Have you ever had an experience that changed your life overnight? I did. It was a mental
and spiritual awakening. There were healings, and life-long questions about God were
answered.

I had seen proof of the promise Jesus made when he declared, "Seek ye first the kingdom
of God and His righteousness, and all these things shall be added unto you."

But the story behind all of this is why I'm here. You see, I had glimpsed, to some degree,
what the Bible and Christian Science are saying about God and man.

When I gave this experience some deep thought, I came to the conclusion that there were
three factors involved, and I'll be talking about them throughout the lecture. Now, these
factors may not occur in every instance of spiritual awakening, but I've come to see that
they're usually present, even though they may not be recognized.

The first factor is what I call a mental readiness for the awakening. Second, I consider to
be the influence of the Christ. Third, is an acceptance of the revelation of Truth contained
in the Christian Science textbook, Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures. I'll be
telling you more about this book and its author, Mary Baker Eddy, who discovered and
founded Christian Science.

Right now, I want to elaborate upon these three factors, relate how they occurred in my
own life. This will help to illustrate the subject of the lecture, God's man or Adam's man.

This mental state I mentioned was made up of things I believed and felt before I became
a student of Christian Science. Like many people in various Christian denominations, I
earnestly wanted to obey God and be a good Christian. But I had a feeling that there was
something more to be known about God than I knew. I couldn't label it an intellectual
wrestling. You might call it a spiritual yearning.

Also, I had concepts about Christianity that those around me didn't share. For one thing,
I thought it was my Christian duty to be healthy. This led me to assume that food was
God's medicine. If God had put food here on earth, I reasoned, He must have put the
right kind to keep us well. So I spent many hours studying nutrition and preparing
vitamin-rich meals.

You can see that this first factor, my mental readiness, included a belief in God, as

well as a desire to know more about God. But alongside those thoughts were false

concepts which were ready to be influenced by the Christ.

For example, one day when I was chopping some green peppers into a bowl of grated
cabbage, I found myself thinking: if God put all this good food here on earth to keep my
family well, why does it take so much of my time to prepare it? It seemed to me that God
would have preferred me to spend more time thinking about Him, or studying the Bible or
something, instead of worrying about things such as green peppers and cabbage. You see,
it was dawning on me that there was something more to existence than material bodies

that needed to be nourished by certain kinds of matter.

That moment of spiritual reasoning had such an influence on my thought that I stopped
depending on food for our well-being. I stopped giving food a power it just didn't have.
I began to trust more in God's care for all of us. Now let me clarify this. There's nothing
wrong with enjoying wholesome food. But, you can see in my case, I was making a god
of it!

There were other experiences, but the incident most related to my story happened one
Sunday just before Christmas. I was teaching a Sunday School class of nine-year-old
girls. One of them asked me: "Mrs. Jones, why did my grandmother have to die?"

Ordinarily, I might have made some comment about it being God's will. But I couldn't
that day. Something had changed my thinking! I couldn't explain what it was, but
suddenly I had a very deep conviction that death was no part of God's doing. Of
course, I comforted the child. But for days afterward I felt overwhelmed, almost
depressed, by what I thought was my ignorance of God.

Then, on New Year's Day, when members of my family were making New Year's
resolutions, I found myself saying that my resolution for that year was to find out more
about God!

Now we've come to that second factor. It's the Christ. Those mental stirrings, those
promptings to reach out beyond a material sense of things to a higher, more spiritual

view, were what I came to identify later as the Christ.

You may be thinking: wasn't your mental readiness another way of explaining the

activity of the Christ? In a way. The Christ was certainly preparing me mentally. But

I'd like to separate the first factor -- which included my willingness to yield -- from

the second factor, the influence of the Christ. But I want to move along and tell you

about the third factor: my acceptance of the revelation.

Just a few nights after I'd made that resolution to find out more about God, I was
introduced to Christian Science. I had no quarrel with what I was told about Christian
Science. I'd always believed God could heal. I had faith in the power of prayer. But
something rather dramatic happened. I'd been given a copy of the textbook, Science and
Health. I turned to page 465 and read this: "Question: What is God? Answer: God is
incorporeal, divine, supreme, infinite Mind, Spirit, Soul, Principle, Life, Truth, Love."

