Christian Science Canberra   Promoting Health, Wellbeing and Spiritual Healing in a Scientific World

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A member of the Christian Science community in Canberra shared his thoughts on how Christian Science helps him:

Recently I have found myself being very busy trying to achieve the many goals I have set myself.  These tasks seemed important and usually came with deadlines.  In doing this I have realised that I have let go of my usual focus on spiritual development.  As a Christian Scientist there is a commitment to the daily prayer (Church Manual p41):

Thy kingdom come

Let the reign of divine Truth, Life and Love be established in me, and rule out of me all sin

And may Thy Word enrich the affections of all mankind

And govern them

I found that I had almost just been saying the words to the daily prayer, for example, without really having a full commitment to it. I had been studying the Daily Bible Lesson but not with the same degree of commitment or focus as a result of this busy work. I had foregone the focus and commitment to developing spiritually and instead had been focusing on getting this busy work done. The busy work itself had taken over my attention.

Even the busy work – those little goals – weren’t being achieved with the same degree of freedom, the same degree of perfection, I had previously been able to achieve. When I had taken a more spiritual or a more focused attention to the spiritual side of my life there didn’t appear to be such a focus on busy work or human activity, and the busy work didn’t seem so difficult.

In my commitment to Christian Science there is the understanding it is more than just the Daily Prayer or doing the Daily Bible Lesson. It is a commitment to a way of living and that way of living has an impact on what happens. In her textbook Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures, Mary Baker Eddy writes (p423):

The Christian Scientist, understanding scientifically that all is Mind, commences with mental causation, the truth of being, to destroy the error. This corrective is an alterative, reaching to every part of the human system. According to Scripture, it searches “the joints and marrow,” and it restores the harmony of man.

The inharmony on display because of the busy work had been brought about by my neglect of the spiritual recognition that all is brought about by mental causation.  I had to remember to trust God to give me the order of work – He knew what was important and what needed to be done in what order. It was necessary to find that quiet mental place to pray; to silence the material senses and intrusive noises. Once again I turned to Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures, where Mary Baker Eddy writes (p15):

In order to pray aright, we must enter into the closet and shut the door. We must close the lips and silence the material senses. In the quiet sanctuary of earnest longings, we must deny sin and plead God’s allness. We must resolve to take up the cross, and go forth with honest hearts to work and watch for wisdom, Truth, and Love. We must “pray without ceasing.” Such prayer is answered, in so far as we put our desires into practice. The Master’s injunction is, that we pray in secret and let our lives attest our sincerity.

I shall be forever grateful for Christian Science.  The study of Christian Science and application to my life has allowed me to make significant long lasting and beneficial changes to my way of thinking and living. Christian Science is to me, an applied, practical science that can be used everyday in one’s life.  The application of Christian Science in this instance has allowed me to be free from the constraints of ‘busyness’ and to be much more productive both materially and spiritually.