Values – the topic is mentioned quite a bit these days. For instance, a local car repair garage advertises competency and honesty. A nationwide organization promotes such values as stability, unity, humanity, excellence. This international publication, The Christian Science Monitor, highlights the values that motivate people and nations and are behind various news events.
And why is values such a hot topic? Maybe the world today is looking to build hope and trust amid suffering and inharmony. The good qualities we express toward others can naturally help to further the expression of love, respect, and trust in return. Values such as honesty, integrity, justice, and fairness promote the advancement of healing and resolution of conflict.
Christian Science teaches that good qualities inherently belong to man – that is, to everyone, including you and me, as God’s spiritual offspring. That’s because God, our divine Parent, created us in His image – “very good” (Genesis 1:31).
Mary Baker Eddy, who discovered Christian Science, conveys the significant point that man can only possess qualities that come from God. In her book “Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures,” she defines man in part as “that which has not a single quality underived from Deity” (p. 475). God being entirely good, our God-derived qualities must also be good. And as Christ Jesus proved, recognizing the inherent goodness we all have as God’s children has a healing effect.
I had occasion to put these ideas into practice some time ago when my iPod Shuffle was stolen from a locker I was using. I’ve found prayer very helpful in all kinds of situations, so it felt natural to pray to God. My prayers affirmed that dishonesty was not truly a part of the individual who had taken the item. That person, like all of us, is a beloved child of God, and so in truth possesses only Godlike qualities and values, such as holiness, integrity, and kindness.
Ultimately, my prayers helped me realize that everyone, including this individual, has the innate capacity to do what’s right. God is our true Parent, the source of all our abilities and qualities, and could never cause us to sin.
The iPod had a number of Christian Science articles and hymns on it that meant so much to me. How could I ever lose that wonderful, Christly inspiration? I realized that I never could. God communicates truth and love to all of us, without measure.
I visited the lost and found desk a couple of times, to no avail. Yet I continued to affirm in prayer man’s inherent principled and good nature as a child of God.
One day, it came to me to inquire again. I described the iPod, and the employee at the desk looked in a drawer, pulled something out, and asked, “Is this yours?” It was my iPod and earbuds, intact and working properly. What joy and gratitude for God I felt!
Each of us can acknowledge – and demonstrate through our own thoughts and actions – man’s inherent good nature as God’s beloved, spiritual offspring. In this way, we can do our part in contributing to a world driven by good values.
