Article July 1, 2019 Issue

Christ sets free imprisoned thinking

Laura Clayton

Have you ever felt held captive, so to speak, by circumstances beyond your control? Perhaps ill health or a litany of past mistakes has stolen your joy or limited your lifework. That’s certainly the way many of the prison inmates I’ve met have described how they feel. But in my work as a Christian Science volunteer in a correctional facility, I’ve seen firsthand how many of these individuals, searching and hungering for redemption and healing, have found true freedom and relief from mental and physical burdens through the power of Christ as revealed in Christian Science. 

Throughout the Bible we can read about God’s ability and promise to deliver His children from captivity. The book of Isaiah includes this encouragement and promise to the Hebrew people regarding their deliverance from captivity in Babylon: “Enlarge the place of thy tent, and let them stretch forth the curtains of thine habitations: spare not, lengthen thy cords, and strengthen thy stakes;... For the mountains shall depart, and the hills be removed; but my kindness shall not depart from thee, neither shall the covenant of my peace be removed, saith the Lord that hath mercy on thee” (54:2, 10). These words must have strengthened the people’s faith in God’s love and God’s promises of freedom.

Whether we are literally behind bars or feeling figuratively imprisoned by some challenging circumstance, the light of Christ—God’s healing and saving message to humanity—has full authority and power to overturn any limiting or sinful ways of thinking and “enlarge the place of [our] tent”—our consciousness. As the Son of God, Jesus reflected fully the divine presence of Christ, or Truth, and he indicated the divine way of obtaining true freedom from that which seems to hold us captive. He said, “Ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free” (John 8:32). Jesus taught and proved the truth of being, bringing to light the all-powerful, all-loving nature of God as Spirit and the eternal fact that man is God’s spiritual idea. These truths free us from believing untruths about ourselves. 

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