No drought in Mind

Sooner or later, through the ever-present Christ—the loving presence and power of God guiding us spiritually—we each learn that the children of God are sustained by Him alone, and that our all-loving, infinitely caring Father-Mother lacks neither the willingness nor the ability to provide fully for us.

Drought cannot be part of divine Love’s care, nor can it be known to the infinitely good, all-knowing Mind. Such truths are available to us, as we reach out in prayer during a drought, to more deeply understand God’s care for man.

Moving to a new home a number of years ago, I found that I had settled down in the midst of a severe drought, one that had been intensifying over a period of four years. The state’s fruit and vegetable crops were suffering millions of dollars in damage. Forecasts in the newspaper predicted that the drought would either continue or get worse, unless we had “an unbelievably spectacular wet season.”

In the spring of that year the governor of the state described the situation as “very perilous.” He told the media that he was praying about the situation every day, and he hoped others would pray as well. My own concern compelled me to pray, too.

Despite the predictions, by the end of that year our area had received the rain it needed. The drought there ended, and water restrictions were lifted. Improvement for the rest of the state began the following year and continued for the next two years, till the drought ended. That needed turnaround was important. But for me an even deeper blessing was the understanding and inspiration I had gained in praying about the situation. 

In the Bible St. Paul makes this succinct, spiritually scientific statement: “In him we live, and move, and have our being” (Acts 17:28). The “him” Paul refers to is God, the one infinite divine Mind, who has created all that truly exists. Each of us lives in this Mind. We are ideas of Mind, forever known and sustained and provided for by Mind. This truth is not understood through the material senses, which is the very reason we need to pray, so we can turn away from the physical sense of things and discern spiritual reality, with its abundant harmony. “As it is written,” says Paul elsewhere in the Bible, “Eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, neither have entered into the heart of man, the things which God hath prepared for them that love him. But God hath revealed them unto us by his Spirit: for the Spirit searcheth all things, yea, the deep things of God” (I Corinthians 2:9, 10).

What God has prepared for all of us is the infinite fullness of His being, the unlimited substance of Spirit, found in divine Mind. Nothing is lacking in Mind, and everything man needs already belongs to Mind. So our prayer can be to acknowledge—and even more than this, perceive—that the Principle of all being is not matter but the divine Mind, infinite Love.

Our Father-Mother, divine Love, sustains and nurtures all of us, and the nourishing love of Love never dries up.

Mary Baker Eddy writes in Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures: “To grasp the reality and order of being in its Science, you must begin by reckoning God as the divine Principle of all that really is.… All substance, intelligence, wisdom, being, immortality, cause, and effect belong to God. These are His attributes, the eternal manifestations of the infinite divine Principle, Love. No wisdom is wise but His wisdom; no truth is true, no love is lovely, no life is Life but the divine; no good is, but the good God bestows” (p. 275). 

The good God bestows is infinite and unending. The infinite substance of Spirit never dries up. Nor is there any scarceness of God’s attributes. There is no drought of beauty, joy, and holiness, for instance, in the allness of Soul. There is no drought of truthfulness and honesty in the allness of Truth. There is no drought of unselfishness in the allness of Love. Integrity and uprightness abound without limit in the allness of divine Principle. Wisdom, intelligence, and understanding are infinitely present in the allness of Mind.

Prayer helps us discern the presence of all the good that belongs to God. It also helps us see that because we “live, and move, and have our being” in God, the atmosphere we truly live in is not a destructive material atmosphere. Nor is it a destructive mental atmosphere of fear, selfishness, lust, greed, or hate, elements that counteract our perception of the fresh, living waters of spiritual goodness that flow in the realm of Mind. 

The only true atmosphere is Mind itself. Therefore we live in the pure, abundant atmosphere of Spirit, which teems with spiritual activity and blesses mankind with “the raindrops of divinity” that “refresh the earth,” as Mrs. Eddy writes (Science and Health, p. 288). We live in the atmosphere of Life, brimming with vitality and freshness. We live in the pure atmosphere of Soul—where beauty is infinitely abundant and forever sustained by Soul, where holiness reigns and nothing interferes with Life and its fullness, Life and its joys.

Our Father-Mother, divine Love, sustains and nurtures all of us, and the nourishing love of Love never dries up. The law of Love is the Holy Ghost, or spirit of Truth, operating universally, in each human consciousness, revealing Love’s infinite provision, perpetuating forever the living waters of Life.

David C. Kennedy, Editor