It’s easy to think that we know ourselves better than anyone else knows us. However, over the past year or so, I’ve learned that God knows each and every one of us better than we know ourselves.

Two years ago, when I was a high school senior, I hadn’t realized that concept yet. As I was applying to colleges, there was one school that I had my heart completely set on. It seemed as if it would be the perfect fit. However, I never truly “consulted” God throughout the entire college application process. 

I had been attending a Christian Science Sunday School for the past 15 years or so, where I had learned that I would always be in my right place. In other words, I was always in the care and presence of God. At the time, though, I believed being always in “my right place” meant that if I thought a specific school was the right one, then it had to be, even if this wasn’t a spiritual intuition I’d received.

I soon learned that this was not the case. A few months after I applied to my top-choice school, I got a rejection letter in the mail. At first, I just felt really sad about the letter, but soon I started to feel angry with God. Why would Father-Mother God prevent me from being in my right place, I asked myself? Why would He not want me to attend the school that was so perfect for me? Was my concept of God as good and loving all wrong?

During this time, my parents kept reminding me that God is always guiding us. They reminded me of a passage from the Bible when Jesus prayed to God, “Not my will, but thine, be done” (Luke 22:42). My parents encouraged me to recognize that where God guides us may be different from what we plan, but that we should want to follow only where God leads. I tried to pray with this concept but struggled to fully grasp the idea.

KEN BAUGHMAN—STAFF

I ended up enrolling at a school that I had considered to be my “backup,” because it seemed like the best option out of the schools that had accepted me. By the time move-in day rolled around, I still hadn’t been able to get past the bitter feelings of disappointment in myself and anger toward God. I felt that I couldn’t trust God’s plan for me and that this school wasn’t where I belonged. I wondered whether I would fit in or make any friends, whether I would get along with my roommate or earn good grades. While sitting in a rental car with my mom, I shared these concerns with her.

My mom repeated something she had told me on many other occasions. She reminded me that disappointment is unfulfilled human will. By this she meant that when we focus solely on our material goals without input from divine inspiration, we can never be fully satisfied. As long as I was obedient to God’s will, I could never be disappointed. 

As I said goodbye to my mom and walked back to my new dorm room, I worked on relinquishing the anger and disappointment. I tried to replace them with trust in God and the knowledge that I would always be led to my right place. Each one of us is God’s spiritual reflection, expressing His unlimited goodness. So as I went through orientation, I did my best to bring a positive attitude, remembering that good is spiritual and comes in an abundant flow from God, not from an acceptance letter. 

In that first week, I made many new friends and came to recognize all the great things this school had to offer me. My concerns disappeared by the end of the first month. It couldn’t have been a better fit!

This experience helped me recognize that there’s never any need to worry about what God has in store for us. Our Father-Mother God governs all of Her children, and when we understand this, we are always exactly where we need to be. Because I understood this concept, when it came time for me to decide what I would be doing during the summer, I never felt any anxiety. I immediately turned to God, trusting that the good God had for me was greater than anything I could come up with myself.

In the spring of my freshman year, I started looking for summer internships. I continually prayed with a passage from Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures by Mary Baker Eddy that says: “Let neither fear nor doubt overshadow your clear sense and calm trust, that the recognition of life harmonious—as Life eternally is—can destroy any painful sense of, or belief in, that which Life is not. Let Christian Science, instead of corporeal sense, support your understanding of being, and this understanding will supplant error with Truth, replace mortality with immortality, and silence discord with harmony” (p. 495). 

There’s never any need to worry about what God has in store for us.

I knew that God had always taken care of me, and I had no reason to think that wouldn’t be the case this time.

I found an internship that would allow me to live at home during the summer. It was with an organization that had exactly what I was looking for. I loved my work and made good friends with the other members of the office. Once again, I was lovingly placed exactly where I needed to be.

Christian Science teaches us that all-knowing, all-acting God constantly cares for all of us. Our Father-Mother knows us better than we know ourselves, because God knows our real identity, how He really made us as His expression. And because of this, God is able to give us everything we need. When we let go of self-will, we let go of our vulnerability to disappointment. When we “trust in the Lord with all [our] heart; and lean not unto [our] own understanding” (Proverbs 3:5), we can’t help but let God direct our paths.