Reversing decline in health and living
Channing Walker, C.S.
Diabetes healed, chronic pain healed, cancer healed, facial growth healed, arthritis healed. In your wildest dreams, right? No, in real life. Right here, right now—emphatic proof that demonstrates the reverse of decline. Learn more about your natural proclivity for ageless health and freedom in this inspired chat with Channing Walker, a Christian Science practitioner from California.
spirituality.com host: Welcome to another spirituality.com live question and answer audio event. Our subject today is “Reversing the decline in health and living,” and our guest is Channing Walker, a Christian Science practitioner from Mountain Center, California. Channing has been a guest on a couple of chats previously, and he’s a contributing editor to both the Christian Science Sentinel and the Journal and has many articles that he's written, some of which are available on spirituality.com. Channing, it’s so good to have you here today.
Channing: Rosalie, thank you so much for having me on.
spirituality.com host: Do you have some ideas to get us started?
Channing: I sure do. I think that we’re even having this chat strikes me as a really good sign. It suggests to me that the notion, the concept, the idea of reversing decline is in the air. It’s not just with the stamp of spirituality.com and its regular participants but also with a larger community of thinkers. I think that one can find a greater openness today than even a few years ago to reconsidering some commonly accepted notions—some commonly accepted assumptions about all sorts of declines, particularly ones that have to do with health that once were accepted as inevitable, but today they’re not being so automatically accepted. They’re being rebelled against, and I think that a different perspective is emerging and maybe some of those notions about decline don’t have to be seen as so inevitable. And that’s all to the good as far as I’m concerned.
I think we should be looking for ways to slow and even reverse the whole process of decline, and it makes sense to protest against the concept of the inevitability and irreversibility of something that’s so wrong. Why submit to the notion that certain illnesses throw us into an irreversible slide? Why add our mental weight to what we’d like to see reversed? Especially when our mental protest can make a tangible difference. There really is a lot of data out there that there’s enough evidence that the unhealable is at times being healed, and that the irreversible is in many instances being reversed, and that the incurable does get cured.
And so we have to ask ourselves, is there a basis that we can see such turnarounds be more consistent, more repeatable? Is there an ingredient that we want to always incorporate in our quest for ongoing well-being? And I’m convinced that spiritual resources make an indispensable contribution to one’s health and well-being and it’s an indispensable contribution that’s too often overlooked. So I would say it’s time to be exploring those spiritual resources, chief among them would be prayer.
spirituality.com host: I think that’s really important. And you know, there was a website that had a rundown dealing with chronic pain. One of the things that I was struck by was that they kept telling you how to manage the pain rather than to really achieve healing. I think that’s one thing that spirituality can do—I mean genuine spirituality that relies on God’s direct involvement, that expectation that it can be truly overcome, not just lived with.
Channing: I’m so glad you say that because I think that the more we get aware of God and of God’s nature, that puts us into a whole different perspective of our circumstances and a perspective from which the idea of managing something rather than seeing it as fraudulent, seeing it as not God-derived, and seeing it as something that can be reversed, I think that’s a real key element and I’m glad you bring it up.
spirituality.com host: One thing in The New York Times today and various other newspapers that we might want to talk just briefly about, because this isn’t really the main thrust of the chat, is the situation in the financial markets and whether or not some of the prayer that we’re doing today could be supportive of reversing the decline in the financial situation of so many people who have lost their homes or are threatened with that, the stock market struggling, and so forth. Do you have some thoughts?
Channing: I was thinking about one thing, and maybe this doesn’t apply just to a global economic crisis, but to a lot of problem-solving we’re doing. I think that we may be entering a time when applying many problem-solving ideas and learning to squander none of them may very well become a hallmark of the 21st century, a kind of problem solving we do. I was thinking just this morning about Christ Jesus’ ministering to thousands of people in their remote desert location and that’s when, of course, the disciples come to him and they’re concerned about there not being any food for the multitude, and they have one person who shows up with five loaves of bread and two fish. Jesus takes that and multiplies it and the need is met. Now, you know there are four accounts of that episode in the Bible, and not one of them hints that a single enormous loaf of bread, big enough to feed 5,000 people on its own, that would win a place in the Guinness Book of World Records, none of the accounts suggest that that emerged on the scene.
Apparently the additional bread was of the ordinary size. I’m wondering if that hints that not one huge answer, but many modest answers can be the way we solve problems, including this economic problem. You know there is one detail in that story that for me is the most intriguing. At the end of it when everybody’s had enough to eat, Jesus says, “Gather up the fragments that remain, that nothing be lost.” Then the Bible continues, “Therefore they gathered them together, and filled twelve baskets with the fragments of the five barley loaves, which remained over and above unto them that had eaten.” And I thought, Why would he bother to do that? Especially given what he just proved. I mean this is Christ Jesus! He can take care of anything he needs to take care of.
And it occurs to me that maybe he was valuing and teaching his followers to value every single problem-solving idea from God. Maybe he was teaching them to cherish every crumb of divine inspiration, to savor every instance of spiritual insight. Maybe he was helping them to recognize that spiritual answers can come in ordinary packages. You know, Mary Baker Eddy, who discovered Christian Science and wrote the main work on it,Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures, said in this work: “God has countless ideas, and they all have one Principle and parentage.”
Well, the God who is infinite Mind, showers us with those “countless ideas,” never scrimping on the good it pours out on us, but that’s not so that most of those ideas can be left on the ground for the mice to feed on. We can use all of them, or at least more of them than we’ve been used to using, and that may be important to remember as civilization charts its course ahead because some of the problems, like a global economic crisis, or global warming, or the global threat of terrorism—some of those may be so complex that a simple, grand answer won’t do. And at that point it’s a relief to know that creative Mind is on the scene with a whole legion of angel thoughts, a whole spiritual arsenal of inspired insights and answers to address each facet of the most multi-faceted of challenges. I think the result will be an array of good solutions for even huge challenges like the one we all read about in the paper this morning.
spirituality.com host: I think you’ve really made a wonderful point because as I was listening to you I was thinking of—I think it’s in her chapter on Prayer in Science and Health—Mrs. Eddy talks about divine Love “pouring forth more than we accept.” Basically, the ideas are all around us, it’s just a question of our accessing them and putting them to work. And sometimes if you’re looking at that giant picture and saying, “I’m overwhelmed because this is just so big, I don’t even see how to start,” then you can’t see what’s right there that could help you. It may be a much smaller thing, but if you take that step, and then the next, and the next, you’re led to something good.
Channing: Excellent. I think you make a good point.
spirituality.com: Thank you so much for that. Now let’s turn to the questions that have been pouring in. We have a lot of them. This is from Joanie in Los Angeles. She says: “I recently left a long-held job due to change in management’s values. I plan to semi-retire in a less costly location. God seemed to be guiding me until I listed my house but could not sell to make it worthwhile. I’m now in need of new employment here at retirement age, very fearful of having to sell to survive and not become a burden to my children. Much prayer and study have gone into this but I feel my situation is declining.”
