Your day at the office has been full of demands: letters to sign, a meeting to chair, documents to approve to get an important project underway. Your e-mail and in-box are getting ahead of you. Your calendar for the rest of the week is full. Then your boss comes in. He cannot make it to an important meeting in Phoenix tomorrow (you live in Denver). You need to represent the company in his stead. Pressure. So many things crowding in.

Or another scenario: You've come home from your part-time job in time to greet the children as they return from school. Then you turn chauffeur—Robert to Little League practice, Sarah to dance class, Tim to his piano lesson. You get home in time to prepare a simple family dinner when your spouse calls. What about having an important client home for dinner? As you start planning a more elaborate menu, your neighbor calls. She has an emergency with her toddler. Could you come to the rescue? Tension. So many demands pulling you in all directions.

In these illustrations, the pressured business person and the tensioned parent both feel the influence of many forces, or the demands of many minds—pushing or pulling in different directions. Both physical and mental stress, either pressure or tension, involve opposing forces. Rest an empty milk carton on your hand and it's not under pressure. But squeeze it between your two hands, pushing the sides together, and it will collapse under the pressure. Or hold a rubber band in one hand, and it will hang loosely under no tension. But hold it with both hands and pull them apart, and you'll stretch it tight with tension. Stress always involves opposing forces, either pushing together or pulling apart. But without opposing forces there's neither tension nor pressure—no stress. So how do we eliminate the opposing forces?

We can look for guidance to the most unstressed individual who ever was—Christ Jesus. Someone once commented that Jesus was always all caught up—no pile of things waiting to be done. He lived consciously at one with his Father, God, the creative, divine Principle of the universe. He was always ready to address any situation through God's infinite power, which was reflected in him.

In his healing ministry, Jesus called for a radical change of thinking to recognize the kingdom of heaven at hand. The kingdom of heaven is a spiritually mental state of total harmony under the unerring government of God—infinite good—who is totally unopposed because He is All. You can't have allness and something else.

This one unopposed power or force of supreme good is the creative Mind that can never be subdivided into many minds, but is expressed in infinite individual ideas that are always harmoniously related, rightly placed, intelligently governed. These ideas constitute the real you, the real me, the underlying spiritual identity of everyone everywhere. In this realm of Mind-governed activity, there are no conflicts, no cross-purposes. There's no pressure, no tension, no stress of any kind. But there's orderly action, useful productivity, the constructive interrelating of different talents and capabilities. There's creative vision leading to accomplishment and fulfillment.

This kingdom-of-heaven-consciousness is available to everyone at every moment. And we bring it progressively into our lives through prayer. Let's consider possible ways of praying in the two examples quoted earlier.

As the business executive, you might recall the words of the Apostle Paul to the Romans, "All things work together for good to them that love God" (8:28). By loving God as your only Mind—and the only Mind of everyone in your office and in the meeting in Phoenix—you can know that you will be provided with all the capability you need for the assignment, and that others will have the capacity to fill your place while you're away.

You can expect the fulfillment of this passage from Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures, where the author, Mary Baker Eddy, explains: "The term Science, properly understood, refers only to the laws of God and to His government of the universe, inclusive of man. From this it follows that business men and cultured scholars have found that Christian Science enhances their endurance and mental powers, enlarges their perception of character, gives them acuteness and comprehensiveness and an ability to exceed their ordinary capacity" (p. 128). You can trust God's "government of the universe" to include every detail of the activities both in your office and in the Phoenix meeting.

Possible results? There's no stress for those making your travel arrangements and taking on your work at the office. You head off to Phoenix confident about the meeting, and feeling inspired and peaceful about the activities you're leaving behind.

Now to the other scenario: As the house-parent pulled in several directions, you might recall another of Paul's statements, "I can do all things through Christ which strengtheneth me" (Phil. 4:13). Christ, the godliness that animated Jesus and empowered his healing works, comes as a divine message to each of us, and you are responsive to its guidance. Christ assures you that God, divine Love, is present everywhere to meet every need. Right now He is embracing your neighbor and her child in His all-powerful care, wiping out fear and establishing calm.

Possible results? By the time you reach the neighbor's house, things have already quieted down. After your comforting words reassuring them both of God's presence and healing power, and some big hugs, the crisis is over.

You reach home rejoicing in gratitude for Love's provision for each detail and its unfolding of right ideas step by step. And you recall another statement from Science and Health: "The human capacities are enlarged and perfected in proportion as humanity gains the true conception of man and God" (p. 258). You can feel this truth being borne out and all things truly working "together for good" because you are loving God. Holding on to this idea as you collect the children and work out what to make for dinner, you are free of resentment and open to inspiration not only about the meal but also about the "logistics" involved in meeting your other obligations.

These conclusions might seem too good to be true. But no. They actually echo many real-life experiences that have resulted from prayer. The prayer that starts from the standpoint that the kingdom of heaven is at hand acknowledges the present and universal government of the one infinite Principle, God, whose power is unopposed. With no opposing forces there can be no pressure, no tension—stress solved. Harmony reigns.