I ♥ the Bible Lesson

In May of 2009, over Memorial Day weekend, I had the opportunity to go to a DiscoveryBound youth gathering in Boston for teens who are Christian Scientists. While we were there, our group had Sunday School class in the original Mother Church building.

One of the teachers of the class welcomed us, and we started a discussion on the weekly Christian Science Quarterly Bible Lesson. She explained to us that the Lesson was like a gift. She then picked up a beautiful package off the floor. It had a gold bow and beautiful wrapping paper. She said that the golden bow was like the Golden Text of the Lesson and that the wrapping paper was like the Responsive Reading. Then she unwrapped the gift and revealed a shoe-size box. She went on to explain that the box represented the sections of the Lesson, and she proceeded to take the lid off. Inside was a wide assortment of lightbulbs–some small, some big, and all different shapes. The lightbulbs represented the many ideas that one would get out of the Bible Lesson. Our class also talked about how Mary Baker Eddy saw the Bible Lesson as a gift to mankind.

After that class, I was inspired to read the Lesson as much as possible. I thought of it kind of like a Christmas gift. And since I'm always excited about opening up my Christmas gifts, I figured I should be eager to start opening the Lesson every week!

The next month my cousin was going through some hard times in school, and asked me to pray for her. I was glad to, so I started looking for passages in Science and Health that might help. As I was looking, I found a few quotes I wanted to share with my cousin, but nothing that really stood out. I lay on my bed a bit, disappointed, and was about to give up the search when I turned to my cat and snuggled with her for a while. Then I had the thought that our cat had been a Christmas gift from my parents. With this I realized that I'd forgotten to open my "gift" for the week.

So I went to the computer to print out the Bible Lesson from mybiblelesson.com. As I opened up the page, I saw that the subject was "God the Only Cause and Creator." The title was a great reminder to me that God was in charge of everything, and it reminded me of the Bible passage from Genesis "And God saw every thing that he had made, and, behold, it was very good" (1:31). After I'd printed it out, I read it all the way through. Later, I called my cousin so I could share some of the ideas I found in my search that I knew would help her get through school the next day.

Here's what I found, and what these ideas meant to me:

This helped me know that God never leaves us and He supports us in everything that we do.

We all express the wonderful qualities of God, not mortal man, and all of God's qualities are good.

I thought about how fear is nothing any of God's children should face. When we recognize God's protection for us, we know there is no reason to fear anything; God will give us the strength, tools, and knowledge to address any problems.

God's love has and will support His children in any challenges that arise.

During the next day I kept praying and stuck with this passage I found the night before in Science and Health: "Human hate has no legitimate mandate and no kingdom. Love is enthroned" (p. 454). Later that evening I was chatting with my cousin online, and she told me she'd had a wonderfully drama-free day and that she was grateful for my help. At that moment I realized how powerful God really was, and that reading the Bible Lesson helped me see that God always is in control of any situation. |css