his son ask bread, will he give him a stone? Or if he ask a fish, will he give him a serpent? If ye then, being evil, know how to give good gifts unto your children, how much more shall your Father which is in heaven give good things to them that ask him?" (Matt. 7:7-11) The worthiness of each individual in Jesus' audience was not an issue; all were expected to be able to follow his teachings. Can't we today take Jesus' advice with the confidence that God will answer our calls, as well?

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Call on God... His help is immediate

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