Channing: I think the best thing she wrote was, “much prayer and study have gone into this.” That’s got to lead to a very, very helpful and healing payoff. And I think that that’s a really good thing. You know, there’s a place where Jesus says, “It is your Father’s good pleasure to give you the kingdom.” Think of that. The whole, entire kingdom He has to give to you. And that’s one of the beautiful things about the Father, since He is the Father, there is no limit to what He can bestow. When we understand the nature of good, divine good, to be spiritual, then He can give the entire kingdom to you, and He can also give the entire kingdom to me, and to the person next door.
Remember in the parable of the prodigal son—I won’t go through the parable, I’ll trust that our listeners know that—but at the end when the father is talking to the older son, who is feeling kind of gypped that a big party had been thrown for the homecoming of his younger brother who had been the prodigal, the father says to the older son: “Son, thou art ever with me, and all that I have is thine.” I know I used to wonder about that and think, Well, how could it be all that you have since you already gave away half of what you had? At one point I realized he’s seeing his substance in terms of spiritual ideas, not in terms of an accumulation of so much matter. Therefore, just like a school teacher can give you everything that they understand about arithmetic and then they can give to the next child everything that they understand. And giving it away doesn’t diminish it. There’s just as much to give to each one. In fact, maybe it even grows the more you give it away. I’m not sure. So the substance is not depleted, and maybe an awareness of that would be helpful for this individual.
spirituality.com host: And of course Jesus did say, “In my Father’s house are many mansions.” I don’t think Jesus was talking about billions of mansions on a hill or something, but I think that represents the promise that God will take care of us and provide shelter for us; however it happens in our own individual experience.
Channing: I think—did I hear correctly in that question? Did she raise the issue of wanting to sell her house but having some concerns about that?
spirituality.com host: The thought to sell would have to be done in order to meet the needs and then maybe not having anything for continuing survival.
Channing: Would it be okay if I mentioned that story you and I talked about earlier before we came on the program?
spirituality.com host: Sure.
Channing: I had a friend who had an experience I’ve returned to myself which has helped me a lot and it was involved in the selling of their house. I guess the market at that time was in some ways kind of like the housing market supposedly is today. They put their house on the market and didn’t have any action at all. After a number of months they gave up and they took the house off the market and they took the sign down from out in front of the house. The wife—it was a couple—the wife one morning was doing some dishes at the kitchen sink and she said that she was praying about this housing situation, just for guidance to know what to do. And while she was praying—this was not like something she went and got, it just kind of fell on top of her—she felt this love for the new owners of the house, which superficially didn’t make any sense at all because there were no new owners and the house was not on the market and there was nobody even interested in it at all. But this love for these new owners just enveloped her, so she kind of just savored that and while she was in that awareness, there was a knock at the door. She goes to the door and there was a man there and he apologized and said, “Sorry to interrupt you in the middle of the morning like this, but my wife and I were driving through the neighborhood and we wondered is there anything up here that’s for sale?” And they ended up selling the house to those people that day in a deal that was good for both parties.
Just a few months ago—I guess five or six months now—my wife and I sold our house that we’d been in for 18 or 19 years and moved up to where we are now in the mountains. We faced a lot of the concerns about the housing market at that time. One of the prayers we employed was this one of just loving the new owners. Not so that they could be our solution, but because that’s what God put us here to do—to love. And what a perfect opportunity to love. And in our instance it worked out good for both sides.
spirituality.com host: That just sounds wonderful. And how amazing that person just had that impulsion to knock on that particular door!
Channing: You know, I’ve been a homeowner for a couple of decades and never in my life have I had anybody knock on my door and ask me that. So, to me, it looks like the divine hand was definitely at work there.
spirituality.com host: Absolutely. This is from Wendy in Kauai, Hawaii, who says, “Can you talk briefly on Christian Science and aging in a way a non-church goer would understand?”
Channing: Well, I’ll talk for a while, and I’ll let you decide if this is in a way a non-church goer would understand. You know, when you start looking around you can come across just a host of stories that are starring individuals of advanced years. Stories that I find really inspiring. They’re not stories of decline, they’re stories of advancement. You find account of so many individuals that are pushing back the limits of aging and are, to a very significant degree, living extremely rich lives and completing tasks that would be amazing for individuals decades younger.
For instance, a while ago, I came upon an account of a man who climbed El Capitan in Yosemite National Park. El Capitan is perhaps the best known rock up there, it’s a rock that climbers, when they go up it, the longest part of it, they’re basically just facing a granite wall that’s just straight up for 3,000 feet, so it takes several days to complete the climb. And climbers tie themselves on to the face of the rock at night. Well, this particular man was 81 when he completed the climb up one of the more difficult routes. Another example, I know a year or so ago, one of my sons ran in the Los Angeles Marathon and I went down there to cheer him on. But one of the other stories that came out that day was of another runner who was 93 at the time and he ran and completed the 26-mile course.
Another example: a couple of years ago there was a terrible earthquake in Iran and one of the upbeat stories to come out of that terrible tragedy was of a woman who survived eight days in the cold and in the rubble before she was dug out by rescuers. And she was 97, and the photos of her in the Red Cross tent that were set up in the area were just amazing. It was just like there was this light inside of her that was coming out. In fact, you know, in the issue of the Christian Science Sentinel that just arrived was a woman who was well into her retirement years and she talks about her hobbies, which were heli-skiing (where you take a helicopter way up in the mountains and ski down where nobody is) and wind-surfing. Now, those examples, one of them by a Christian Scientist, the other three I assume were not Christian Scientists, I think are examples we can look at. We can be inspired and hopefully we can take it a step further and say, “Is there something that I can do to see a spiritual basis to this?” And I think that’s where we want to go with our prayer, to see a spiritual underpinning to the efforts to push back the limits of aging.
I love how in the book, Science and Health, there’s a concentration of statements that deal specifically with this. That concentration runs from about page 244 to around page 248. There’s a whole section in there that’s worth regular study and attention. I wouldn’t be surprised if when you look at those pages, you would find actually quite a bit of it would be accessible to somebody who’s not a Christian Scientist. Now I’m going to read this one little bit here. It says in those pages: “Never record ages. Chronological data are no part of the vast forever. Time-tables of birth and death are so many conspiracies against manhood and womanhood. Except for the error of measuring and limiting all that is good and beautiful, man would enjoy more than threescore years and ten and still maintain his vigor, freshness, and promise. Man, governed by immortal Mind, is always beautiful and grand. Each succeeding year unfolds wisdom, beauty, and holiness.” That’s all I’ll read. I just love that passage, though. I think it gives you some practical counsel on what to do or not do, and it gives you some keen, spiritual insight on how God, immortal Mind, sees you as timeless, sees you as ageless. And it’s right for “vigor, freshness, and promise” to be a regular part of your days.
spirituality.com host: Well, and I just want to briefly add that the Bible gives many examples of people who transcend the limitations of age, whether you’re going from Moses to Abraham and his wife, or all different kinds of people who did marvelous things that you would normally not expect them to do.
