Testimony of Healing April 23, 2018 Issue

Supply not dependent on business cycles

Steven Wennerstrom

During the mid-2000s, I decided to act on a long-cherished desire to be self-employed. I created a plan that would allow me to work part-time on my new endeavor. I formed a corporation, lined up financing, and purchased an expensive piece of land needed for my new venture, which was to build an environmentally sustainable house to sell. As I was preparing for the next step, the Great Recession hit. The land lost considerable value, housing prices sank, and my building idea was no longer financially viable. It appeared that my fledgling business idea was a poorly-timed plan that had run afoul of the boom-and-bust business cycle and become a victim of the economic downturn. My full-time employer was also affected, and my position required me to be intimately involved in making adjustments that would keep the corporation financially healthy, while avoiding layoffs and continuing to provide services, even to those who were struggling financially.

As a Christian Scientist, I had learned that our substance comes from Spirit, God. This idea comes from the Bible, which tells us that God created everything with His Word (see Genesis 1 and John 1:1–3). God’s Word must be spiritual, because God is Spirit (see John 4:24), which means that our substance is truly spiritual. Therefore, our supply of good is not based on economic or material conditions, but is instead a spiritual grace provided to each of God’s children.

Christ Jesus knew spiritual substance so well that he twice fed many thousands of people with very few loaves and fishes (see Mark 6:34–44 and Mark 8:1–9). Other spiritually minded Bible characters also proved that their abundance came from God. For instance, Job was severely tested when he lost everything. But he refused to lose his faith in God’s goodness, even when he strongly questioned why he had lost his family and possessions. He bore his tribulation patiently and learned a valuable lesson that resulted in a doubling of his original abundance.

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