IT WAS AFTER midnight. I was in the middle of a writing project and it was not going well. There was a deadline, and I was feeling stuck. I even felt that maybe I had the wrong subject. Then to top it off, a peculiar, painful condition developed in my jaw. I thought, "Oh, no. I don't need any additional problems to hinder the progress of this writing assignment."

Because it was late, I didn't want to call someone and ask for help through prayer. Instead, I determined to be as spiritually minded as I could and yield humbly to God's care. I finished up some other needful work and went to bed, still in some discomfort.

During the night, I kept praying, and in the morning I experienced to a degree what Mary Baker Eddy described as "one moment of divine consciousness" (Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures, p. 598). I felt the allness of God in that divine moment in which there is no physical time, only the awareness that He is present and that His creation is spiritually perfect and complete. I knew I was that creation—my identity was the compound of all the divine Mind's ideas right then. These ideas included no pain, no physical difficulty, in fact, no physicality of any kind.

Suddenly, I regained the inspiration and conviction that I needed.

I'd been struggling with that writing deadline, and in my work in general. I'd even been feeling somewhat like Elijah when, in discouragement and desperation, he cried, "It is enough" (I Kings 19:4). But Elijah kept climbing higher, and that's what I was doing. By that I mean I began to feel a renewed sense of the power and freshness of Christian Science. I saw that the discouraging thoughts didn't come from divine Mind. They came from a supposed, opposite mind. Through humbly dropping the material sense of everything, I gained the quiet glory that God gives us—that spiritual sense of ourselves that is satisfied to be what the divine Mind has designed us to be. As I became inspired, the physical pain lessened. Later that day, the pain completely disappeared and did not return. I was able to go forward, and eventually took the writing project to a successful completion.

Humility, to me, is a willingness to drop all materially based concepts of my being and yield entirely to the spiritual identity that God has given me. The opposite of humility is the determination to outline what we want to happen according to our own personal desires. What's difficult about the latter approach is that things don't always work out in exactly the way we've projected, especially if those projections are materially oriented.

Beyond offering only uncertain outcomes, the material view is, in fact, mistaken. It doesn't correspond with the reality of our being that God has created. Yet, the material view of things—what we perceive with the five physical senses—can seem very tenacious. And here is where humility is required.

Through humility, I can say, "I will submit myself entirely to God and to His laws. I will acknowledge that God is the creative Mind, which produces all the ideas that make up the real creation. I will accept these ideas with my whole heart. I will see that God is infinite Love, who only intends to care for me and everyone. I will see God as eternal Life, which preserves every idea intact and flourishing. Humility will keep me from reacting to the arrogance of material-sense evidence and flawed theories that claim to determine my identity or the identity of anyone else."

Disease involves our accepting that a particular physical condition is real, instead of recognizing it as a mistaken mental image. We can overcome such a false sense through the humility that willingly drops the erroneous mental image and submits entirely to the true spiritual image.

Jesus is my supreme example. He expressed pure humility and submitted himself entirely to God. Through humility, he was able to see as false the evidence of all kinds of disease, and thereby heal those who came to him. Jesus' parable of a Pharisee and a publican at prayer illustrates the need to turn away from a prideful material view of oneself, and yield entirely to God. In this parable, the Pharisee recounted his personal rectitude, religious observance, and generous giving of his possessions. The publican, on the other hand, didn't even lift up his eyes, "but smote upon his breast, saying, God be merciful to me a sinner" (see Luke 18:9-14).

I have to admit that for a long time I had trouble with this parable. I could understand Jesus' negative assessment of the Pharisee's attitude, but I didn't see how he could approve of the publican's prayer—the man's acknowledgment of himself as a sinner seemed to contradict what the Bible says about man and woman being created in God's own image and likeness. But I came to see that the publican was really yearning to be released from the concept of himself as a sinning mortal, and was reaching for God's mercy to lift him up. That helped me see why Jesus said approvingly, "I tell you, this man went down to his house justified rather than the other: for every one that exalteth himself shall be abased; and he that humbleth himself shall be exalted" (18:14).

At one time in my own practice of spiritual healing, I yearned to see more effective results. And as I thought about Jesus' description of the publican's prayer, I saw ways to make my own prayer deeper and more penetrating.

I saw how the publican called on God's mercy. This turned my thought entirely to God as the power that releases me from a mortal view of myself and others. I thought of all the areas of life in which I could replace a material, humanly exalted view of myself with a view of being entirely dependent on God as the source and substance of my being. Various facets of human existence came to mind, such as race, education, background, possessions, position, health, physical appearance, talents, even religious affiliation—the various ways in which people compare themselves with others. They may feel superior to others in certain areas, or on the other hand deprived and therefore lower on the scale. But if it's materially based, either view relates to human pride.

God's mercy doesn't favor one person over another. His mercy flows from unconditional love for each of His ideas, His children. God needs each expression of Himself to be fully manifested. If God is infinite Love, as the Bible says, this means there can be no limit to the love He bestows. If God is infinite Mind, there can be no limit to the intelligence and ability He expresses through His creation. If God is Soul, then health and wholeness are the very essence of His creation, and must characterize each individual in creation.

God doesn't elevate any one of us above another, but exalts everyone to express Him in his or her own special and needed way. As this exaltation of spiritual reality takes place in our consciousness, the pride of materiality is exposed as powerless, nonexistent. Material concepts of race, education, background, possessions, position, health, beauty, talent, and faith are all elevated to their spiritual level.

As this mental and spiritual transformation takes place, healing occurs. Healing is actually the outward effect of our accepting God's creation as it exists now and always. And humility makes it happen. |css