Now this one is from Jane in Ohio and she says: “Hello, and thank you for this opportunity. I’ve been long on the road with the belief of diabetes. I’ve had over eight years of help from Christian Science practitioners and have declined to the point of blindness and many of the other side elements of this disease. I’m experiencing the mean side of this disease and cannot stop the suffering. I’m desperate for healing and feel that because I’ve been studying for so long that maybe I’m not worthy of healing since I have not experienced any progress. I’m overwhelmed by all the bodily suffering and do not know how to help myself. Where or what can I do to find healing?”
Channing: I really appreciate that question, and I appreciate the thoughtfulness that Jane has put into asking it. The one thing I sometimes go back to is an account in the Bible, and kind of bear with me because you’re going to first think it’s totally off the wall, but I don’t think so. The account when the disciples are in a vessel and they’re out at sea and the weather conditions are very tough and then Jesus comes walking to them, and think about Peter, and think about what Peter does there. He gets out of the boat and he starts heading for Christ Jesus. And I wonder if that in a way can sort of symbolize an individual who gets out of the boat, who gets out of the conventional means of dealing with health problems and starts heading towards Christ healing. For Peter there was a moment when I guess it must have felt like he just made the worst decision of his life, as the Bible says, he started to sink. But it wasn’t the worst decision of his life, it was one of the best! Because at that moment Christ reaches there and lifts him up. And I think if anybody were to ever feel like, “Gee whiz, I left the boat, I left the conventional way of dealing with pain, and now I’m really in deep water—that’s the moment that Christ is right there to be there for us, to lift us up. And you know what? I think that was good not only for Peter, but then Peter and Christ Jesus come back and they get in the boat, and that was good for everybody in the boat. Even those who hadn’t been willing to leave and head toward Christ. They were all blessed. The storm ceased, there was calm, everything worked out. I think maybe there’s a wonderful example there.
You know, let me say something more here. There’re lots of resources if you want to investigate current-day healings of diseases, including those that would be considered degenerative diseases. Two resources that I turn to often are the weekly magazine, theChristian Science Sentinel, and the monthly, The Christian Science Journal. Every issue of both of those magazines carries reports of healing. Now these reports don’t make any pretense of being medical documents, but they are first-person accounts of how turning to spiritual means brought about radical cures—sometimes of ailments that were medically diagnosed, sometimes of ailments that would be considered degenerative.
I was looking at a list of healings published in the Sentinel and a list of those published in the Journal during 2007. You can find the list for yourself if you want. It’s in the last issue of the year for each publication. There’s an index at the back and the index covers all of the articles that have appeared during the year and it also covers all of the healing accounts that have been published during the year. In just that one year’s worth of accounts from those two magazines, there’s such a rich record of healing. Okay, I’ve got a little summary list in front of me. Let me just mention some of the healings from those two lists: a medically diagnosed case of diabetes healed, a diagnosed tumor healed, facial growth healed, facial paralysis healed, lump in breast healed, diagnosed heart murmur healed, kidney problem healed, cataracts healed, nearsightedness healed, growth in breast healed, high blood pressure healed, chronic colitis healed, menstrual pain healed, bladder trouble healed, chest seizures healed, abdominal pain healed, arthritis healed, abnormal healed, chronic fatigue syndrome healed, hearing loss healed, heart trouble healed, low iron count reversed.
You get the idea. And keep in mind, that’s just for this past year, it goes on and on and on. If you wanted to go back a decade instead of just twelve months, you’d have ten times as many healing accounts. Also, I’m not sure if you can catch this with just me reading a sampling from the list, but because of our focus today, I did not read about any of the healings from the injury or accident, and I did not read any of the healings of things like financial troubles, or healing of drug addictions, or personal relationships, stuff like that. Those are wonderful healings as well but maybe are not quite as central to what we are considering today. The point is, while conventional reasoning and even maybe a truckload of evidence says that certain conditions continuously decline, we don’t have to buy into that. And there’s an abundance of proof, current proof, that healing is happening and happening today of these various ailments which cannot and do not resist the power of prayer, the power of God, who is eternal Life and immortal Truth and inexhaustible Love. They just don’t do that.
spirituality.com host: And I think we can also say that there’s not a question about worthiness to be healed. Everyone can experience that healing. The door isn’t shut on anyone. There’s no one left out of God’s kingdom.
Channing: A wonderful point, that’s a wonderful point.
spirituality.com host: Now this is from Ginny in Boston and she says: “If someone you know is not able to overcome a particular problem and you think they were very strong in their spirituality, how do you keep from thinking if they couldn’t overcome such and such, how can you?” And that gets back to that worthiness issue.
Channing: You know, I really appreciate that line of reasoning and I think in a way, we want to see that it’s bogus. I sometimes think about Christ Jesus and the battles that he faced there near the end of his career. I’m going to speculate here, because I really don’t know what he was thinking. But I’m going to speculate for a moment, that after the trial, they’re going up the hill, and he can’t even carry the cross up the hill. I’ve wondered if he ever thought, Wow, if I can’t carry this cross up the hill, how the heck am I ever going to deal with the crucifixion itself? Something tells me, he did not—if that thought ever tempted him, I’ve got to believe that he did not get tripped up by it. That the healing, saving, redeeming Christ—and I’m talking about the office of the Christ, now—was there for him, and is there for you and me. And if we’re ever tempted to think, Gee, if I can’t deal with this, or my friend who is so strong, if they can’t deal with this, how am I ever going to do it? If that thought ever tried to tempt Jesus, it sure didn’t get anywhere, and it sure doesn’t have to get anywhere with us. We can dismiss it. We can know where the power comes from and it comes straight from God to each one of us.
spirituality.com host: And you know, one of the things that Mrs. Eddy talks about was that “The real cross, which Jesus bore up the hill of grief, was the world’s hatred of Truth and Love.” I think one of the things that we do need to consider in these issues that go on for a while, is the emphasis on the reality of matter, and the expectation that something has to be done to it in order for it to get well, and the whole emphasis on the reality of material living and material curing. And all those different things I think are an issue that has to be addressed. Because what we’re talking about here is that man is spiritual, he is not material as Mrs. Eddy writes in “the scientific statement of being” in the Christian Science textbook, Science and Health. In that statement she makes very clear that God is Spirit and man is spiritual and matter is not part of that equation. And the whole world, these days, argues on behalf of the accumulation of matter, in terms of having bigger houses, bigger cars, etc., as well as humanly taking care of matter, having a more beautiful physical body, and all those different things. And there’s nothing wrong with beauty and houses and cars and stuff like that, but when it becomes a focus of thought, or it becomes so real that it is the driving cause of your existence, then you’re kind of getting into trouble.
