Supply and demand—perfectly synchronized

Unexpected expenditures for the month—and for the foreseeable future—were putting pressure on the household budget. As I calculated my income and my outgo, I frantically realized that I could no longer be a stay-at-home mom. I needed a job yesterday! Before the children came along, I worked full-time as a graphic designer, but I'd put my career on hold to raise my family.

I had to find an employer who could use my skills and coordinate with the hours that my two small children were in school. My needs were specific and I didn’t know where to find that perfect fit. My initial reaction—to panic and start a frantic job search—was tempered with the idea to quiet my thought through prayer.

Right away I was filled with gratitude. I recalled a time when my husband and I had only $25 left in our bank account. He had been laid off from work and we were expecting our first child. He'd been looking for a new position for weeks and hadn’t found anything. We had just enough money for some groceries.

With other bills to pay and the extra expense of a new baby on the horizon, the situation looked bleak.

As we prayed, we both saw that my husband had a wonderful supply of skills and good work ethics. All these good qualities had their source in God, good. Not only does God impart good to man (meaning both men and women), but through His law, He also unfolds opportunities to express that goodness constructively.

Mary Baker Eddy wrote about this in Science and Health: “Spirit, God, gathers unformed thoughts into their proper channels, and unfolds these thoughts, even as He opens the petals of a holy purpose in order that the purpose may appear.”

Knowing that man is never separated from opportunities to express God, my husband was guided to go to his university’s outplacement office, where he saw a posting for a job that fit his experience and abilities. Within days, he was working at his new job.

As I remembered this experience, I asked myself, “Isn’t that same law of supply and demand in operation for me now? If the need is now, the supply is now; such is the nature of divine Love.”

I saw that all the skills and qualities that I express are really evidence of divine supply. This supply is the open-handed, spontaneous abundance of God’s love graciously pouring forth goodness. Love’s bounty is as continuous as a flowing river. It is the nature of divine Love to provide everything needed for our well-being, and this includes useful productivity.

I understood that demand isn’t depletion, but rather proof that all the infinite goodness that divine Love is pouring forth has a purpose and is appreciated and utilized. So all the qualities that God gives me to express are needed and useful.

Because supply and demand are both of God, Principle, they have to be in perfect balance. There can’t be a supply without a demand or a demand without a supply.

The Bible says it so well: “For I mean not that other men be eased, and ye burdened: But by an equality, that now at this time your abundance may be a supply for their want, that their abundance also may be a supply for your want: that there may be equality.”

How beautifully supply and demand are perfectly synchronized by God’s law! As I prayed further, I saw that finding the right job didn’t need to be circuitous. There was no need for wasted motions of running here and there looking for work.

When Jesus needed money for taxes, he sent his disciple, Peter, to the sea and said, “…cast an hook, and take up the fish that first cometh up; and when thou hast opened his mouth, thou shalt find a piece of money.” Peter didn’t have to “fish around,” so to speak, for the money he needed. He was directed right to it. There is accuracy in Truth’s leading and immediacy in Mind’s fulfillment.

Armed with joyous gratitude that I would be appropriately directed, and that both supply and demand are of God and in perfect balance in my life, I felt ready to go forward in the job search.

I made only one call, to a publishing company. They said they weren’t really looking for anyone with my skills, but would be happy to look at my portfolio of work just the same, if I wanted to go in the next day.

This was the one company I was guided to call—and they weren’t hiring. I was tempted to doubt the direction I'd been given as the result of prayer, but instead said, “Yes, I’ll be there tomorrow.” I had enough trust in God to follow through.

When I arrived the next day, there had been a company-wide meeting just a few hours before, in which a major restructuring was announced. Looking at my portfolio and seeing that I had experience in many areas, they saw I was the perfect fit for a position that had just been created. In fact they needed my skills right away.

They asked me if I could stay and make this my first day on the job. I said, “Yes!”

This was a beautiful proof that there is a divine, omniscient Mind overseeing, uniting, and synchronizing every aspect of being into one concordant whole that blesses all. I progressed in that job and ended up working with the co-owner of the company, doing all the designing and production of their magazines.

The hours and demands coordinated perfectly with my children’s schedules and school vacations. I stayed with that company until God guided me to a new career as a Christian Science practitioner. And on the way, all the bills were paid and the budget balanced!

The spiritual facts that guided me to that position are just as relevant for you and your loved ones. For now and always, the power and force of divine Love synchronizes supply and demand in such an all-encompassing way that each of us—you, me, everyone—is productive, fully supplied, and infinitely blessed.

Equal supply:

Science and Health
506:18

King James Bible
II Cor. 8:13,14
Matt. 17:27