At a time when people everywhere seem to be trying to find their right place—in a job, a school, a sports team, a community—it’s reassuring to know that there’s a law of God, divine Mind, applicable to placement that leaves nothing to chance.

Christian Science explains that this law is rooted in spiritual reality, in the allness of Mind and its ideas. The ideas of God are forever in their right place, governed and directed by Mind. Through the understanding of this reality we are able to demonstrate it, and we find our lives being directed in the right way, at the right time.

This truth of our relationship to God as His ideas is demonstrated a number of times in the Bible, where people are directed to accomplish God-appointed tasks, although they might not at first realize it. But, for me, one simple pronouncement confirms that God places all of us where we can best fulfill His purpose for us. It’s in the book of the prophet Ezekiel, where we read among God’s promises to the Israelites: “I will place them” (37:26).

Elsewhere in the Bible we read that Jacob “lighted upon a certain place” and had a dream in which he saw “the angels of God ascending and descending” on a ladder that “reached to heaven.” When he awoke, he said, “Surely the Lord is in this place; and I knew it not” (see Genesis 28:10–17). And in the book of Jonah we learn how Jonah at first didn’t want to go to Nineveh, where God had directed him to be. Eventually, he responded to the divine will and benefited the city, which was in need of healing. 

But such events don’t just happen. They are the outcome of earnest study and prayer, which lead to an understanding of the spiritual reality that undergirds them. Then we appreciate how the placings in our lives happen, and there is no room for speculation that any other power could influence the situations we face. We are God’s beneficiaries, and understanding His benevolent will, and yielding to it, produces the best results.

Of course we take whatever human steps are necessary—application forms, careful research, and so on—but we can handle such tasks in the certainty that God is guiding our steps and “will not suffer [our] foot to be moved” (Psalms 121:3). The divine Mind will ensure that, one way or another, we will be in our right place.

As God’s children, we can only ever be in our right place at the right time.

At one time, when I was doing my National Service in the British Army, I was among a number of soldiers who, having completed their training, were waiting to be told where they would be posted. Some men were apprehensive, as there were some parts of the world that were not as peaceful as others. I prayed daily for a better understanding of God’s government, not just in my own life, but in the lives of all those in my unit. Soon I felt confident that God would place me where He wanted me to be, and that it would be a good place.

As I prayed, some lines based on a Martin Luther hymn reassured me: “With Him we shall prevail, / Whatever may assail.” And why? “He is our shield and tower, / Almighty is His power” (Frederic W. Root, Christian Science Hymnal, No. 10).

When the postings were announced, I learned that I would be heading for Malta, an island in the Mediterranean where Britain still had a military presence, but a peaceful one. And I could not have been better placed. 

Soon I was offered a part-time job on the local daily newspaper, which set me off on a journalistic career. I was appointed the Christian Science representative for the Armed Services on the island and was able to help build up an informal group of Christian Scientists there. It was truly a divinely led placement, and since then I have never doubted that God puts us where we can do the maximum good.

Many other life experiences have confirmed for me that as God’s children, we can only ever be in our right place at the right time. When I’ve had any doubts, or genuinely believed I could be in a better situation, an understanding that God’s law is always operating in my experience has brought about an appropriate adjustment. 

God will reveal the placement He has for us.

Accepting that God has brought me to where I am, I’ve remained confident that He will take me onward, without fear on my part of mistakes or misplacement. God already has a place for me: “Behold, I send an Angel before thee, to keep thee in the way, and to bring thee into the place which I have prepared” (Exodus 23:20). 

As many people have proved, God’s place for us is always more propitious and spiritually beneficial than any place we may have conceived of by ourselves—at work, school, home, or in the community. Under God’s guidance, and through living a life of spiritual healing and obedience to God, we become “living stones … each in his place” (Nikolaj F. S. Grundtvig, Christian Science Hymnal, No. 176, adapt. © CSBD). 

In a poem Mary Baker Eddy penned on the laying of the cornerstone of The Mother Church, she wrote, implying the need for humble obedience: “Like this stone, be in thy place: / Stand, not sit” (Poems, p. 76). 

Certainly the place God has prepared for us is one filled with divine and eternal unfoldment. For, in Isaiah we read that “the glory of Lebanon shall come unto thee … to beautify the place of my sanctuary; and I will make the place of my feet glorious…. and they shall call thee, The city of the Lord, The Zion of the Holy One of Israel” (60:13, 14).

Wherever we are guided by God to be, we can be sure that He has placed us where we can do the most good for ourselves and for humanity. At the right moment, without any doubt or fear on our part, God will reveal the placement He has for us. We have His promise, His cast-iron guarantee: “I will place you.”