Surf's up!

The US Open of Surfing was held last week in Huntington Beach, Calif. You can watch video highlights of the event online on YouTube.

This event coincides nicely with a podcast I recently made about “spiritual surfing.” I shared my own discovery of ocean surfing one summer at the beach when I got on a body surfboard for the first time. I found that, when I caught a wave properly, I could not only ride the wave, but I couldn’t keep from being carried atop that wave – swiftly, effortlessly, even triumphantly, all the way to shore. I found it exhilarating!

As I told the podcast audience, this experience has stayed with me as a metaphor for how the Christ operates in thought. The Christ is defined by Mary Baker Eddy in “Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures” as “the true idea voicing good, the divine message from God to men speaking to the human consciousness” (p. 332). The ever-present Christ uplifts, redeems, guides, and heals.

I like to think of the Christ as a perpetual wave of goodness. And I think of my mental “surfboard” as spiritual sense, or the capacity to understand God, an ability inherent in each of us. Mounting this surfboard enables me to catch that perfect wave – to hear the divine message of goodness being imparted constantly to everyone. Riding this wave takes away human will and worry, and I can let the Christ carry me, swiftly, effortlessly, and triumphantly, all the way to a satisfying solution to any problem at hand.

One listener to the podcast posted this question in response: “I struggle with letting God’s plan unfold and not doing anything myself.... If I am looking for a job, does that mean [I shouldn’t] send out a résumé – is that not the right thing to do?”

That’s a fair question. Practical footsteps are definitely in keeping with spiritual surfing. The key is letting the Christ guide which steps we take. I love this message from Proverbs: “Trust in the Lord with all thine heart; and lean not unto thine own understanding. In all thy ways acknowledge him, and he shall direct thy paths” (3:5, 6). A wonderful thing about how God communicates is that answers come in tangible, practical ways that we can understand, right now, this moment.

I’ve found that reliance on God regarding employment has yielded some truly inspiring results, but the practical steps I’ve taken have varied significantly given the divine guidance I’ve received in each case. Sometimes I’ve enlisted a recruiting company. Other times I have sent out résumés myself. And I’ve had a number of interviews. Regardless of where my prayers take me, I find that prayer itself is still the most important practical step.

Once while I was longing for a new type of job and praying to see more clearly the infinite nature of God’s provision, my boss, who knew nothing about what I was thinking, created a job for me that was a perfect match for what I was seeking. At another time, my boss called me into his office unexpectedly to tell me that he’d decided I didn’t make enough money, and he gave me a substantial raise. (Yes, just like that!) I felt this was a result of my ongoing prayer at that time regarding a clearer sense of my spiritual self-worth, seeking to better understand my capacity to reflect the infinite divine intelligence.

Catching the Christ-wave of goodness provides an infinite seascape of possibilities to meet the need at hand. Each instance of spiritual listening is unique, but letting God direct our actions and decisions, step by step, leads to the fruition of His plan. And I find repeatedly that the divine plan is better than any human plan I could devise.

I love affirming that each of us has a spiritual surfboard – and the surf’s always up!

For inspirational podcasts, see "Your Daily Lift" on christianscience.com.