“Divine Love is the substance of Christian Science, the basis of its demonstration, yea, its foundation and superstructure,” writes Mary Baker Eddy, the Discoverer of Christian Science (Miscellaneous Writings 1883–1896, pp. 357–358). Christian Scientists love to testify to how divine Love’s care and provision have been proved in their lives. But sometimes we may inadvertently focus on the thing provided, forgetting that what has actually been proved is the allness and infinite goodness of Love, God.

Clara Knox McKee, a worker in Mrs. Eddy’s home, recounts this conversation with her: “One day while I was busy in her room, she was reading a letter; looking up, she called me and said in substance, ‘How do they demonstrate money and furniture?’ I replied, ‘I do not know, I was not taught that.’ Then, as I recall, she said: ‘Thank God you were not. We demonstrate Life, Truth, and Love, and they give us our supplies; we do not demonstrate material things’ ” (We Knew Mary Baker Eddy, Expanded Edition, Vol. I, p. 465).

Mrs. Eddy was referring to students of Christian Science who testified to their many demonstrations of God’s goodness in the form of human needs met. Perhaps they had reported that they had “demonstrated” a lovely home or financially sound employment or a healthier body. So when I read this reminiscence, I was a bit puzzled. I’d had many lovely experiences of human needs being met through prayer. Had I been thinking of those demonstrations in a wrong way? What had really been demonstrated? 

When I completely yielded to God, really meaning it, it opened the floodgates to an abundance of good.

For instance, as a young woman I received a strong message from God that I should move back to a city that I had left a few years before when suffering from depression and ill health. At the time I left, I’d been receiving disability benefits and was greatly relieved to return home. During the year and a half that followed, I’d committed myself to studying the Bible and the Christian Science textbook, Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures by Mrs. Eddy. In the process I’d been healed of both the physical difficulty and the depression. Now God was telling me to go back to the city I’d left. 

I didn’t want to, but I knew that obedience was essential. Months before receiving this message, I had prayerfully told God that I was willing to do whatever He wanted me to do, giving up all human will. It had been a holy moment of sincere and deep trust in God as my Shepherd. Hence, when I received this strong impulse to return, I obeyed, though reluctantly. I left home with only sixty-five dollars and an invitation from a friend to stay with her until I found a job. 

Once I arrived, things moved very quickly. Within days I found a wonderful job, and a landlady agreed to let me rent an unfurnished apartment for a small deposit. That same day a friend offered me a garageful of furniture, and that night the landlady called to say that she had dishes and kitchen items for me. In addition, not understanding why but being obedient to a spiritual intuition, I began to attend a branch Church of Christ, Scientist, that had not been my first choice. There, after a few weeks, I met my husband-to-be.

Months later, after we were married, his parents invited us to dinner. As we were chatting, a friend who was a real estate agent stopped by. She was selling the house across the street, but the sale had fallen through. As she stood talking to us, she said, “You should buy this house.” We chuckled because we had no savings for a down payment and no thought of buying a home. Jokingly, I said, “Well, I have a twenty-dollar bill.” She laughed and said, “Well, they won’t take that, but let’s see what they will take.” When she came back, she quietly said, “They took the twenty-dollar bill.” We were able to get a bank loan, bought the house, and moved in just a couple of months later.

When, two years before, I had completely yielded to God, promising Him that I would do whatever He wanted and really meaning it, it opened the floodgates to an abundance of good that I could never have imagined. As God promises in the Bible, “I will make them and the places round about my hill a blessing; and I will cause the shower to come down in his season; there shall be showers of blessing” (Ezekiel 34:26).

Now, reading what Mrs. Eddy had said to Clara McKee, my view as to what a demonstration is and is not changed. When we purchased a home with a deposit of twenty dollars, that was merely a result of the real demonstration, which had happened two years before. That was when I mentally yielded to Father-Mother God’s will, giving up all human planning, and trusted Him to guide me. 

Finally I saw that it was never about the things. 

The moment I got in my car to make the long drive back to that city, divine Love was going ahead of me, preparing the way. Listening to God rather than human opinion, I took the job that the employment agency felt wasn’t a good fit, and it proved to be the right one. When the landlady approved me as a tenant without the necessary funds, I was already dwelling in “the secret place of the most High” (Psalms 91:1). And when I drove to a different branch church than the one I had planned to attend—and eventually join—Love introduced me to kindness, honesty, integrity, faithfulness, and joy, appearing as a guy named Alan! 

So all of these experiences had really been Love demonstrating itself, meeting each human need. Finally, I saw that it was never about the things. God’s child never wants for anything because, as a complete spiritual idea, each one of us already includes all good. We are fully equipped to reflect all that our Shepherd has provided. 

When expressing gratitude for having a human need met—a car, a job, a house, companionship, or whatever—we can remember that that thing is not the demonstration. The true demonstration is our willingness to yield to and trust God’s good will for us, which will always be better than anything we can plan for ourselves. 

In referring to human needs being met by God, Mrs. Eddy writes, “God is understandable, knowable, and applicable to every human need” (The First Church of Christ, Scientist, and Miscellany, p. 238). Life, Truth, and Love are names for God and include infinite spiritual qualities that bless and heal. Knowing, trusting in, and following this is our real demonstration.