Looking up, as comprehended in Christian Science, does not mean lifted eyes gazing skyward with a heart yearning for deliverance by an unknown God. Christian Science unfolds a diviner sense, which originates in omnipresent Love, God, and embraces the Christ-idea representing Him.

This fact became evident to a Christian Scientist when, on becoming very ill, she was taken to a Christian Science nursing home for care. During a particularly distressing moment one of the attending nurses compassionately said, "Look up, darling!" What more positive direction could have been given whereby to come into communion with God and assimilate the Christly spirit of divine Love! This appeal awakened the Scientist to strive valiantly to look up mentally, as this is understood in Christian Science, to God, imperishable divine Love. God, Love, is man's eternal Life. In Science and Health Mrs. Eddy writes: "'God is Love.' More than this we cannot ask, higher we cannot look, farther we cannot go." ^{Science and Health, p. 6;}

In prayerful humility and thankfulness, based on a spiritual premise, she made a persistent effort over a period of several weeks to unite her thoughts of existence with Christ, Truth. She prayed to see that God is the only creator, that He interprets His laws, the laws of Love, and manifests His omnipresence, and that those who look up to Him through the vision of scientific truth can see His laws in operation.

With the spiritual perception that God is All and matter and material sense are without entity in divine Life, the Scientist refuted the aggressive mortal mind suggestions of materiality, discouragement, suffering, and death. She knew that omniscient Love is sufficient to meet the demands of healing. Did not the prophet declare, "Look unto me, and be ye saved, all the ends of the earth: for I am God, and there is none else"? ^{Isa. 45:22;}

This promise was an angelic messenger, virtually saying, "Look unto Me, My beloved idea, for I have already saved and shielded you as My perfect image." Before long, by utilizing this way of Science to see God's cherished image through spiritual understanding, the Scientist was able to return home to resume work with an illumined sense of harmony, peace, health, and renewed strength.

Christian Science teaches that the way to bring healing into individual experience is to base our upward mental footsteps on the truths of perfect God and perfect man as His creation. This upward and outward way lifts individual consciousness beyond the knowledge of mortal selfhood up to the scientific truth of creation; from this latter viewpoint one cannot look higher or go farther.

It sometimes requires great courage, deep consecration to God, more love for mankind, and thorough self-examination to look beyond self-pity and resentment—the unreal claims of mortal mind, which Jesus called "a liar, and the father of it" ^{John 8:44;} —and bring to view the conviction of man's real being as the faultless reflection of the all-loving Father-Mother God.

If beliefs of pain, sickness, or weighty responsibilities present themselves, asserting personal attachment or a past history, these can be met as untrue falsities. One cannot go backward to a former period to eradicate error from thought. The healing work to be done is in the now.

Yielding human will to the divine can help us to instantly let go of negative and impure thoughts, not worthy to be called truth, wisdom, or intelligence. Pure thoughts see God. Now is the time to attain this Christly perception. Love sees nothing to hate or fear. Life has never beheld death nor been heavy-laden. In God's eternity, earthbound falsities have never been present. Our vision should extend beyond self, for as one forgets a personal selfhood by dwelling on God's creation, one accepts an uplifted sense of life and realizes better its true meaning.

Man is not a mortal, made out of matter or the Adam-dream and governed by illusive lying suggestions. Man includes spiritual ideas. He is the perfect effect of a perfect divine Principle. As one gains a higher discernment of true identity and its indestructibility, one experiences healing, freedom, and more love for his fellowmen.

With divinely inspired insight the Psalmist lifted high the ideal of prayer and declared, "In the morning will I direct my prayer unto thee, and will look up." ^{Ps. 5:3;} Looking up includes wholeheartedly loving God; it is seeking the activity and power of God in prayer. Christ Jesus sometimes spent all night in prayerful communion with his heavenly Father, and afterward he healed the sick and sinning. Once, when he fed five thousand men with five loaves and two fishes, he "looked up to heaven"; ^{Mark 6:41;} that is, he looked up to his heavenly Father, divine Mind, to bless the situation with Mind's own limitless divine ideas. This was the witnessing in human experience to the eternal fact and true view that supply, substance, and health are spiritual.

All who follow the example of Jesus, striving to look up and see with the scope of his Christly perception, will surely behold the wondrous things of Spirit and enjoy completeness. Mrs. Eddy asks, "Where shall the gaze rest but in the unsearchable realm of Mind?" ^{Science and Health, p. 264;}

In Christian Science, prayer brings individual consciousness into accord with divine law; it is the acknowledgment of the spiritual coexistence of God and man. Through prayer, looking up becomes an element of demonstration in our lives. Not by infrequently glancing upward at the spiritual facts of God and His manifestations but by consistent unselfed love, prayer, and perseverance in practicing Godlike qualities in the daily round does one gain proof of his God-derived dominion over fear, disease, inharmony, and mortality.

It is a divine privilege to daily rise into a holier consciousness that rouses thought to perceive how near and dear God's image, man, is to Him. "O man greatly beloved" ^Dan.10:19. is the divine assurance to each of us. All of God's sons and daughters, immortal ideas, are beloved by Him and never out of His sight and care. God, Love, is at the door of thought; so we can all look up.