Watch and pray

This JSH-Online.com podcast with Ken Girard drew on Jesus’ guidance, “What I say unto you I say unto all, Watch” (Mark 13:37 ). Ken was asked to describe what we are to be watching for. The podcast has been adapted for print. To hear it in its entirety, go to journal.christianscience.com/watch-and-pray.

We’re probably all striving to watch—watching world events in order to pray about them, watching for the evidence of God, of good, at work in our world and lives. All of this is so important. But there’s another aspect—one that’s, perhaps, more profound, and one that’s essential to our successful practice of Christian Science. 

I’d like to quote something that Mary Baker Eddy told John C. Lathrop about watching. In a reminiscence, Mr. Lathrop said: “Another time, in 1903, I was called to Mrs. Eddy’s study and given a fine lesson on watching. She asked me if I had been watching. I replied, ‘Yes, Mother, I have been going over the Lesson-Sermon and getting much out of it.’ She looked at me sternly. ‘Did you think that was watching?’ she asked. ‘Now I will tell you what it means to watch. To watch is to become conscious of your danger. I will tell you a story which will explain what I mean.’ ” 

Mrs. Eddy told Lathrop about a Union soldier who was on sentinel duty on the breastworks at a Union encampment. A Confederate sharpshooter and some comrades had crept into the area. The sharpshooter was taking aim to kill the sentinel. Suddenly, the Union soldier began to sing “Jesus, Lover of my Soul.” This so touched the Confederate soldier that he couldn’t kill him. He and his comrades went away. 

Years later on an ocean voyage, when a group of passengers was singing hymns, the former Confederate soldier suddenly heard this same voice, and, indeed, it was the Union soldier. So they talked. The Confederate soldier told him what he had been about to do and why he couldn’t. The Union soldier said all he knew was that he was in danger, and he turned to God. Suddenly he was led to sing that particular hymn. Of course, that’s what saved his life. 

“ ‘Now, that man was watching,’ Mrs. Eddy continued. ‘He was not afraid, but he was conscious of his danger. Christian Scientists read their literature, go to church, to church meetings, and still may be tumbled over; that is not watching, they are merely marching up and down the breastworks’ ” (We Knew Mary Baker Eddy, Expanded Edition, Volume I, pp. 262–263).

To me, this means that we need to be using our God-given spiritual senses. I think it’s important that the Union soldier was not afraid. So, this is not about fearing evil, but being alert to what evil would try to do. I actually experienced that one time, and being spiritually alert saved me from some pretty serious physical harm.

I love to bicycle, and several years back, in the early spring, I was coming down a very steep hill in Harvard, Massachusetts. I was going around a blind corner at about 30 miles an hour, which is fairly fast on a bicycle. I regularly pray while I’m riding, and try to be very conscious of the presence of God. Before I got into this turn, the thought came to me, “Move two feet to the left.” This was kind of surprising because that would take me off my line around the turn, but I was immediately obedient. As I rounded the corner, I saw a large washout of dirt and sand across the entire road except for only one space about six inches wide where it was clear, and it was two feet from where I had originally started. I was able to go right through that sandbar, unscathed. Had I not listened and been alert, I would have gone off the road into a bunch of trees at that speed.

So we need to learn to listen and obey, even to expect God to give us guidance. That is part of watching.

I’ve had some folks ask me from time to time, “Well, if you’re thinking about danger, or being alert like that, isn’t that really focusing on evil?” To me, that’s not the case at all. When you’re using your spiritual senses, you’re drawing closer to God, so you’re more aware of the presence of good, and of God’s ever-present help for us.

Another kind of danger, perhaps one that could be even more disastrous if we’re not alert to it, comes to us as negative thoughts that are separate from the Mind that is God. Mary Baker Eddy’s term for negative thoughts is mortal mind, which appears as misleading suggestions or erroneous influences on us. These are not our own thoughts or observations, but what the Apostle Paul spoke of as “the carnal mind,” which “is enmity against God” (Romans 8:7 ). 

At this point in history, communication is almost instantaneous around the world, and thought can move even more quickly. So these negative messages can be the influence of other systems of religious thought, or philosophical systems that would either directly or inadvertently be adverse to our practice of Christian Science. If we are misled by them—perhaps think they are “just like Christian Science”—they could interfere with our ability to be healed, or to heal others. 

When you’re using your spiritual senses, you’re drawing closer to God, so you’re more aware 
of the presence of good, and of God’s ever-present help for us.

We have to be alert to them because they are godless. They’re all, to some degree, based on the human mind—rather than coming from the divine Mind and what God knows to be true about each of us. As Mrs. Eddy wrote in Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures, “Every system of human philosophy, doctrine, and medicine is more or less infected with the pantheistic belief that there is mind in matter; but this belief contradicts alike revelation and right reasoning” (p. 279 ).

When we’re confronted with thoughts of this kind, we need to really deeply turn to God. And just like that sentinel on guard duty, who knew he was in danger but didn’t desert his post, we need to have that same sort of spiritual vigilance. In doing so, we’re turning to God to see that these are not our thoughts—they’re not part of us. They could never be because we are God’s perfect idea. Since they didn’t come from God, they aren’t part of our consciousness. That’s the basis for our giving them “the boot” instead of accepting them into our consciousness. 

In my practice of Christian Science, I’ve seen how important it is to be watching, not only for what error or evil may be presenting to us now, but what we may have allowed into our thinking in the past. The author of the Second Epistle to Timothy wrote, “Preach the word; be instant in season, out of season; reprove, rebuke, exhort with all longsuffering and doctrine” (4:2 ). That tells me we really can, and must, eliminate those errors, whether they’re in season (right now) or out of season (from the past). That’s why watching is so important.