Channing: I think you make a wonderful point, a really profound point, and if we see this not so much as a material event, but as a spiritual perception, then that spiritual perception is going to unfold quite naturally. Do we have time for me to tell about a healing that might kind of go along with this discussion or do we have too many questions to get to?
spirituality.com host: Well, we have a lot of questions, but go ahead, because I think we’re going to have to run a little overtime, anyway.
Channing: This good friend of mine had a wonderful healing and gave me permission to share it. The ailment looked to her, and I suppose to anyone else who had bothered to look, like a degenerative disease, and that her prospects were not good. That was naturally discouraging and scary. But she didn’t let either the discouragement or the scariness of it overwhelm her. She took action, she took prayerful action, she also got a Christian Science practitioner to pray on her behalf. A Christian Science practitioner is somebody that’s just in the full-time ministry of Christian healing through prayer.
Anyway, their prayers affirmed the wholeness of God, who is pure Spirit, and the wholeness of man—and by man I mean each one of us—men, women, and children—as the very likeness of Spirit. The disease symptoms obviously were not like God, they were not like Spirit. As my friend and the practitioner held to these spiritual insights in prayer, the insights made a world of difference and showed themselves in the wholeness of the patient. In other words, she was healed. Now, I’ve got here a copy of a letter that my friend wrote to the practitioner. I want to just read a real brief excerpt from it. She said, “Thank you again, for my instantaneous healing of a palpable lump in my breast. As we spoke on the phone and you declared the Truth, I felt a twinge and a glorious uplifting of my thought and feeling. When I hung up, the lump was gone.”
Obviously, whether you’re the patient facing the challenge or if you’re the one doing the praying for someone else, an instantaneous healing like that is one of the coolest things in the world. You feel like you’ve been reminded of the kind of healing work that Jesus accomplished with such magnificent consistency. When you see or hear about, or actually experience such a healing, it helps you remember what it’s all about. The reason I bring this up though, is because I want to dovetail with what you were just saying. That, I think healings like that may just be just as startling to people today, as similar healings were to Jesus’ contemporaries.
Just look for a moment at what was really going on and what was not going on. Let’s take one of Jesus’ healings. When Jesus healed a man with a withered hand, it was an instantaneous healing. I imagine that to materially-minded onlookers it must have looked like an additional amount of good matter was suddenly created for the new healthy hand, just as a materially-minded onlooker today might have concluded that an excess amount of bad matter was suddenly eliminated in the healing of the breast. I believe both of those conclusions would be off the mark. They both would be mistaken. In the present day healing it was not a case of making some bad matter molecules go away anymore than in the Bible healing it was a case of making some good matter molecules appear. Instead it was a case of seeing God, pure Spirit, the very opposite of matter, perfectly expressed and expressed right where the trouble had appeared just moments before. That’s one thing about God—He’s always expressing Himself. He’s always putting out there His perfection and His health and His well-being—He’s always putting them out there. And as you and I realize that more clearly and see that those are spiritual facts—that perfection and health and well-being are spiritual facts—then inevitably healing happens. In those two examples, the result was a healthy, fleshed-out hand, and a healthy, unmarred breast in anybody’s terms. But what really happened was not getting new good matter or getting rid of old bad matter. What really happened was Spirit being made manifest.
spirituality.com host: That’s exactly right. And that’s wonderful—those are wonderful examples. I’m so glad you shared them. We have a question from Bobby in Indiana who says, “I’m very interested in today’s program because most Christian Scientists I have known, including myself, as they get older, also declined in the physical aspects of their life. They looked and acted old, they had problems with their physical senses, they were not as agile as before. Can the reverse of decline mainly be in the area of mental vigor and vitality, but the physical still deteriorate but maybe at a slower pace? Why preserve the material anyway? You don’t want to have 200 year old bodies.”
Channing: You know, I think as there is greater mental vigor, I just don’t see how you can wall that off. Greater mental vigor that’s coming through greater mental awareness of your true spiritual standing, it seems to me, is inevitably going to spill over and favorably affect your physical health and well-being. I came across something interesting online. There was a study that was quite recently published that focused on just under a thousand—997—older people, and the study tracked them for 12 years. At the start of this study they were, on average, age 75. The focus of the study was interesting. They wanted to monitor if the conscientiousness of an individual had any impact on the onset of Alzheimer’s. And the study found that there was a very direct connection. It found that people who were conscientious—and by that they mean things like being punctual, and neat, and hardworking, and dependable, and task-oriented. I mean being orderly, even very simple things like always making your bed real nicely. Well, the more conscientious an individual was, the less likely they were to be subject to symptoms of this illness. And this was true even if an autopsy later exhibited the evidence of the ailment. Even then, the more conscientious the individual, the less likely they were during their lifetime to be mentally hampered.
I find that so thought-provoking. For me, it stirs me to seek a deeper insight into whether or not there is a spiritual basis to true conscientiousness. It stirs me to look more deeply into the nature of God, and therefore into the nature of man, as God’s expression. For instance, if you think of God as Principle, Principle is the source of order, of all discipline, of all right sequencing of divine law that holds each one of us in our proper place. Or think of God as immortal Life, the source of the strength and vitality and energy that come into play for anyone who is hard working, or goal-oriented, or highly productive. Or think of God as pure divine Mind, the source of all clarity and undiminished understanding, the source of perfect memory and focus and insight. Well, these terms Principle, Life, and Mind, they all apply to God. They all give us insight into His nature and therefore insight into the nature of His likeness. That means that those spiritual qualities of which He is the source, they find their expression in you and in me. The strength, the energy, and the clarity, and the undiminished understanding, and so on, all originate in Him and all find expression in His offspring. For us to realize this in prayer has a huge plus in challenging the whole notion of decline, the whole notion that age and decline are inevitable and go hand in hand. I think we want to say, “No, no, no, no, no” to that notion and to say, “Yes” to the budding understanding, that from God’s point of view, there’s a timelessness and an agelessness to life and to being. From God’s point of view, decline not only doesn’t make sense, it doesn’t exist.
spirituality.com host: This gives me an opportunity to mention again that Sentinel that you were talking about, which is the February 4, 2008, issue of the Christian Science Sentinel, called “Reverse the decline.” And it has articles about all different kinds of people who have done exactly what you are talking about where they’re physically active long after you might have expected them to be in rocking chairs and so forth. The overall theme of that issue is how to expect health and happiness rather than a decrease in vitality, and it talks about God’s promise of perpetual and inevitable good. And I want to emphasize that inevitable good because sometimes what happens is when people start to get older they are looking forward, they believe, to inevitable decline, and that really isn’t the way God operates. You might want to check out that issue. If you are near a Christian Science Reading Room you can just drop by and I know the Librarian will be delighted to let you buy a copy or you can get a copy through our customer service or through this website by clicking on the Christian Science Sentinel icon. And that gives you actual articles to read about people who have overcome those kinds of things.
