Skip to footer

Listening for divine Love’s promise

When we turn to God’s uplifting messages about the truth of our being, we discover our innate freedom, as a man found after he had a bad fall. 

  • By Bruce Butterfield

Christian Science Perspective audio edition
Loading the player...

How often do we wake up in the morning and wonder what the day will bring? Sometimes, if we listen to the news media, things can appear daunting – even hopeless. But if we start by quietly listening to God – staying tuned in to divine Love’s promise of joy – we find that the good outshines anything else and we’re better equipped to deal with challenges.

In the Bible there’s a description of the patriarch Jacob wrestling in thought, struggling with a demoralizing sense of sadness and fear. Suddenly, his thinking opens to let in an angel message from divine Love, which is another name for God, and he is uplifted into joy and healing (see Genesis 32:24-30).

This happened to me during college. One day, joy, freedom, energy, and peace seemed to be demolished and taken from me in an instant. I was leaving the gym after baseball practice and slipped on a patch of ice, falling hard on the stone steps leading down to the street. I was stunned and unable to get up. In the immediate moments that followed, I felt a bit like Jacob – struggling with a disturbing situation but having a hopeful glimpse of divine Love’s promise.

I knew from my study and practice of Christian Science that in order to tangibly realize this angel message, I needed to turn to God and listen. I slowly got up and walked up the street to my dorm room, where I closed the door and began to pray, turning wholeheartedly to God to understand my true selfhood as divine Father-Mother Love’s cared-for child.

At first, this was not easy, but I started to pray by thinking about some Bible-based synonyms for God. I acknowledged God as the only true Principle or cause; as divine Life, ever present and perfect; and as changeless Soul, maintaining my true, spiritual identity. In essence, my prayerful thoughts affirmed God as All-in-all and acknowledged that I always reflect this divine good.

The joy, freedom, energy, and peace mentioned earlier are spiritual qualities of God and can never be stopped or destroyed. They are part of our true spiritual identity, and nothing can make this otherwise. With this realization, I began to feel encompassed by Love – and healing took place immediately.

Every day we can quietly reach out to get a glimpse of divine Love’s promise of ever-present goodness. Nothing can rob us of health, comfort, and joy. Dwelling in the perfect atmosphere of Love, we are refreshed, inspired, unburdened, and joyfully free.

This is divine Love’s promise!

Adapted from a testimony published in the June 26, 2023, issue of the Christian Science Sentinel.

You've read  of  free articles. Subscribe to continue.
Enjoying this content?
Explore the power of gratitude with the Thanksgiving Bible Lesson – free online through December 31, 2024. Available in English, French, German, Spanish, and (new this year) Portuguese.
Read the Thanksgiving Lesson
Mark Sappenfield
Editor

Dear Reader,

About a year ago, I happened upon this statement about the Monitor in the Harvard Business Review – under the charming heading of “do things that don’t interest you”:

“Many things that end up” being meaningful, writes social scientist Joseph Grenny, “have come from conference workshops, articles, or online videos that began as a chore and ended with an insight. My work in Kenya, for example, was heavily influenced by a Christian Science Monitor article I had forced myself to read 10 years earlier. Sometimes, we call things ‘boring’ simply because they lie outside the box we are currently in.”

If you were to come up with a punchline to a joke about the Monitor, that would probably be it. We’re seen as being global, fair, insightful, and perhaps a bit too earnest. We’re the bran muffin of journalism.

But you know what? We change lives. And I’m going to argue that we change lives precisely because we force open that too-small box that most human beings think they live in.

The Monitor is a peculiar little publication that’s hard for the world to figure out. We’re run by a church, but we’re not only for church members and we’re not about converting people. We’re known as being fair even as the world becomes as polarized as at any time since the newspaper’s founding in 1908.

We have a mission beyond circulation, we want to bridge divides. We’re about kicking down the door of thought everywhere and saying, “You are bigger and more capable than you realize. And we can prove it.”

If you’re looking for bran muffin journalism, you can subscribe to the Monitor for $15. You’ll get the Monitor Weekly magazine, the Monitor Daily email, and unlimited access to CSMonitor.com.

Subscribe to insightful journalism

QR Code to Listening for divine Love’s promise
Read this article in
https://www.csmonitor.com/Commentary/A-Christian-Science-Perspective/2023/0714/Listening-for-divine-Love-s-promise
QR Code to Subscription page
Start your subscription today
https://www.csmonitor.com/subscribe