A God-impelled redefinition of our lives

We live in a fertile time of redefinition as we are being compelled to rethink large, even universal, questions on a global scale. “What is truth?” is being asked because of the proliferation of disinformation, political gamesmanship, and uncertainty regarding who and what can be trusted. Ongoing concerns related to COVID-19 and its variants prompt the question “What ultimately brings about and maintains health?” And for so many, the pandemic has changed so much of how we live, work, go to school, travel, and maintain social connections. It has also highlighted inequities. So we may also be asking ourselves, “What really matters in life?” There is a growing hunger for something higher and more secure than can be delivered by a rearrangement of human policies and material, biological, and psychological beliefs. 

Looking for answers from a different perspective has prompted many to explore spiritual precepts and how they can lead to transformative solutions. And many have found that the starting point for finding solutions is our concept and understanding of God. Is our view of God either that there is no such higher power or that God is a mysterious super-human who periodically doles out favors? Or do we perceive God as the one creator of all, who is infinite Love, Life, and Truth as explained in Christian Science?

Mary Baker Eddy, a deep spiritual thinker and reformer, and the Discoverer of Christian Science, understood that our ideas of divinity shape our lives. She wrote: “A mortal, corporeal, or finite conception of God cannot embrace the glories of limitless, incorporeal Life and Love. Hence the unsatisfied human craving for something better, higher, holier, than is afforded by a material belief in a physical God and man” (Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures, p. 258). Just as a finite view of God can lead to the acceptance of limited circumstances and a craving for something more, a spiritual perception of God as infinite good opens our eyes to unlimited, genuinely good possibilities. In proportion as we accept the omnipotence of God as the source of all that is good and enduring, we awake to see good in our lives and in the world around us. It is this understanding of the living God—and of our relation to Deity as God’s children, made in God’s image and likeness—that brings about healing solutions.