Now here’s the question from R.C., who’s in Santa Fe, New Mexico, who says, “I am nearing sixty and need a boost in my physical strength and agility to better enjoy hiking and biking. One can’t use matter to fix matter so besides doing some kind of physical strength training or doing more of the activity, what is the best mental approach to becoming revitalized?”
Channing: Some of our listeners may be aware of the Bible Lesson that’s put out by the Christian Science Publishing Society and I’m going to mention it in relation to this question and not just to put in a plug for a great product, but because I think it can play a unique role in reversing age-related decline and for energizing an individual in a way that this questioner brings up. Let me just say a word about these Bible Lessons. They’re a great way to approach Bible study. They’re comprised of quotations from the Bible and from Science and Health and they’re divided into several sections and they don’t take a sequential approach to the Scriptures. They take a thematic approach to them. That is, they don’t take you through the Bible in the sequence it’s laid out from Genesis and ending with Revelation. They take key themes in the Bible like “Christ Jesus” or “Love” or the “Doctrine of Atonement” and then they draw together references from throughout the Bible to illumine those subjects. As I said, additional passages from Science and Health shed further light on those Scriptural passages. Anyway, in addition to being a valuable tool for anyone seeking spiritual inspiration I imagine this Bible Lesson could play a special role for anyone challenging the claims of aging.
I want to illustrate that. I’m going to read to you something that I found in a copy of the monthly magazine, The Christian Science Journal. Now this is not a current issue, this is from many years ago. By many years I mean, like I think it was back in the 1970s. The author says: “I have been studying the lesson for more than sixty years, and a few years ago I noticed that I was not remembering names, appointments, or events as I should, so now when I wake I give myself a quiz, which starts off with: Do you really know there is a God, and that God is Mind, Life, Truth, and Love? Do you know that Life is eternal? That you express eternal Life?
“Then, Do you know that faculties are as eternal as Mind, Life, Truth, and Love? What is the subject of the Lesson-Sermon for today? What is the Golden text? Is the Responsive Reading from the Old Testament or the New? What is the theme of it? Is the theme of the lesson established in the first section? What is it? Are there any citations from the Platform, from the Tenets, from the Glossary? Is there a healing related in the lesson? How does it tie in with the subject of the lesson? What part does the last section play?
“After I have answered these questions, I open my books to see how well I have done. When I have finished reading the lesson, using Concordance, commentaries, other Bible translations, et cetera, I give myself a quiz on how much I have learned today that I did not know yesterday.
“I give this method of study credit for an exceptionally good memory, for restored eyesight and hearing, both of which had been greatly impaired, for a sense of adventure each day, and for a very happy, active life.”
That’s the end of the quote. That is such a cool use of the Bible Lesson.
spirituality.com host: Well, and that is such a perfect answer to Dee from Denver, who wrote: “I’ve been forgetting people’s names and common words for a while now. Any thoughts on how to heal this?” I think that example you just gave, of requiring to direct your thought partly to spiritual terms and ideas and concepts, but also making that demand rather than accepting that, Well, this is the way we’re going, down the hill. Rather saying, I don’t think so.
Channing: You got it exactly. That’s right, that’s right.
spirituality.com host: We have a right to challenge these things and not be pushed around by them. And I think that that’s one thing we also might talk about—that these things kind of come to you and they say, I’m in the driver’s seat. I’ve just moved into your mental house and I’m going to tell you the road you’re going down. That is not the truth. That’s not the truth. It’s your thought, you are the one who governs it and you turn it over to God and God’s care, and God is infinite Mind and infinite intelligence, infinite goodness, infinite clarity. And Mind really and truly will guide you out of any dark passages you may feel that you’re in.
Channing: Exactly.
spirituality.com host: Now, this is from Blanche in San Francisco. She says, “I’m a business woman and am in charge of an exciting project for which I have raised money. I’m now concerned because this project might take longer than I anticipated and I’m counting the years left to me to have a baby. I find it very unfair that men can have children as late as they want. Being a Christian Scientist, I wouldn’t want to have recourse to the medical solutions that are offered to women. I knew that Sarah in the Bible had a child when she was 90, but I would love to have children, and would happily stop working to have and look after a baby, it’s just that I feel responsible for this project now. Could you please share ideas on how to pray on this dilemma? Thank you.”
Channing: That’s a very good question. I appreciate her asking that. I wonder if we would benefit by getting a greater awareness of what we might call “God’s law of perfect timing” and to see that we’re subject to that law perpetually. You think of Moses. I don’t think it would have done him a heck of a lot of good if the Red Sea parted a month earlier. Or a month later. It parted when he needed to have it parted—when he was right there. And I wonder if we might see that as God’s law of perfect timing occurring. I think probably you see a lot of instances in the Bible of the need being met but being met right when it needed to be met. Whether it was the opening of the Red Sea or whether it was a question of supply, and to see that we’re subject to that law right now might be a big plus.
spirituality.com host: And I think also, to not assume that the two projects have to compete with each other, that within that law of perfect timing, there’s also a sense of a kind of perfect order, where each thing that needs to happen will occur when the time comes. Don’t you think?
Channing: I think you’re absolutely right. I think good is not in competition with good. It all comes from a good God. So He’s not going to put the good out here from the business project and then the good out here of the idea of having the child and say, Okay, now there’s two piles of good from God and you can only have one? I just can’t imagine God saying that.
spirituality.com host: Right. We have another birth-related question from Violet in Brussels, Belgium, who says: “Why is this age question so difficult to erase from human experience? I was told that reproductive medicine does not treat women above 42. How should I approach this? Thank you.”
Channing: There’s a place in the Bible where it says, “Behold, I make all things new.” I think that’s such a wonderful promise, such a powerful spiritual fact to counter the notion of something being out of date. If you and I really take that divine promise to heart, then decline or missing out on the right timing of a thing just doesn’t have an opportunity to settle in—not into one’s thinking and not into one’s life. Or if it seems like some material law’s already settled in and kind of strangled one’s outlook, that can be reversed. I think this promise of divine renewal is a promise that comes up again and again in the Bible. For instance, the Psalmist assures us, “Thou sendest forth thy spirit, they are created: and thou renewest the face of the earth.” Elsewhere the prophet Isaiah says, “They that wait upon the Lord shall renew their strength; they shall mount up with wings as eagles; they shall run, and not be weary; and they shall walk, and not faint.” So it’s a plus for us to become more deeply aware that this is something that God does for us—this renewal.
