Suppose you want to look at a star through a telescope. You learn that, as the earth spins, this particular celestial body appears over the horizon only for a short time. With the right background information, you could calculate the exact time and place in the sky where it will come into view. Knowing that data, you would then point your telescope to the correct spot and await your star.

There is a point in time when this star will arrive in the field of vision afforded by your telescope, and under no circumstances will it appear before or elsewhere. There is a timing to this event, and no amount of fretting will cause it to change.

The timing of other events in life, though, isn't so easy to calculate and, in fact, it is often difficult even to know how an event will turn out or exactly what course our lives will take. Yet there exists a singular power—the omnipotence of God, divine Mind—that can be seen to govern every aspect of man's being with precision and harmony. Through prayer and spiritual understanding, we can prove that this is what truly outlines everything good that we experience.

No, God doesn't have His hand in mortality, like the Zeus of Greek mythology, affecting events and circumstances. God's universe, including man, is spiritual and is governed by invariable divine law. Quiet, heartfelt prayer affords a clear perception of this and enables us to witness the harmony of divine law expressed right where we are, guiding every event and its timing. To the degree that divine Mind's allness and perfect government are understood, the notion recedes that we are living in a haphazard physical universe buffeted about at the whim of forces opposed to God. Such a notion is seen to be a sham. "All is infinite Mind and its infinite manifestation, for God is All-in-all," writes Mrs. Eddy in Science and Health.

If all is Mind and its manifestation, or expression of itself, then there actually exists nothing to oppose God's power. Mortal thought and material events seem to restrict God, but that is a misinformed, mistaken perception. The right unfoldment of things comes as we begin to see that the omnipresence of divine Mind precludes any supposed opposing force. Science and Health states, "Mind is the source of all movement, and there is no inertia to retard or check its perpetual and harmonious action."

God, divine Mind, is good, wholly good, and there is nothing that can limit, restrict, or impede its operation. Looking again at our astronomy analogy, we see that just as there is a logic to celestial affairs, there is a logic—in fact, an even more complete and invariable logic—to the operation of God's law. This law works independently of space and time. Divine Mind's law of continuous good causes what may appear to us as a sequence of successive "right" human events, but actually what is occurring is an unfoldment to human perception of the ever-present divine order of being. God certainly doesn't withhold good and then at an opportune moment dispense some of it upon His children. His provision of spiritual good is eternal, and we always have access to it.

Reading the daily horoscope columns in many newspapers, some people may think that it's merely a form of amusement to give the constellations animal and anthropomorphic, or human, characteristics—even characteristics that may seem sinister and threatening. It isn't amusing, however, when we recognize that believing in any supposed power, including astrology, that would attempt to resist, restrict, or usurp God's plan for us is actually detrimental to individual progress. Such supposed resistance to divine power is termed in Christian Science animal magnetism. Yet anything that would impede God's law of good unfolding in our lives is without intelligence, substance, or capacity to act.

Any inertia, restriction, and limitation, in the absolute truth of God's creation, do not exist. It stands to reason, then, that something which has never been created has no genuine, God-sustained power to operate in our lives, somehow affixing its tentacles to us—impeding God's purpose of good for us. The power to restrict God never will be created; therefore it cannot operate in people, through people. It has no agenda and no circumstances. It doesn't even know us. When Christ Jesus was brought before Pilate to be judged, Pilate asked, "Speakest thou not unto me? knowest thou not that I have power to crucify thee, and have power to release thee? Jesus answered, Thou couldest have no power at all against me, except it were given thee from above." Jesus surely knew that no thing or person could hinder the divine purpose for his life, or for Christianity itself. Our own safety lies in this same fact, as we realize it. We must staunchly keep this truth before us and know it as clearly as we know our name.

God's law is always at work, unrestrained. In human events, right timing is subordinate to our understanding of this truth. There is a grace and poise to admitting it. Mrs. Eddy writes in Miscellaneous Writings: "The lives of great men and women are miracles of patience and perseverance. Every luminary in the constellation of human greatness, like the stars, comes out in the darkness to shine with the reflected light of God." And like the star that comes into view over the horizon, appearing just when and where it should, we, as God's spiritual offspring, move according to divine Mind's impelling force, in perfect harmony. Events emerge into view with purpose and order as we humbly respond to the impulse of God's unrestricted law.

Mark Swinney

Managing Editor of the Christian Science Sentinel and The Christian Science Journal