When good appears to fail…

Sometimes it seems, when you’ve done your best and stuck it out and stayed with your highest sense of right and kept working – that good still appears to fail.  Sometimes it seems, that despite your best efforts, things just don’t work out.  Sometimes it just seems too hard to bear.

The disciples certainly felt that way.  They were learning and growing.  They were healing and reforming others.  They were just beginning to get the hang of things, when their Master – their teacher and friend – was taken from them and crucified.  And there was nothing they could do and they just weren’t ready.  Their confusion and sorrow was overwhelming.  What now?  Everything they’d looked forward to was simply gone.  They had no hope, an uncertain future, and were afraid for their own lives.

When Jesus appeared to them after his resurrection, it was nearly as hard to believe as his disappearance.  But all of a sudden, what had seemed impossible – joy, progress, a real future – became possible.  If their Master could actually break the bonds of the grave, perhaps everything else he taught them was true as well.  Perhaps good was actually powerful enough to succeed.

Referring to St. John’s vision of the apocalypse, and recognizing its present promise of a new heaven and a new earth here and now, Mary Baker Eddy said, “Take heart, dear sufferer, for this reality of being will surely appear sometime and in some way. There will be no more pain, and all tears will be wiped away. When you read this, remember Jesus’ words, ‘The kingdom of God is within you.’ This spiritual consciousness is therefore a present possibility.”  (Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures, p. 573)

Even when good appears to fail, that’s not the whole story.  The Apostle Paul said as much in Romans 8:35,37: “Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword? Nay, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him that loved us.”

More than conquerors. Imagine the fullness of that promise.

So, be persistent, stick with it, don’t give up.  Good, God, really is at work on your behalf.  Jesus proved it, his disciples proved it, countless individuals trusting in those examples have proved it.  You can too.

Good never fails.

Melissa Hayden is a Christian Science practitioner in Salem, OR. You can find more information and additional articles at this link.  If you like what you’re reading, click the “add me” button.

Are you missing what’s right in front of you?

I have a hand towel hanging right next to my kitchen sink, inches away from the faucet.  It’s unmissable.  At least I thought it was.  But I’ve noticed that sometimes visitors to my kitchen completely by-pass it and walk across the room to the decorative cloths hanging from the handle of the oven door.  That’s because, in their own kitchens, that’s where the dish towel is located.

So the bigger question is, are we doing that in our lives with things that are more important than hand towels?  Like God.

The fact is, God is right in front of us.  No matter what direction we’re facing.  The Apostle Paul said to the Athenians, that God was not unknown, but infinite and ever present, and that “they should seek the Lord, if haply they might feel after him, and find him, though he be not far from every one of us: For in him we live, and move, and have our being.”  (Acts 17:27,28)

If we’re looking for happiness and health any place other than God, maybe we’re missing what’s right in front of us.  The Psalmist wrote, “Bless the Lord, O my soul, and forget not all his benefits: Who forgiveth all thine iniquities; who healeth all thy diseases; Who redeemeth thy life from destruction; who crowneth thee with lovingkindness and tender mercies.”  (103:2-4)

Jesus understood these ancient texts to be true hundreds of years after they were written.  He relied on God to meet every one of his needs, proving time and time again the verity of those joyful words.  He taught his disciples to trust God for everything.  And he expected us, his followers in this age, to do the same.

Issues seem to arise when we believe we already know what we need to know and have what we need to have.  But like the person who walks across my kitchen – dripping water all the way – they find the towel on the oven door is not very absorbent.  In fact, it’s pretty much just for looks.

Jesus tells of a young man who left home looking for health and happiness, and lost both.  He only found it after he returned home.  His Father said, “all that I have is thine.” (Luke 15:11-32) In other words, you don’t have to go searching all over for what was here all along.

That’s the message for us too, in Jesus’ own words: “seek ye first the kingdom of God, and his righteousness; and all these things shall be added unto you.”  (Matt 6:33)

Melissa Hayden is a Christian Science practitioner in Salem, OR. You can find more information and additional articles at this link.  If you like what you’re reading, click the “add me” button.

No more harm

The news has been full of stories of deadly harm: stories in which anger, misogyny, white supremacy, hatred, and fear (and many other etceteras) have played huge roles.  And people have died.

We must act.  We must take back our peace.  We must protect those we love from harm.  And we must prevent those who would harm from making those awful choices.