Sometimes I like to take different names for God and consider if there is something about that name which lets me know something unique about the divine renewal we’re promised again and again in the Bible. The renewal that counteracts concepts or beliefs about timing being out of whack. Of course, there are loads of names for God. Sometimes, in the Bible, He’s spoken of as Almighty, and sometimes as Father, and sometimes as Creator. I think just for a moment now, what if we just focus on seven names for Him that are used or implied in the Bible: Life, Truth, Love, Mind, Soul, Spirit, Principle. Try this, think of God—let’s take Mind, for starters. Think of God as divine Mind. Well, Mind knows its own idea. And Mind knows its own idea every single moment. So the idea in a very genuine sense is being made new, because it is being known, and being known fresh each moment. And you are that idea, you are what God focuses on in His knowing. So you are the recipient of the wonderful action of Mind’s knowing.
Or consider another name for God. Think of God as Principle, the governing Principle of the whole universe. Principle is ordering its creation, keeping every aspect of that creation in right relation to every other aspect of creation. And Principle is doing so perpetually, doing so each moment, so the action or Principle is very much renewing you each moment. You can reason this way with all the synonyms for God. Spirit animates you and animates you anew. Love cherishes you and does so constantly—does so right now and right now and right now. That has a powerful renewing effect on you. Soul identifies you and identifies you as you truly are this very moment. Your Soul-derived individuality has no tired old declining elements to it. Soul perceives you as ever new. Truth frees you. Truth has a liberating action that never lets you linger in the imprisoning cycle of decline. Truth does this anew every day. Life energizes you and invigorates you and enlivens you and—did I get through all seven? I think so. Okay, so I hope you get the point. I’ll just mention one more thing. There’s a place in Science and Health that really illumines this line of reasoning. It says: “Consciousness constructs a better body when faith in matter has been conquered. Correct material belief by spiritual understanding, and Spirit will form you anew.” I’ll stop there.
spirituality.com host: That is great. This one is from Judy in Newport Beach, California. She’s raising a different point, but I think that it’s probably one we should answer. She says: “A Christian Science practitioner prays for individuals in Africa and they are healed instantaneously. My girlfriend was in the hospital with a friend. The friend’s son had been shot in the abdomen and my girlfriend knew the truth and reversed the lies about this young man. He was healed. The doctors said he would die. My question is, why do seasoned Christian Scientists not always get their healing when these dear ones are healed quickly?”
Channing: Thank you so much for that question. I really appreciate that. That’s very, very thought-provoking. Like anyone who regularly prays in one way or another, seeing the great value of really buying into the spiritual truths with which one is praying. That is, it doesn’t work so well to be affirming the spiritual truth, for example, say the truth that God is the Shepherd that cares for all of His flock. Well it doesn’t work so well to be affirming that if at some deeper level of thought, one is not buying into it, or is not really believing it, the realness of God, of His presence and power, and the realness of whatever spiritual insight one is engaging in with prayer—the realness of that has to be genuine. Otherwise one is just kind of saying words or repeating phrases, but at the same moment kind of denying them as not real or kind of diminishing them as maybe true, but kind of far removed from daily life, and so maybe not quite so relevant. Now, maybe I should also say that if one is going to be just repeating phrases, we could certainly argue that it is better to be repeating Scriptural phrases of healing than it is to be repeating fear-inducing phrases. But hopefully we can aim for something better than that. We want to aim for prayers where our conviction in the spiritual truth is genuine, is profound, and unshakeable.
You know, there is an account—let me just mention it here briefly—it’s in a book called Mary Baker Eddy, Christian Healer. And it includes a conversation between Mary Baker Eddy and one of her pupils. Now, you’ve got to keep in mind that Mrs. Eddy was what we could call “a spiritual genius.” But more than that, she compiled this astonishing record of spiritual healing, so anytime she wrote or spoke of spiritual healing, it was not theoretical. Her insights were coming out of practical experience as a healer, so there’s always something totally genuine about her observations and her insights. Anyway, at one point in her life, she visited a home. There was a man there, the man of the house, and he was gripped by rheumatism so severe that he could not even get out of bed. And there was also a little girl in the house and she was deaf. Mrs. Eddy was there for less than half an hour, and by the time she left, both the man and the little girl were healed. Now we can only guess at how elated the wife and the mother must have been to see such radical healing take place in her family. But it was actually a long time after these two healings that Mrs. Eddy had a conversation with one of her pupils. She related the healings of the man and of the young girl to her pupil and the pupil asked her (and the reason I’m bringing this story up is it goes along just with the question). The pupil asked Mrs. Eddy, “When will we be able to do work like that?” And Mrs. Eddy said, “It is Love that heals, only Love!” (Yvonne Cache von Fettweis and Robert Townsend Warneck, p. 80). But you know what? The pupil did not let go of her question. She repeated it. She said, “But when will we be able to do such work?” Then Mrs. Eddy looked at her directly and quietly responded, “When you believe what you say. I believe every statement of truth that I make.” That’s the end of the quote. I just love that though. I think in healing it’s not so much a matter of which statement of Truth you or I make. It’s probably more a matter of deeply believing it—of really, really, being right there in consciousness with that Truth. Simply refusing to be only halfway about our embrace of any spiritual idea we put into our prayer.
spirituality.com host: Absolutely. That’s one hundred percent, one hundred percent. Thank you, that is just really, really great. Thank you for doing that. Now this is someone who doesn’t give their name but they’re from New York and they’re, again, bringing up another aspect of this idea of decline. The person says: “I’m living with someone who has constant health complaints. There isn’t a day that goes by that he is joyful. There’s always some pain, somewhere in his body that’s getting him down. Do you have any suggestions on how I can stay completely positive and not be affected by the nonstop complaining, moaning, and depressed atmosphere?”
Channing: Yeah. I appreciate your bringing up that point. I think maybe if I’m hearing that question correctly, I think that’s pretty closely connected to the question of symptoms and of somebody getting locked onto symptoms. And frankly, that is an issue we sometimes have to address in prayer, especially if the patient feels that he or she has been really impressed with their health problems and is focusing on the pains and different symptoms, whatever they are, including the ones that were just mentioned. I imagine most of our listeners today at one time or another have been in a conversation or on the receiving end of a conversation—maybe it feels more like a monologue than a dialogue—and the one doing the talking perhaps just goes on and on about their illness and details every symptom you never wanted to hear so much about. And if they had an operation recently, maybe they’re just marching you through every detail of it and giving you all the stuff you did not want to know.
