God's total package

Don't settle for less.

By James Shepherd

Do You Ever think that if only you were a different gender, age, or economic background, you'd be better—more complete?

Consider the Bible's statement that we are God's likeness, created "in his own image" (Gen. 1:27). Since God is complete, wouldn't His image—the spiritual identity of each one of us—be complete? Commenting on our wholeness, Mary Baker Eddy writes, "Principle is not to be found in fragmentary ideas" (Science and Health, p. 302).

Once, when I was in college, I caught myself believing that I was an "essay" student and, therefore, not very good at true/false questions. I thought about this and realized that if I was the image of God, then God, not I, was the source of my intelligence. God isn't just an "essay Guy." So I could express intelligence just as well on true/false questions as on essay questions. This spiritual insight helped me get better at answering all types of test questions.

Because we are God's image and likeness, we're already complete and have access to unlimited divine intelligence, power, order, joy, health, and peace. God's universe is jampacked with these qualities—like a room so stuffed with balloons that they leave no space for anything else. As one of the psalms in the Bible reads, "The earth is full of the goodness of the Lord" (Ps. 33:5). God's goodness fills all space. His creation is complete—with nothing missing.

Jesus proved this to be true. He restored both sight and hearing. He fed multitudes with only a few fish and a couple of loaves of bread. He showed that God's wholeness and abundance were present in people's lives even when it looked as if they weren't. He restored people's sense of completeness.

The next day I could work painlessly.

Something happened a few years ago that showed me my completeness as God's child one morning when I was cleaning some rotting potatoes out of a cellar. As I jumped off the tractor, I landed on a bunch of nails that were sticking out of a board hidden in the decomposing goop. The nails went through my boot and deep into my foot. After some time, the farmer who owned the cellar stopped by, and noticing that I was in a lot of pain, suggested that I quit work for the day, which I did.

I spent most of the rest of the afternoon praying and reading from the Bible and Science and Health. I gradually began to feel calmer as I prayed and became more convinced that my nature was spiritual. I was able to irrigate crops that evening, although with some pain, and even though this required walking about a mile on rough furrows. The next day I did errands in town, and by that evening I was able to irrigate with very little discomfort. The next day I could work painlessly—back in that same cellar! There were no aftereffects at all.

As God's image, we are not flawed, unfinished, or partial products; we're not one-dimensional either. When an athlete is exceptional in all phases of a sport, he or she is sometimes referred to as the "total package." As God's likeness, we all are God's total package.

Send a comment to the editors

NEXT IN THIS ISSUE

Article

A fresh approach to elections

November 6, 2000

Contents

We'd love to hear from you!

Easily submit your testimonies, articles, and poems online.

Submit