We are not helpless.

All of those negative thoughts and character traits are not new.  You can find them in the Bible.  The Apostle Paul said, “the works of the flesh are manifest, which are these; Adultery, fornication, uncleanness, lasciviousness, idolatry, witchcraft, hatred, variance, emulations, wrath, strife, seditions, heresies, envyings, murders, drunkenness, revellings, and such like: of the which I tell you before, as I have also told you in time past, that they which do such things shall not inherit the kingdom of God.”

But he also offers a solution: “the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, longsuffering, gentleness, goodness, faith, meekness, temperance: against such there is no law.”  (Gal 5:19-22)  Paul was convinced that all of those wretched sins, including deadly harm, could be prevented and even undone, through confronting them with the power of the fruit of the Spirit.

Now, before you imagine that joy or meekness have no power before someone wielding a shotgun, consider this story from the Bible.  Jesus had just reprimanded the crowd with his references to Elijah and Elisha.  Luke, chapter 4 relates that “all they in the synagogue, when they heard these things, were filled with wrath, and rose up, and thrust him out of the city, and led him unto the brow of the hill whereon their city was built, that they might cast him down headlong.  But he passing through the midst of them went his way.”

Their intent for him was deadly harm.  But this meek, peaceful, longsuffering and gentle man, simply walked through them.  And he said to us, “He that believeth on me, the works that I do shall he do also; and greater works than these shall he do.”  (John 14:12)  Jesus intended for us to be as safe – and as harmless – as he.

We need to know that we can be temperate or loving or faithful.  And not only under normal circumstances, but even in the face of violence, just as Jesus was.  The cure to any awful situation is living those qualities on a consistent basis, and with authority, recognizing their saving power.

Again, the Apostle Paul wrote, “Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword?  Nay, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him that loved us. For I am persuaded, that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor powers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor height, nor depth, nor any other creature, shall be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord.”  (Romans 8:35, 37-39)

Let us be actively expressing the fruit of the Spirit.  Let us confront evil thoughts and actions with good thoughts and actions.  Let us overturn the verdict of helplessness with the authority of the Christ.

It is the only thing that will never fail.

Melissa Hayden is a Christian Science practitioner in Salem, OR. You can find more information and additional articles at this link.  If you like what you’re reading, click the “add me” button.

You are more than your problems

Does it sometimes seem like all of the issues in your life are so overwhelming that you can’t think of anything else?  That you are defined by the things that are happening to you, rather than the other way around?  Rest assured that you are more than your problems.

Jesus said, “Seek ye first the kingdom of God, and his righteousness; and all these things shall be added unto you.”  (Matt 6:33)  He wasn’t suggesting that either your problems or your needs were to be ignored or dismissed.  But he was giving some perspective.  Here’s how Eugene Peterson explains that Bible verse in The Message: “Steep your life in God-reality, God-initiative, God-provisions. Don’t worry about missing out. You’ll find all your everyday human concerns will be met.”

Jesus knew what he was talking about.  The Bible reports no instance of Jesus having to go without or make do.  Every circumstance was resolved – even his crucifixion – as he turned to his heavenly Father for guidance, strength, and inspiration.  He even understood his identity to be God-given: he knew he was the Christ.

Although you and I are not the Christ, our identity is God-given too.  These passages in Genesis confirm it: “God created man in his own image, in the image of God created he him; male and female created he them.  And God saw every thing that he had made, and, behold, it was very good.”  (1:27.31)

It may take some effort to step back from the issues confronting you to begin to grasp your spiritual self-hood, but doing so – even just a little bit – helps to open the door to seeing the real you.  And that real you – the you God creates and cares for – has everything necessary to begin to resolve all those problems.  Jesus showed us the way.  And as we follow him as he directed, seeking all that we need from our heavenly Father, “all these things shall be added unto” us.

Here is a link to the final chapter in Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures by Mary Baker Eddy.  There are 87 accounts here of people who were healed of innumerable problems, overwhelming issues, life-threatening conditions, simply by turning to God.  And there are hundreds if not thousands more reports – documented and verified – available.

You are more than your problems – you are God’s beloved child in whom He is well pleased.

Melissa Hayden is a Christian Science practitioner in Salem, OR. You can find more information and additional articles at this link.  If you like what you’re reading, click the “add me” button.