I remember sometime ago I got caught in one of those situations. I was standing in this really long line at the bank, and the guy in front of me, he’s a total stranger, he turns around and finds in me a captive audience. At least captive until we worked our way from the back of the line up to a bank teller for each of us. Anyway, I sensed as he went on, that this was a monologue he’d probably given many times before, and I was just his latest victim in what was probably a long line of victims. I guess he’d just recently had an operation, and as he talked with me there at the bank, you could even see he had visual aids. He had his shirt unbuttoned like down to his navel so that everybody in the bank could see the symptoms left from the operation right there on his chest, whether they wanted to see it or not. He even had a brief little news clipping from some local newspaper that mentioned his name and wished him well. He just droned on and on at me. I was wondering what I could do—not just for me but for him also. I felt I would be doing him a disservice to focus on what he obviously wanted me to focus on. Or to think in terms of—in the same terms he was obviously then thinking of himself. He obviously did not want me to talk and he was not even giving me an opportunity to talk. But you know there’s a phrase in the book Science and Health—I’m not sure if I thought of it at the time but it certainly is relevant. It says: “Look away from the body into Truth and Love, the Principle of all happiness, harmony, and immortality.” And then the passage continues. It says, “Hold thought steadfastly to the enduring, the good, and the true, and you will bring these into your experience proportionably to their occupancy of your thoughts.” Such an amazingly useful directive in that passage. Back to the two of us in the line at the bank.
As we stood there, I locked my eyes onto his eyes and I just refused to let my eyes ever once go to his chest, where he was determined his listener’s eyes would go. I was just striving to look away from the body, or at least from part of the body, and on some level I think it kind of drove him nuts. But you know on a deeper level I like to think maybe it did him some good to have at least one person not defining him in terms of some symptoms of some ailment or in terms of some evidence of some medical procedure. After all, think about it. There was more to this man than that. There had to be. He was the unique and one-of-a-kind child of God, as you and I both are. And holding “thought steadfastly to the enduring, the good, and the true,” is inevitably going to be a benefit for the person making that mental discipline and for the person for whom they are doing so. So even if the guy at the bank didn’t know it, even if I was doing a poor job of glimpsing it, there was more to him than symptoms of a recent illness. Think about it. Does God, who is the all-seeing, see anyone as a collection of symptoms? Does His view of us as some sort of billboard for recent damage—is that the way God’s going to see us? No! What He does see is perfection. He sees well-being. He sees wholeness. He sees unblemished and unmarred health. And on and on. He sees us as He made us and that’s very good.
One of the coolest statements that you will ever find about symptoms is from a talk that Mary Baker Eddy gave in Chicago in 1888. One of the things I love about this talk is it’s one she kind of gave on the spur of the moment. She went up there not knowing she’d been billed as the keynote speaker and ended up having to speak extemporaneously. I don’t remember what the audience was, but it was huge. So you get a kind of unique insight into her thinking. You get a view into how constantly anchored in God’s presence her thinking must have always been. One thing that she said about symptoms in this talk was: “Who remembers that patience, forgiveness, abiding faith, and affection, are the symptoms by which our Father indicates the different stages of man’s recovery from sin and his entrance into Science?” (Miscellaneous Writings 1883–1896, p. 100). That’s the end of the quote.
If you ever feel really scared or if you ever feel really put upon by your housemate or if you ever feel like the symptoms are overwhelming to you, in one sense we might say, Go ahead, focus on the symptoms. But focus on these symptoms: patience, forgiveness, abiding faith, and affection—those are the ones Mrs. Eddy mentions. Focus on these, because these are the symptoms by which our Father indicates the different stages of our recovery. Doing so, you can’t help but put yourself a step in the right direction, a step toward healing. These are not symptoms that define us as a mortal or as failing. In fact, it’s just the opposite. They’re symptoms that are really signposts on the road to recovery. They’re telling us the good news that we are headed in the right direction, looking at the right stuff, and filling our consciousness with the right spiritual ideas that bless, and renew, and heal.
spirituality.com host: That’s just great. Now we have a question here from B.J. in Arlington, Texas, who says: “I’m considering and studying more about Christian Science. I’ve been a Baptist all my life. I have chronic pain and pray about it daily. What can a Christian Science practitioner do in prayer to make my pain go away when I pray about it daily?” That’s a good question.
Channing: It is. And I think it’s so great the journey that you’re on and the study that you’re making, and I think you’re going to find some common turf that is really reassuring. I mean, the Bible that you’ve been reading as a Baptist is going to be the same Bible you continue to read. And it’s still going to have the Lord’s Prayer in it, which is a place where Mary Baker Eddy says that that’s a “prayer which covers all human needs.” And that’s going to continue to be a valuable healing prayer for you. You’re going to find that there are a ton of promises that God makes in the Bible where He says “I am the Lord that healeth thee,” for instance. And it’s a matter of taking God as His word and seeing that He keeps His word, His promise of healing.
A Christian Science practitioner, what they’re going to do is what you’re already doing. They’re going to pray. One of the things I like to remember about Christian Science practitioners is it’s not really accurate to think of them as a channel. In other words, God does not flow through the practitioner to the patient that they’re praying for. It would be more accurate to say that a Christian Science practitioner is a witness, rather than a channel. And a practitioner is going to witness the direct relationship you already have with God–the fact that you have got direct access to your Father-Mother God and your Father-Mother God always has direct access to you and doesn’t ever have to go through a go-between. So, a practitioner is going to be bearing witness to you the way God made you.
You can read Genesis, chapter 1 to get a sense of God creating you, God creating man, in the perfect image, in the perfect likeness of God, and of God seeing “every thing that He had made, and behold, it was very good.” And when God creates something good, He doesn’t create it good and then step back and let it go into decline. Anything He creates good, He maintains as good, so He’s maintaining the goodness in you, the health in you, the strength in you, the well-being in you. And a practitioner is going to bear witness to those spiritual facts. This is all stuff that you can do yourself, but sometimes it’s nice to have somebody else doing it with us.
spirituality.com host: And sometimes that practitioner will have an insight into Truth that just opens a whole new vista up for you that you haven’t had because when they’re praying they’re really exercising their own spiritual intuition about the situation that you’ve described. And because they often have had many cases of this kind of thing, they have a lot of experience behind it and it really adds a dimension of the service that they give you when you ask them to pray for you.
Channing: Excellent, excellent. Thank you for adding that.
spirituality.com host: I think we’re going to have to cut this pretty short, but I do want to use at least one more on pain. This is from Elton who’s in Houston, Texas: “I developed a physical problem 18 months ago. I’m no longer able to run or jog because of the pain. I’ve worked with several practitioners, but I am still in pain. What should I do next?”
