Discover your spirituality

An early Christian Scientist, Anna B. White, once lamented to Mary Baker Eddy, the founder of Christian Science, that she (Mrs. White) “was not spiritual” and did not feel that she “could attain to any very spiritual height.” Mrs. Eddy responded with a lesson on spirituality and concluded, “ ‘Because you love good, you love God, and therefore you must never say you are not spiritual’ ” (We Knew Mary Baker Eddy, Expanded Edition, Volume II, p. 312).

Are we also sometimes tempted to believe that we are not spiritual? If so, this week’s Bible Lesson, titled “Spirit,” is just right for us! It establishes that God, Spirit, has created us in His own image and likeness and that His goodness is understood through spiritual sense, maintained through spiritual law, and demonstrated through spiritual power. God “hath shined in our hearts, to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ” (II Corinthians 4:6 , Responsive Reading).

The Bible is full of stories about individuals discovering their own spirituality and feeling God shine in their hearts. For example, it may not have seemed like a very spiritual situation when Joseph found Mary pregnant before marriage with a child not his own! But both Joseph and Mary opened thought to a higher, spiritual sense that brought them angel messages and revealed their holy mission (see Matthew 1:18–25 , citation 7, and Luke 1:26–35). In a way, they learned that “what is termed material sense can report only a mortal temporary sense of things, whereas spiritual sense can bear witness only to Truth” (Mary Baker Eddy, Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures, p. 298 , cit. 10). Mary’s ensuing song of rejoicing, known as the Magnificat, begins, “My soul doth magnify the Lord” (Luke 1:46 , cit. 6). It is one of the most ancient Christian hymns still used in church liturgies today and is the basis of Hymn 153 in the Christian Science Hymnal.

The man sick of the palsy (see Matthew 9:2–8 , cit. 12) may have felt he wasn’t spiritual enough to be healed. After all, he had sins to be forgiven. But his friends had great faith that healing would result if they brought him to Jesus. Did they sense that “there is divine authority for believing in the superiority of spiritual power over material resistance” (Science and Health, p. 134 , cit. 19)? Jesus healed the man and the amazed crowd “glorified God, which had given such power unto men” (verse 8).

The disciple Peter wanted to walk on the water to Jesus, but after a moment, faltered in fear. However, Jesus lifted him up (see Matthew 14:22–32 , cit. 15). Scholars suggest that this story was about more than Peter and the disciples on a boat—it symbolized the early Christian Church’s need to walk over the troubling waves of its own time and reach out to Christ. Christ keeps his Church from sinking into the sea of chaos and proves that “Spirit imparts the understanding which uplifts consciousness and leads into all truth” (Science and Health, p. 505 , cit. 23).

So let’s “be filled with the Spirit” (Ephesians 5:18 , RR). Let’s love God, good, and joy in knowing that yes, indeed, we are spiritual!