I have often heard it said that Christian Science is “an inside job.” That’s one way to think about those precious words of Jesus, “The kingdom of God is within you” (Luke 17:21). That’s because practicing Christian Science commences with understanding how our thinking impacts our experience and seeing to it that in prayer our thinking consistently commences with God and His creation. Christian Science is about thought being spiritually uplifted and bringing to light the kingdom of God within us—within our consciousness.

This way of thinking is transformative because divine Truth is both transformative and transcendent. It changes us by lifting us above the ordinary to the extraordinary—the divine. Truth is God, is supernal, and forms us anew.

No matter what is clamoring for our attention, it’s in our thinking that we have to deal with it.

In the practice of Christian Science, our primary patient is, without exception, ourselves. No matter what is clamoring for our attention, it’s in our own thinking and no one else’s that we must deal with it. No matter how real or demanding a challenge appears to be, we are never dealing with something or someone “out there.” We always need to address it in our own thought by discerning the kingdom within. That’s where we find God, and that’s where we find healing.

For a few years, I had a large mole on the side of my face, and it was getting bigger, though it was not noticeable to others, as my hair covered it. But somehow I had been unable to come to grips with this problem; I felt I didn’t know how to tackle it through prayer. Then someone with a similar situation expressed a lot of fear about it, and this gave me a big mental nudge.

Two things jumped into thought. First, it struck me quite forcefully that the true location of this mole was my thinking, not my body. Everything in our experience is in our thinking and nowhere else—even the universe and the world around us! I didn’t have to deal with anything but thought. Thought isn’t in the body; the body is in thought.

Then I came across this statement by Mary Baker Eddy, the Discoverer and Founder of Christian Science: “A little more grace, a motive made pure, a few truths tenderly told, a heart softened, a character subdued, a life consecrated, would restore the right action of the mental mechanism, and make manifest the movement of body and soul in accord with God” (Miscellaneous Writings 1883–1896, p. 354). I saw that I needed to let that spiritual softening, or gentling, touch my thought and make me kinder—more loving and patient.

This leavened my thinking, and in a couple of days, the mole began to break up and come away from my skin. The place where it had been was soon clear, and it has remained so.

Throughout the ages, people have sought this world of Spirit and Truth—the kingdom of God. Some have found it; many have been touched by it; but it is Christ Jesus who shone a blazing light on it. His teachings and healing works opened the way for humanity to understand the glorious nature of the kingdom of God and prove its practicality in the here and now.

In the Christian Science textbook, Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures, Mrs. Eddy gives the spiritual sense of the Lord’s Prayer, including the line “Thy kingdom come,” which is rendered, “Thy kingdom is come; Thou art ever-
present” (p. 16). 

Like any discovery involving, for instance, space travel, deep-sea exploration, or the wonders of the microworld, spiritual discoveries reveal something that is already here, just waiting to be found by the seeker. We should never stop seeking. The spiritual explorer treads where few have gone before, and advancing years are of no disadvantage to this adventurer, for the adventure is as eternal as Life itself—as God.

This wonderful new-old world of divine Spirit and Truth is not to be found terrestrially or extraterrestrially. It is to be found where Jesus told us it was—within consciousness. Jesus understood this kingdom so well that he was able to produce abundant food for multitudes and bring health to the sick and suffering and reformation to the sinning. He remained undaunted by externals and supremely conscious of the kingdom of heaven within.

When Moses paused in awe at seeing a bush that burned but was not consumed, he heard a voice saying, “Put off thy shoes from off thy feet, for the place whereon thou standest is holy ground” (Exodus 3:5). This voice was not calling to Moses from outside of him but from within. And Moses obeyed this command. He discarded his preconceived notions, any cherished beliefs or impressions he might have had, and stood squarely on his unity with the divine Mind, God. He found the kingdom within himself and heard the divine voice there, telling him, “I AM THAT I AM” (Exodus 3:14).

Moses did not have to search any further. He had been led to a holy moment in his spiritual development where the kingdom was revealed to his waiting thought, and through obedience to God’s guidance he was able to lead the Israelites to freedom.

I needed to let that spiritual gentling touch my thought and make me kinder—more loving and patient.

The path to true and abundant happiness, well-being, and supply lies within. These infinite blessings are already yours by right as a child of God. As the full representation of God, Mind, you include all the good manifested as your health, home, family, friends, employment, and so on. The substance of these blessings is not “out there,” but is already within—in your consciousness.

If you understand that what you have in the kingdom is real and forever unfolding directly from God to you, you will never lose it, but you will lose the fear that it can be lost. Nothing real or good can be lost—not even for a moment—once it is found within.

What a relief to know that your health can never be lost because it is not “out there”—not in a physical body—to lose. How marvelous to know that the love of your children, your friends, your husband, or your wife is not “out there” in a human personality but is safe and secure in the kingdom within, in God. Knowing this will not only relieve you of fear but release others, too, and you will help others to see and know that Mind’s loving ideas are permanently present—and filling your life.