Channing: Well it sounds to me like you’re already doing a lot right. I would persist. I would persist in seeing that that’s not something that God ordained and not something that God imposed on you and not something that God maintains in you or anywhere in His universe. There’s a place in Science and Health where it says, “The harmony and immortality of man are intact.” If we even just begin to glimpse that, it’s going to kick in and start to have a healing, transforming power in our experience. And to be aware of that, be aware of that harmony, to be aware that the God-derived harmony has the power to counteract and contradict and even replace the belief of pain would be a very useful prayer.
spirituality.com host: And also, the treatment that you’ve already had, while it may seem that nothing has changed, inevitably it does have an effect. It just may be that you haven’t perceived the change yet, but it does help you along and you are making progress, even if it doesn’t seem like it.
We’re going to do two more questions and then we’re going to have to stop. I’m sorry, because I know you all had such wonderful questions. I’d love to be here to answer all of them. This one is from Moira in Kingston-upon-Thames in the United Kingdom. She says: “When a friend who’s medically-minded and not religious tells of declining health, how can one help?”
Channing: I thank you for asking that question, and I think there’s an area there where we don’t have to consent—where we can withdraw our consent. I think there’s an area of thought sometimes an individual might feel like they just have to consent with a downward slide, particularly of a friend who’s not seeking spiritual resources in remedying it. But even in that situation I don’t think we want to consent to a downhill slide as inevitable. We want to perceive something of the flawless nature of that individual, of the lasting nature of that individual, of the enduring nature of that individual. We want to be good discerners of what is Godlike about them and whether—even if they don’t believe in God—we have a right to not consent in our own outlook to a picture that would be so foreign to God and so alien to His plan for His loved children. So, I hope you will consent only to a God’s eye view of your friend and withdraw your consent from this other set of data.
spirituality.com host: Well, I think also the love that you feel toward your friend, and just keep their thoughts uplifted. If they say, Oh, I’m just so miserable today and so forth. Sometimes there’ll be a little thought that can come that you can help them to think a more positive thing like, Oh, isn’t it a nice warm day? Or just something that takes their thought off themselves and their troubles. Those things really do help to break that pattern of being engrossed with the physical and mental difficulties. They feel the relief of not being in that frame of reference at least for a while.
This is our last one and again, I wish we could have answered them all. But this is from Ruth in Alberta, Canada. She says: “Mary Baker Eddy writes in Science and Health that “The error of the ages is preaching without practice.” Sometimes even though a person has prayed and gained some insight into the Truth or a spiritual understanding of God that would heal a situation, they feel outside that Truth, disempowered because they get stuck identifying the problem with who they are, making that their starting point rather than seeing themselves one with God eternally, and empowered by God, and working from that standpoint. How do we work to sustain and act on spiritual identification and make it practical in a way that we can demonstrate humanly in our current sense of reality, getting past blocks that suggest we can’t demonstrate what we know to be true and right?” In a way this question really is almost the crux of the discussion we’ve been having.
Channing: I think part of her question kind of even went a long way towards answering that, and I appreciate that. The one thing that’s been helping me some lately is—so it’s not just preaching but it is practice—I’ve been trying to rethink my understanding of prayer. Obviously, a huge help to that and at the very first chapter of the book Science and Health is a chapter on “Prayer.” A while ago, when I was reading through that chapter, there was something that kind of triggered for me a whole inner discussion. I came away with a new perception of prayer.
On page 1 it says, “Prayer, watching, and working, combined with self-immolation, are God’s gracious means for accomplishing whatever has been successfully done for the Christianization and health of mankind.” Well, you know, I don’t suppose I’d ever given much thought to that previously, but on that day that passage kind of knocked me over. I guess I had previously always assumed that prayer was my means, sometimes gracious, and probably sometimes not so gracious, for contacting God. But here, prayer is referred to as “God’s means,” His “gracious means for accomplishment.” Like I said, that required some pretty thorough rethinking on my part because if prayer were my means, no wonder I sometimes questioned if prayer were up to the task at hand.
But if prayer were God’s means, then of course prayer would be effective, would be transforming. To think that prayer might be inadequate would be to think that God might be inadequate—and that’s a foolish notion. I know sometimes prayer kind of gets pushed in the margins as if it’s being considered as a kind of a window dressing, while other methods of treatment hold center stage. But think about it for a minute. Christ Jesus was the healer of all healers, and prayer was central, prayer was enough. Prayer drew an omnipotent power. If we think that Christ Jesus’ words are still relevant—and I definitely do—maybe we should also consider that his works, his prayer-based healing works, are also still relevant, and his method for accomplishing those works is still relevant. Was his method of treatment and of healing destined to go out of date? I don’t think so. What I’m suggesting here is if we’re feeling like prayer may not be enough, if it’s just the preaching without the practice, maybe we want to review how we see prayer. Instead of seeing prayer as my means or your means—because if we do that it’s bound to sometimes come up short—see prayer as the Father’s means, as God’s gracious means for accomplishment. And we’re going to naturally have a much higher estimate of prayer and of what it can accomplish, and I expect we’ll find our doubts and our uncertainties about prayer beginning to recede. Because once you’ve glimpsed that prayer is His means and not our means, you’re close to also glimpsing that prayer doesn’t just go to God, prayer also comes from Him.
In other words, prayer doesn’t just have a divine aim, it also has a divine origin. Now just think about that. Prayer comes from Him to you, just as prayer goes from you to Him. Prayer is the Father’s gift to you. You know, parents today a lot of times will give their kid a cell phone so the kid can call home no matter what. Well, the cell phone comes from the parent to the child, and the call for help comes from the child to the parent. Well, prayer’s a bit like that. Your heavenly Father-Mother God has given you a way to call on Him. As you and I remember that, and as we do call on Him for help, I don’t think we’re ever going to have to fear that prayer’s not up to the task, or that prayer is just preaching without practice.
spirituality.com host: Well, that was just such a wonderful comment, Channing. Do you have anything else you’d like to add before we close? That was just so great.
Channing: I’ll just say very, very briefly and I promise this will be super brief, there is one passage in the Bible that I don’t think we got around to talking about today. It’s a passage that says: “Humble yourselves in the sight of the Lord, and he shall lift you up.” And that would be a pretty great spiritual fact to take with you from today’s chat. Right at the moment when discouragement tries to crowd into one’s thought, right when a feeling of decline seems way too persistent, right then is when He shall lift you up. Right then is when He is right there with you, sustaining you and caring for you and not letting you fall. Right then is when His lifting up action is occurring on your behalf. Right then the Father holds you up high, lifts you to the point where you can see the path forward, can see the promise of healing, and can see that the promise is inevitable and is irresistible. I’ll let that be the final word.
Citations used in this chat:
Science and Health
King James Bible