Article September 10, 2018 Issue

Instead of reacting, choose to pray—and bring healing

Steve Cole

In a situation that may annoy us or make us angry, we have a couple of choices. One is to react and be carried away by whatever is going on around us. This tends to bring poor results. Happily, we can make another choice. We can choose to follow Christ Jesus’ teachings, which have a healing and saving effect because they are derived from a divine source—from God, who is infinite Spirit, Truth, and Love. These teachings show us how to pray effectively—in a way that enables us to feel and express dominion over the disturbing situation. This is a kind of prayer that brings healing by lifting our thinking above a material sense of existence into an understanding of spiritual reality.

The truth is that we are never helpless over how we think. Things may seem out of our control, but we can always choose to allow only God, good, to govern our thinking. Then we can glimpse a bit more of the reality of God’s love. This correction of thought, in turn, brings our experience into accord with the peace, harmony, and intelligence of God’s government.

Consistent communing with God, the one, infinite Mind governing the universe, subdues the inclination to react as our thinking and acting submit to God’s authority, which is supreme. As Mary Baker Eddy explains in the Christian Science textbook, Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures, “When man is governed by God, the ever-present Mind who understands all things, man knows that with God all things are possible” (p. 180).

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Instead of reacting, choose to pray—and bring healing

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