On summer evenings, I love to walk to a nearby pond. There, I stand quietly and watch as ducks splash water through their feathers, then climb onto the grassy bank. Frogs, camouflaged by little green plants that grow up through the water, snatch one more meal for the night. And turtles glide noiselessly to the cover of fallen twigs and retreat into their shells.
This idyllic, almost storybook scene always makes me appreciate the abundance of life that the pond sustains. And while nature certainly includes its own forms of competition, the pond scene is a nice illustration of a peaceful balance – of each animal’s needs being met.
Sometimes it can feel like life is all about competition – that there’s only so much good available, and not everyone gets to have it. But a change in how we think about life can open up a fuller understanding that good is unlimited and available to all. Then we can experience this abundance, here and now.
This week’s Bible Lesson from the “Christian Science Quarterly,” which is on the topic of “Life,” begins with an account of Christ Jesus talking with a woman who had come to draw water from a well. Jesus tells her, “Whosoever drinketh of this water shall thirst again: but whosoever drinketh of the water that I shall give him shall never thirst; but the water that I shall give him shall be in him a well of water springing up into everlasting life” (John 4:13, 14).
Jesus describes the contrast between material water and spiritual “water,” a symbol of the Word of God – which reveals that Life is God, Spirit. While matter will inevitably run out and need to be replenished, the inspiration, abundance, and healing that come from God are continuously springing up because they are completely independent from mortality.
Mary Baker Eddy, who discovered Christian Science, writes in “Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures,” “Whatever is governed by God, is never for an instant deprived of the light and might of intelligence and Life” (p. 215). Because God loves His creation, He governs it, and that means that none of His creation – which includes each of us as God’s spiritual offspring – can be deprived of the good He provides.
There was a time when I was looking for employment, and it seemed that everyone kept beating me to the best jobs. In a sense, I could relate to the man in another biblical account included in the Lesson. For 38 years the man had been an invalid. It was believed that a certain body of water had the power to heal immediately after an angel touched it, but only for the first person who could get there. The man, limited by his physical condition, was never first.
When the man told Jesus his predicament, Jesus said, “Rise, take up thy bed, and walk.” The account continues, “And immediately the man was made whole, and took up his bed, and walked” (John 5:8, 9).
Jesus didn’t carry the man to the water in order to heal him, because Jesus understood that wasn’t where the healing power actually was. As a child of God, the man truly was spiritual and whole, which is true for all of us. And we have a divine right to experience that wholeness.
Jesus’ understanding of life as spiritual lifted the man out of infirmity and limitation into his God-given freedom.
As I thought about this story in relation to my employment situation, I realized I didn’t need to be afraid of others stepping in before me. Good isn’t limited to one job, one company, one location. Having its source in God, good is available to all.
Another name for God is Love. Science and Health tells us, “Love is impartial and universal in its adaptation and bestowals. It is the open fount which cries, ‘Ho, every one that thirsteth, come ye to the waters’” (p. 13).
I prayed to more fully understand God as divine Life and Love, impartially and universally inviting all to partake of “the waters.” Soon, several opportunities opened up that I hadn’t thought of, and I found very fulfilling work.
Everyone can accept the invitation to come to the waters of divine Life – to live in the abundance of good that continuously flows from our loving Father-Mother God.
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