THERE ARE PLACES in the world that never seem to change. The spectacular Alps of Europe. The majestic Andes Mountain Range of South America. Scotland's River Spey. The arid Sonoran desert in Mexico. Tanzania's Olduvai Gorge. The world's largest monolith, Ayers Rock, or Uluru, in Australia's Northern Territory. They all seem as though they've been the same forever.

Yet they all are changing, of course, century by century. How about the peoples that live in these diverse regions? They, too, have grown and changed, year by year. And the world's concept of God has certainly changed alongside geological and cultural transformations. For the most part, mankind's idea of deity has evolved over thousands of years from a number of natural gods, to many anthropomorphic super gods, to a single God who punishes severely, and finally to the one God, who is Love (see I John 4:16).

Did God change through the years? Or did people's concepts?

From mankind's point of view, God's will can seem different this year from last. But could God, all-powerful Love and eternal Truth, be so whimsical, so capricious, as to change His truth from one day to the next?

God, divine Truth, never changes. Truth is eternal. The Swiss Alps may someday erode completely, yet the law of God, Truth, is perpetual. That is because God isn't material. God isn't physical in any way at all. Instead, God is Spirit. God's power is only for good. God's law of goodness in our lives is supreme. Not just superior to something not quite as powerful, but supreme—without a rival. It's good to know that we have something in our lives that is completely dependable, entirely unchangeable—Truth.

"For ever, O Lord," the Bible says, "thy word is settled in heaven. Thy faithfulness is unto all generations" (Ps. 119:89, 90). The laws and rules of God are basic to God's oneness. There exists only one infinite God therefore only one law one rule of good, one rule of harmony for all of us, forever. Not human personality, but Truth's omnipotence, maintains His rule immutably intact. Therefore it doesn't have peaks, valleys, or crescendos, but is continuously at full potency.

God's man—the real you and me—is permanent, too. "The kingdom of God is within you," said Christ Jesus (Luke 17:21). In other words, God's kingdom, or God's rule of love and peace and perfection, is expressed by us. Since God is Spirit, His expression, man, is spiritual. Man is the idea of God. Ideas aren't material. God's man isn't physical or changeable but is as permanent as God is. Just think how God loves us to make man eternally perfect and spiritual, good and free of matter and its so-called laws.

Prayer brings our thoughts and lives into line with the reality of God's (and man's) permanent, spiritual perfection. The effect of prayer is to heal and restore. Yet, does perfect, spiritual man need healing? No. He is already perfect. Then, what does prayer do for us? Inspired, humble prayer reveals how God, Truth, forever made man as His faultless reflection, as God's loved idea. "Prayer cannot change the unalterable Truth, nor can prayer alone give us an understanding of Truth; but prayer, coupled with a fervent habitual desire to know and do the will of God, will bring us into all Truth," Science and Health explains (p. 11).

Since prayer doesn't "change the unalterable Truth"—because God's law doesn't fluctuate—the only thing left to change is our concept of reality and how we express that concept. Prayer exchanges false beliefs about God and man for the spiritual understanding of Truth. When our thoughts reflect Truth, our experience can't help but do so also. Thought and experience connect. Therefore, it's important to cultivate "a fervent habitual desire to know and do the will of God" so that we aren't deluded and our lives aren't founded on falsity.

When I was a teenager, one time I fell about two meters onto a large rock. The first thing that hit was my back, and it felt as if I'd landed on Australia's Ayers Rock. Yet, as solid and permanent as that rock (and my injury) seemed, my prayers revealed to me that God and God's spiritual creation were truly the only things real and solid. The fact that God is Spirit and man is spiritual doesn't mean that they aren't substantial. Spirit and its spiritual ideas are real, actual, tangible to spiritual sense; they are wholly substantial.

I could honestly say that neither God nor my real, spiritual selfhood had ever been altered. And there was nothing to make me believe otherwise. The only thing that could ever occur is the constant law of God in action, maintaining me as His perfect expression. When I admitted this spiritual truth, God's law of perpetual harmony was brought to bear on my thought and experience, and I was permanently healed.

Both the face of the world and mankind's idea of God may change. Yet God's law is forever. God isn't perpetuated by man. Truth is untouched by human opinion, untouched by human history. "For the mountains shall depart, and the hills be removed; but my kindness shall not depart from thee," says the Bible (Isa. 54:10).

It is up to us to discover that God's rule, God's "kingdom of heaven," is already within. Then we'll see for ourselves that Truth's facts of being are, and have always been, foundational to our lives, sustaining us.