While attending college after high school, I spent time wondering what to do with the rest of my life. One afternoon while entertaining career possibilities, I thought about becoming a full-time Christian Science healer. No sooner did the option pop into my mind than I thought: “You can’t do that. You would have to think about God all the time!” 

Thinking about God all the time felt ludicrous. There were so many other demands to think about, such as earning a living, paying the bills, staying healthy, and maybe getting married someday and having children. The list of things to do other than ponder the realities of divine Spirit seemed enormous and endless. 

But as I considered the scope of God as being infinite, all-inclusive, and omnipresent, as I had learned from my upbringing and my study of Christian Science, I remembered that God is not a sideshow. God is the main event. God is Life. God is All. To accept the omnipresence and omnipotence of God is to see that there isn’t anything else to think about; I realized that everything good is included within God’s infinitude. It was a jolting perspective to consider.

The material world would argue that there is something other than God and His spiritual creation to think about, namely, mortal existence, with its demands to figure out how to survive. This view would claim that, rather than seeking an understanding of God and spiritual life, one must spend one’s time managing matter in the form of earning money, acquiring things, coping with disease and a physical body, and planning for a timeline of maturity and death in matter. In a material, mortal view of the world, God can start to feel remote, irrelevant, even nonexistent.

But Christ Jesus came to show us that we can look to God first for life and support. When hungry people needed food, he prayed to God with spiritual understanding, and they were fed. When sick people pleaded for health, he prayed to God, and they found themselves strong and healthy. When someone’s thoughts were tangled and confused, or they were angry or afraid, he prayed to God, and mental harmony was restored. He showed his followers that God was the primary sustainer of existence, health, and supply. He said, “Seek the Kingdom of God above all else, and he will give you everything you need” (Luke 12:31, New Living Translation). 

God is the main event. God is Life.

From Jesus’ point of view, mortality was a fraud. It promises life but delivers death. Its riches are unequally bestowed and often flee as vapor. It gives a person reason to be happy one day, then delivers a blow the next that sends the individual into despair and grief. Knowing the vanity, cruelty, and changeableness of the mortal domain, Jesus taught his followers to look beyond mortality to immortality, which is true reality, for life and hope. He saw no need to accept that we must toil in matter in order to maintain existence, because he knew life has its roots in God. His understanding of health, life, and provision in God enabled him to overcome the constraints of mortality and demonstrate that all human needs are met through the love of God. Christian Science teaches us how to prove the reality of God’s care today. 

One can find an accurate understanding of God in the Bible and in the Christian Science textbook, Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures by Mary Baker Eddy. The Bible documents how God has spoken to humanity over the centuries through Christ, pointing the way out of mortality to immortality. Science and Health explains how to put the teachings of the Bible into practice and to heal as Jesus expected his followers to heal. Its teachings enable one to fulfill Jesus’ command “Heal the sick, raise the dead, cure those with leprosy, and cast out demons. Give as freely as you have received!” (Matthew 10:8, NLT). Guided by the truths in these two books, one can gain an understanding of God and learn to prove that God’s omnipotence and omniscience meet every human need.

In Christian Science, God is not a deity unconnected to the human experience, a supernatural being in a faraway place, or a mysterious power that is hard to relate to. God is the all-knowing, all-wise Mind that undergirds and constitutes all reality. This Mind has a solution to every problem, an answer to every question, a supply for every need, and gives eternal Life for man to live, which includes eternal health. 

In Science and Health, God is defined as “the great I am ; the all-knowing, all-seeing, all-acting, all-wise, all-loving, and eternal; Principle; Mind; Soul; Spirit; Life; Truth; Love; all substance; intelligence” (p. 587). As Jesus understood, and Christian Science explains, God is the Principle of all existence, the Mind that orders the universe, the Life that sustains all being, the Love that unites all. God is all good. 

With God, one has everything necessary to stay healthy, to live abundantly, and to be happy. When we have God, we have everything. It feels easier and more natural to lean on God for guidance and healing in times of trouble when one understands that God is reliable. As the Bible declares, “God is our refuge and strength, a very present help in trouble” (Psalms 46:1). To know God’s presence is to find the inspiration, love, and support that meet the need of the moment. 

God undergirds and constitutes all reality.

Many years ago, on the night I returned to my home from a trip overseas, I became very ill. As my health deteriorated, I prayed. In my prayers, I knew that God was present, and that God could heal, but my health was failing fast. At a point when I was barely able to think one or two words at a time, and was afraid that if I lost consciousness I would never wake up, my thoughts landed on the single word God. This word held deep meaning for me. 

I knew that God was my Life, and that God could never be threatened, sickened, or lost. As I recalled this simple truth, I realized I didn’t need to save my life, because it was already safe with God. I could cease my fierce struggle to stay alive, and trust God to keep me alive. With this realization, a heavy burden of personal responsibility for preserving my health lifted, and a wave of peace swept through consciousness. I lost all fear of death and felt assured that everything was going to be OK. I decided it was all right to fall asleep for rest, feeling confident that I was safe because God was caring for me. When I awoke two hours later, I felt 90 percent well, and the remaining vestige of illness was gone very soon. The healing was decisive and welcomed. 

As children of God, we each possess God-given power to conquer evil with good. Armed with a keen awareness of the omnipotence and omnipresence of God, we can defeat suffering and maintain order and peace. The claims of mortality are not imperative. They can be overturned. Evil can be stopped and seen as powerless!

Science and Health states: “Rise in the strength of Spirit to resist all that is unlike good. God has made man capable of this, and nothing can vitiate the ability and power divinely bestowed on man” (p. 393). Each of us possesses spiritual might to claim our divine right to health, to resolve conflict with love, to act without fear, and to better our experience. We are divinely empowered to feel Life’s blessings to the fullest! Each day is an opportunity to exercise this power.

When human reason argues that there are more important things to do than to seek out God, one can counter with the truth that there isn’t anything more important to do than to understand God. To know God is to readily recognize God’s benefits. As I glimpsed many years ago when seeking direction for my life, there isn’t anything more important. There is no higher consciousness to possess, no higher goal to aim for, no priority more important to pursue. When you have God, you have everything.