We sit down to pray, but instead find ourselves jumping up to do non-urgent tasks or maybe even nodding off. Or we glance at social media and end up scrolling for hours. Then we might waste further time berating ourselves for the lapse rather than doing what we intended to do in the first place: pray and commune with God.

What causes these lapses? Certainly not God! It is a foundational point in Christian Science that God is good and that we each express that goodness. And there are no lapses in either God’s goodness or our right and ability to express it. This was consistently proved by Christ Jesus in the far more significant lapses he healed—when people had lost their health or moral bearings, for instance. But it’s true for any discord in our experience, no matter how small, that would say that we’re less than the pure, spiritual expression of God. Describing the majesty of our true identity, Mary Baker Eddy, the Discoverer of Christian Science, wrote, “Immortal man is the eternal idea of Truth, that cannot lapse into a mortal belief or error concerning himself and his origin: he cannot get out of the focal distance of infinity” (Miscellaneous Writings 1883–1896, p. 79)

So we have spiritual grounds for challenging whatever would seem to rob us of the good, fruitful activity of our true, God-created identity. Thinking that we are the problem, however, isn’t a helpful starting point for resolving the situation. Yes, we must be both self-aware enough to recognize that there is a problem and determined to take steps to correct it. But blaming ourselves for the problem tends to reinforce the belief that we have, or are, a material self distinct from that spiritual identity. In seeing that we can have only the identity God made, we recognize that the resistance to spiritual growth calling itself distractedness is nothing more than an imposition on us. 

We must be both self-aware enough to recognize that there is a problem and determined to take steps to correct it.

The imposition isn’t the activity or lack of activity per se. There’s a time for doing routine tasks and being online—even napping! The imposition is the belief that we’re prone to being influenced by an apparent power to do these things at the wrong time or in ways that work against our efforts to be and do good. The Bible calls this power the “carnal mind” (Romans 8:7)—the enemy of all spiritual progress. The term describes a matter-conscious mentality. Divine Science reveals that such a mentality cannot govern us, because it does not exist in reality, being the opposite of the universal Mind, God. God is infinite Spirit, and there is no “outside” to infinity, therefore no room for an opposite to Spirit. 

Yet the Bible talks of “little foxes, that spoil the vines” (Song of Solomon 2:15). In our human experience there does seem to be an opposite to Spirit, an opposite in which major negative impacts can arise from even minor infringements of God’s law. It can even feel as though the carnal mind has an actual plan—a plan to distract us from the prayerful communion with God that undergirds our well-being and our value to others. If the way to disarm this supposed influence is prayer, then this seeming mind might appear to have a master plan. Because how can we pray to stop ourselves from being distracted from praying . . . while being distracted from the very prayer that will accomplish that? 

An activity that was part of Mrs. Eddy’s daily life suggests a useful steppingstone in approaching that dilemma. She was used to taking a daily carriage ride near her home—during which she would pray—and did so into her very senior years. Explaining why, she said, “It is not for exercise or diversion but to show mortal mind that I can do it” (We Knew Mary Baker Eddy, Expanded Edition, Vol. 2, p. 539). I take that as Mrs. Eddy saying that she was exercising her God-given dominion over the claims of mortal mind to exist and to be able to dictate terms to her.

So, it doesn’t hurt to take practical steps to help us chase out those little foxes. We can stand or walk while praying, have a pen handy to write down the tasks we’ll do after our time with God, set a timer for when to end a social media scroll. And as we consciously exercise our dominion over the temptations that would distract us, we’ll find the need for such steps diminishing, even falling away. That is, we’ll be increasingly evidencing the truth that because God—the one, infinite Mind—is undistractable, we are, too, as God’s reflection. 

Doing what it takes to chase away once and for all the “little foxes, that spoil the vines” is liberating for us and loving to others. It frees us to see and chase away the bigger error: the underlying belief that life is material rather than spiritual. What a healing blessing we’ll be to ourselves and others in proportion as we do just that through our increasingly undistracted communion with God.

Tony Lobl, Associate Editor