Drawn to good

A woman had made some poor moral choices. She’d allowed herself to be drawn into relationships and ways of thinking that were foreign to her stable religious upbringing.

One night she reached a crisis point. Death appeared to be a very real possibility. In an act of desperation, she called and prayed with a Christian Science practitioner. At that point, she literally surrendered everything that had drawn her away from God and from those who yearned to support her spiritual progress.

It was as though something just reached into her consciousness and swept away everything bad. She felt good about being alive. She felt clean. Virtually overnight her world changed. She moved into relationships that were healthy and moral. Spiritually minded family and friends were again part of her daily activities.

What was at the heart of this dramatic change? Some would call it the cleansing action of Christ within consciousness. There’s inherent goodness in the Christ that dispels what is immoral and bad. These words by Mary Baker Eddy in her book “Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures” help explain an experience like the one that touched this woman and drew her away from the bad and toward the good: “Christ is the true idea voicing good, the divine message from God to men speaking to the human consciousness” (p. 332).

When we experience this true idea revealing good, the false idea insisting on bad dissolves. Maybe a little like darkness that ceases when light dawns. For most of us, even the difficult day-to-day relationships we endure won’t explode into the drama my friend experienced. Perhaps we’ve argued with a neighbor and now we’re letting that argument pester our consciousness. That’s a false idea voicing bad. But when the Christ whispers into our thought, that’s the true idea voicing goodness and melting conflict. With this true idea instilling good, we’re more likely to find unity with the neighbor.

There is something natural and right about relationships finding harmony and peace. It is good for them to rest on spiritual love and innocence instead of on frustration or impurity. We are grateful when conflict is resolved – whether it’s with the neighbor, the neighborhood, or society as a whole. But just for people to come together and get along again doesn’t, of itself, bless everyone as much as when Christ is the key to our being together once more. Christ calling mortals together isn’t quite the same as Christ calling us to good – and good being the beautiful presence we all gather within.

If we are just drawn together with fellow humans, we may still be vulnerable to potential discords. We need this “coming together” to be rooted in a Christly cleansing. We need Christ pulling us toward the divine good, and this pull toward the good provides the most stable and enduring basis for people to work together. Mary Baker Eddy writes of Christians themselves finding unity. But she links this oneness with the Christ. She explains: “Our unity with churches of other denominations must rest on the spirit of Christ calling us together. It cannot come from any other source” (“Pulpit and Press,” p. 21). Certainly not from mortals who grudgingly agree to get along.

Whether relationships relate to moral questions, conflict with neighbors, how nations are faring, or even theological differences, when we are drawn to the good voiced by the Christ, we’ll have harmony and genuine advancement. And the reason for this firm foundation will rest not so much on people who too easily change their minds, but on the Christ described in the Bible as “the same yesterday, and to-day, and for ever” (Hebrews 13:8).

You can help spread harmony with these prayerful affirmations:

• Christ is the true idea.

• The false idea has no truth.

• Christ is voicing good.

• The false idea cannot draw us to the bad.

• Every individual is capable of resisting the bad and being drawn to the good, where we find our unity.

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