World leaders are ‘rays of light,’ too!

Pat Sanders

While praying about world problems, I realized that I was seeing two world leaders, whose behavior always seems deplorable, as bad. I found myself picturing them as little children ranting and raving, pushing and pouting. Worse, I had developed the attitude that everyone living in those countries was also “bad.” This thinking had to be changed.

So I asked myself how I handled this behavior when my children were growing up. In our family what’s often referred to as the “terrible twos” stage was transformed into the “terrific twos” by our understanding that being 24 months old does not necessitate going through a stage of misbehavior. There are no stages in God who is All—complete, mature, whole, balanced—and each of us is God’s expression.

During their teenage years I had to accept that our children would not be “little” all their lives, and to see them as God sees them—spiritual, complete, mature, and balanced. After diligent prayer about this, I found that our relationships were respectful and joyful. Using these previous lessons, I’m finding a different way of thinking about those two countries and their rulers.

Mary Baker Eddy wrote, “If we say that the sun stands for God, then all his rays collectively stand for Christ, and each separate ray for men and women” (The First Church of Christ, Scientist, and Miscellany, p. 344). These leaders and the citizens in these countries cannot live in the shadow, separated from God’s love. At no time can the love of God be lessened or taken away from these people. Nor can these leaders be more powerful than God, who is in control of all. Under divine Principle’s government, they all have a right to be cherished as a ray of His light.

I now strive to see the leaders and their people as God sees them: complete, mature, whole, balanced. Power belongs to God only—to omnipotent Mind. Mrs. Eddy states: “. . . If God, or good, is real, then evil, the unlikeness of God, is unreal. And evil can only seem to be real by giving reality to the unreal. The children of God have but one Mind” (Science and Health, p. 470).

Each of us can contribute to humanity’s progress through prayer. As we change our way of thinking, by giving no reality to evil and seeing these people as rays of light, children of God, we help to change the world.

—Pat Sanders, Columbia, Missouri

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