The impact of that moment is indescribable. All I can recall at this point is that I was
certain this was the revelation of some great Truth. And I was certain of something else.
It wasn't something Mrs. Eddy had humanly devised. God had revealed it to her!

Within twenty-four hours after I began to read the textbook there were five instantaneous
healings in our home: a burn, a nosebleed, a headache, a sore throat, and a sprained
knee. Each of these healings came about after I had read other statements in Science
and Health and accepted them without resistance or reservation.

Now, I had healings before through prayer, but never as the result of reading a book.

So what made Science and Health so unique? For one thing, it explains the teachings

of Christ Jesus. It reveals the spiritual nature of God and His creation. And, as I

continued to read, I found an answer to every question I'd ever had about God.

HEALING IS SPIRITUAL AWAKENING

By this time you may be thinking: but what does all this have to do with me? I've heard
Christian Science can help me with my problems. How does it heal?

Everything I've told you is related to healing. Every human problem, whether it is
physical, financial, mental, or social, is basically a theological problem because it
concerns one's concept of God and man. And in Christian Science the solution to every
problem comes as we yield to a spiritual concept of God and man.

Actually, healing is awakening. It's awakening to what is already real and true about
God and His creation. Let me illustrate these points with a healing.

A young mother I know had vivid proof of these statements one afternoon when her
twelve-year old son fell from a tree and injured his back.

She'd been studying Christian Science for about a year and was reluctant to force her
religious convictions on her son. And, she didn't want to prevent her husband from
seeking medical help for the boy if he so desired. So, she offered to take her son to a
hospital.

But the boy strongly insisted that she call a Christian Science practitioner to pray for

him. He'd learned a lot about God that year in a Christian Science Sunday School.

Because God was the only Cause and Creator, and He'd created only good, whatever

wasn't good was no part of God's creation and therefore it had no power to harm his

man. This was why, the instant he felt the tree branch break under his weight, and

realized he was falling, the boy could yell, "It's a lie! It's a lie!"

The mother helped her son home and tried to reach her husband at his office. But the

line stayed busy, so she called a practitioner.

She didn't mince words. She blurted right out that her son had fallen about twenty-five
feet, landed on his back, and was in terrible pain. In other words, she reported what

was visible to the eye. But the mother and practitioner knew the report was a lie about

the boy's true being. Because he was God's man, he coexisted with God and could

never fall from his high estate. But this wasn't ignoring the severe physical symptoms.

Together, practitioner, mother, and child, had to break through the belief that he was

mortal and material and separated from God.

These three spent several hours in quiet communion with ever-present divine Love,
realizing the truth of man's inviolate perfection. This wasn't a pleading with God to

make a mortal whole again, but a joyous acknowledging that man, made in His image,

is forever unfallen, upright, and free.

The practitioner assured the mother, "Man can't be pulled earthward. He can only be
pulled Godward!"

The young man progressed rapidly. Most of the pain vanished within moments and the
soreness gradually subsided. Twenty-four hours later he was back playing catcher on

his Little League ball team. And there were no aftereffects.

His healing was so complete that at the end of that season he pitched for his team in the
All-Star tournament, and was the only twelve-year-old pitcher who played the entire
game without requiring a relief pitcher.

You can see from this experience why Christian Scientists choose spiritual healing over
medical help. It's not because we don't believe in doctors, as we often hear. It's because
we've learned that the prayer of spiritual understanding is an effective healing prayer.

Healing through prayer has always been a natural ingredient of Christianity. Many
churches today are practicing some form of healing. But there's a difference between
merely seeking a bodily cure and genuine spiritual healing. Spiritual healing, as we see
it, goes beyond the relief of physical distress. It goes right to the heart of the problem to
man's relationship with God. And this regenerates!

It should be obvious by now that positive thinking could not have restored that young
man. Nor auto-suggestion. What did restore him was the scientific prayer which
Christian Scientists are convinced was the healing method of Jesus and his disciples.

Mrs. Eddy describes this prayer in Science and Health: "Jesus beheld in Science the
perfect man, who appeared to him where sinning mortal man appears to mortals. In this
perfect man the Savior saw God's own likeness, and this correct view of man healed

the sick. Thus Jesus taught that the kingdom of God is intact, universal, and that man is
pure and holy."

 

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